If you are like me and have your friends and family on Facebook, the Facebook Gift isn’t working for you. If you celebrate birthdays, or anniversary, or any occasions with your friends and family, the last minute gifting isn’t the experience you are used to. That’s stressful for the givers, and that is not how people exchange gifts anyway. At least, not on the web.

I am not completely denying the need for last minute online gifting. If you want to say, “…thank you, please let me buy you a coffee…” then Facebook, Wrapp, Treater (and numerous others) has made it very simple application for some folks. But most of us would like to say thank you by joining their friends in-person over coffee. For them sending last minute gift or coupons isn’t the natural option.

Last minute gifting feeds into the guilt-consciousness and drives throwing money on something which is unthoughtful and mostly useless. A much deeper psychological need from gift exchange remains unmet.

And for that reason, I want to convey to all the gift giving individuals that if you are reminded at the last moment about someone’s birthday, whom you care most but did not do much till Facebook reminded you, then it’s late anyway. Your gifting gesture will only reveal your guilt and not the thoughtfulness. You can buy a flower, or nice chocolate, but that won’t make much of an impression.

I never consider the last minute reminders to send flowers and chocolates to my dear ones. I think about them all the time – when a good idea comes to me, I take a mental note so that I can recall it and purchase the item at the right time.

And, I am one among millions of people out there who think this way too.

The problem is — I almost always feel that when I am reminded about my friend’s occasion, I have hard time recalling what I had thought about? Suddenly, I am idea-less…

Now that is what I am trying to solve. I am building a gifting experience to engage user in the whole life-cycle of gifting, not just the last minute rituals.

Tag your gift ideas with your contacts

I am building something which involves user in the whole life cycle of gifting — collecting ideas, finding out what our friends would really appreciate and keeping a log.

Approach to Thoughtful Gifting

Here’s a scenario — It happens all the time — I am roaming around the mall, I am on internet and I see something really good. I take a note of the idea and tag it to my friend Dave. Or, I am sitting down with my friend Sharmil and he utters something which he likes. I take a note as a gift idea and tag it with Sharmil. I am making sure that, one, this idea will not be lost, and, two, I will be reminded when the opportunity arrives.

thoughtful gift reminders

Now when I get the reminders — I am presented with all the ideas and recommendations of which will be best appreciated. That is what reminders ought to be.