Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

helen — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:31:30 -0000

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Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Jeff — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:59:42 -0000

Looks like TigerBow have just copied the Facebook app called 'RealGifts',

see www.real-gifts.com

crooks!

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Steven Finch — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 11:30:41 -0000

This is just weird!!

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Alex — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:45:08 -0000

Stereogrammes, Cross Eye 3D, Illusions, 3D Illusions, Optical Illusions, Magic Eye
http://stereogrammes.org/

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Fred — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:47:33 -0000

The idea behind Tigerbow is compelling, and the implementation is very good. Many people of my generation (I'm in my 50's) are less "e-connected" than the 20-35 crowd, but even I find more and more of my contacts - business and social - becoming virtual. So many of my contacts are using Facebook that these days I call it "wrinkledFacebook".

I've been in the software business since before there WAS a software business, so I'm pretty jaded and not very easy to impress. I like the Tigerbow idea!

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

David — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:51:48 -0000

Aren't surprise gifts the best kind? :)

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

David — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:50:31 -0000

Thanks for the comments and questions. Let's see if we can help with your questions....

If you don't have their email address of Facebook profile (and soon other social network profiles and mobile telephone numbers), then you may be out of luck. Hopefully you'll have at least one of those pieces of information to send someone a gift. We do force senders to confirm a recipient's email address to minimize the amount of mistyped email addresses (this should not be an issue with Facebook profiles as the sender clicks the receiver's picture and name).

The message the recipient receives has the sender's return address and a personalized message from the sender that should "prove" that the gift is actually from the sender. We have had a positive experience thus far with this methodology.

All information is kept private - that is, senders do NOT get receivers' physical addresses and receivers do NOT get senders' payment information. Etc.

Senders are not charged for any gift unless it is accepted - we do not make this clear enough on the site, yet.

Senders and receivers are kept apprised of the status of the gift (i.e., you are notified when your gift is accepted).

Our Facebook application (reachable at http://www.tinyurl.com/tige... allows for anonymous gifts (to secret admirees).

Thanks again for the feedback - feel free to keep it coming.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

David — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:43:26 -0000

Thanks for your comments and questions. We agree that sending actual gifts to virtual addresses is a cool concept and that other retailers will offer the service. Merchants are more than welcome to build out the functionality themselves, but we also offer access to our technology platform to merchants so that their customers can send actual gifts to virtual places. By integrating our technology, merchants can be up and running quickly, painlessly, and economically and can guarantee themselves access to new platforms and new functionality as it becomes available. We are currently enrolling merchants in a pilot program to integrate our technology. If you are interested in participating in the pilot merchant program please email bizdev@tigerbow.com.

Re how long does a recipient have to claim a gift.... Orders expire after 30 days. We are implementing reminders to let senders and receivers know the status of unclaimed gifts and to minimize the amount of gift messages that go overlooked or lost.

Re money back.... Customer are NOT charged unless a gift is accepted. We do not make this clear enough on the site, but we will. Thank you for pointing this out.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

David — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:21:03 -0000

Hey there - thanks for your feedback. Sorry it took so long to reply to this and other comments (I got engaged this weekend:)) To answer your questions....

We require the sender to confirm the email to reduce the amount of email typos/etc. If the gift message does go to the wrong email after that then the recipient will not receive the message. However, sender are NOT charged for any gifts unless they are accepted by the recipient. We have worked through many of the issues with junk mail and spam filters and have not encountered many if any issues as we improved the system.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Amit — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:42:49 -0000

definitely a big idea

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

pruett — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:34:58 -0000

WOW...I really like what Tigerbow is attempting to to. The idea is definitely there, but they have a few obstacles to overcome...
http://www.techsoomer.com/t...

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Randy — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:18:56 -0000

"With more and more of our relationships being virtual, we donâ€™t necessarily have the physical address for lots of people in our social circle. Additionally, some of us are just uncomfortable sharing our physical address."

Bright Neighbor has solved this, but it comes down to a system of trust.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

David K — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:51:16 -0000

A great idea...especially for promotions and giving out freebies from your website. Very useful

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

january — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:43:19 -0000

sort of like e-transfers of $ through banks... easy and simple to do.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Caryn Stein — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:40:26 -0000

All great points -- with our expanding social circle of friends via the web, I think we'll see more people fall into the sweet spot as Jonathan points out. Also takes some of the hassle out of gift-giving in general. Some kinks to work out for sure ... and I wonder if the need for that sweet spot will become obsolete in a few years as we the lines between our "online" and "offline" lives erode completely.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Murty BVNS — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:37:34 -0000

It works. It is not just that you dont know their real address, sometimes you might not have updated their recently changed address. Plaxo and other services have offered automatically updating our address books by synchronizing them with our friends address books. This service if properly run makes possible to send surprise gifts.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

anonymous — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:33:49 -0000

This is really a great idea! I just don't understand a few things about it, as it doesn't explain on the site. What if I don't know their email, or mistype their email address, or they don't believe that someone is really sending them a gift who doesn't know their address? So, you send them a gift, they never get the gift or put in someone else's address and mail it to someone else (including yourself, maybe the gift receiver knows your address). All too often people do not want a real gift from someone they met online, or the person may want the gift, yet not feel you should be giving them a gift, and just delete the email. Do you get a refund or are you not charged for the gift if someone never gets the email or doesn't receive the gift? Will you be notified if the person accepts the gift? Let's say you're a secret admirer. Can you send the gift anonymously to the person you're a secret admirer of?

Definitely a solid idea, and other vendors should offer this service.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Marie Beausoleil — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 23:04:47 -0000

Gifts thru emaul makes sense to me. You can already send $$ to someone if you know their email address.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Jonathan Dueck — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:04:02 -0000

TigerBow's "sweet spot" appears to be: "Gifts for people you're close enough to want to gift to, but not so close that you can't get their physical address." I'm sure there are prospects for whom that segment of their social set is big enough to result in a sale, but it seems to me like a really tight niche. Perhaps that's starting to change. And as the Pitch alluded to, there's an efficiency-value produced by the giver not having to contend with shipping details on their end.

I would also suggest that since their gift notifications would presumably be unsolicited emails informing people they've received a gift, that they remain alert to the potential for phishing, identity theft... and skeptical gift recipients.

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Anrkist — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:10:52 -0000

Fantastic idea... but what happens when you put in the wrong email... or it gets sent to junk mail? If the person never accepts, do you get your money back?

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Carrie-Lee — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:17:25 -0000

Sounds good to me, as long as I'M the one being showered with gifts. ;)

Re: Big Idea or Just Creepy? Send Real Gifts to an Email Address With Tigerbow

Paul Edmondson — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:10:10 -0000

I think this is a pretty interesting idea. For the gift giver, this has potential to make it very easy to give spontaneously. Good luck with your venture.