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Play with all your friends and compete to see who knows them best!

Games Magazine Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008

GiftTRAP wins GAMES Magazine’s “Best Party Game of the year 2007/2008”

What's the idea?

Click here to find out how we’ve turned gift giving into a hilarious social experience

Discover the fun!

Click to unwrap the fun.

Puts your gifts to the test!

GiftTRAP is the hilarious new game that’s taking the gaming world by storm and putting the social back into board games.

The goal is to really get to know your friends and family.

You win by knowing your friends and choosing the right gifts, but most of all it’s just fun to play and gets you talking about things that matter.

• 3-8 Players, 5+
• Playtime 45-75 mins
• Learn in 10 mins

• 1 full size game board
• 640 Gift Ideas
• Rules
• 8 Organza Gift Bags containing; scoring markers, gift & choice tokens plus advanced strategy cards

Love to play Trivial Pursuit, Cranium or Apples to Apples - You will love this family party game.

GiftTRAP is all the fun of Secret Santa without needing to shop or wrap.

Sign-up; Offers & updates!

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What kind of Gift Giver are you?

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I thought it was funny to see LinkedIn offering merchandise, but figured, given the magic of the long tail and the fact that every song sells on iTunes, someone will buy LinkedIn.com T-shirts. I thought the “Super Man” pose was very funny.

Given I’d been blogging about “Product as a Service” and connections between Web 2.0 and retailing products in real stores, I thought I’d suggest a couple of fun products Facebook might like to offer in response.

So what about some Facebook soft drinks based on a patent pending formula that lets you inflate your valuation and make your wildest dreams come true. Will Pepsi or Coca Cola be quaking in their boots?

And of course if you havent had enough caffeine then you’d need to buy some fine tasting Facebucks coffee to compete with Seattle’ finest!

As I was writing this post and having fun in Photoshop, I came across an article on Time.com talking about how Facebook is more popular than Porn.

I must admit the fact that the author of the article from from Hitwise did make me a little skeptical, but perhaps there’s another merchandising opportunity.

Further to my first post on “Product as a Service”, I’ve been receiving a number of comments via email, this is great so keep them coming.

The most obvious and probably one of the earliest examples of “Product as a Service” is the Skype phone. Skype was clearly very successful at grabbing attention and signing up users from around the globe.

I’d love to know where/when the Skype phone was first sold in stores, but it’s a poster child example of how getting “new” people to sell or just promote your “Service” through the sales of a physical product in store can really help to expand your market.

For me the Skype phone did three things for Skype;

• It made a whole new channel care about their product (the fact there are many Skype phone manufacturers compounded that effect many fold - it made it competitive)
• It took Skype to a whole new set of mainstream, less techy, less web-savvy users
• It established the term “Skype Phone” - who calls it a USB Headset? It made it a “Cool Fashion Accessory” everyone had to have

What you mean you don’t have a Skype phone?

I have some more posts to write to expand on the initial examples, specifically I’m looking forward to writing a full post on Postful. I hope to be able to post an interview with Justin Garten their co-founder.

Got any “Product as a Service” examples of your own (real or imaginary)?

Are you a retailer or Skype phone manufacturer or product manager who wants to comment on the Skype phone or the “Product and a Service” opportunity.

Email me at nick at gift trap dot com

I have been thinking for a while now about a new trend that I’ve noticed in the Web 2.0 world, but I have not really seen it written about directly (or not that I have found)

So I’m sure you’ve heard the term SAAS meaning “Software as a Service”. Well to follow in this vein, I’m using the term “Product as a Service” or PAAS (credit for the term actually goes to Vahe Katros)

I define this as when a real world product gets a Web 2.0 service or when a Web 2.0 spawns a physical product.

Like the chicken and the egg, I’m not sure it’s important which comes first, what’s interesting to me is combining Web 2.0 with a physical space on a retailer’s shelf. At this point different people begin to “care” and the dynamics of getting your product into the marketplace change dramatically. It’s “push” meets “pull” working together.

So how about an example?  Webkinz and Club Penguin must be the two best known companies to be operating in this mode. They are both in the same domain (selling entertainment to children), but what’s interesting is they began to build their solutions from opposite ends of the spectrum.

I don’t believe either of these organization began with this end goal in mind, its just how it came about over time

Webkinz was a soft toy company (Ganz) that created a new online service element to their product (PAAS).

In contrast, Club Penguin began as a flash online game company that later created physical product to sell stuff in real stores - the merchandise existed pre-disney (You might call this Software as a Product)

Another example, that some may view a little differently, but fits my model is iPod & iTunes clearly a knockout success.

I suspect few people think of iTunes as classic Web 2.0, but it is a service closely integrated with a product.

In all these cases, its now hard to imagine one without the other.

My thinking on the rationale/benefits of this model are simple;

• To get beyond the current level of Web 2.0 adoption this stuff needs to hit the masses
• The ability to gain mass adoption for new apps in a Web 2.0 world is very limited (7,000+applications and rising makes it hard to cut through the noise)
• There are many retail products fighting for retail space and consumer attention (so physical products are just as, if not even more competitive)
• The benefit of combining these two modes/models could be (for a while) a source of competitive advantage. Partnering your physical product with a Web 2.0 style service could become table-stakes in a few years time, but for now it offers great potential to those who adopt this model

It seems interesting to me that the cost of entry for Web 2.0 has dropped significantly and this had been written about a lot. Equally the barrier to entry to launch a new physical products has dropped too(China). In contrast both Software and Products have become harder to market simply because of the extreme choice.

Clearly not everyone is struggling to break through the noise. Facebook for example is doing a pretty amazing job on their own, but they are a rare case, and who’s to say they wouldn’t do even better if they created a real world product to go with their service. What would that be? Any ideas? I have a few.

So let’s take some other fictitious examples;

• Imagine Nike runners combined with an online tracking application
• Imagine Ford cars coupled with an online maintenance app (that even works from inside some of their models)
• Imagine a Book accompanied with a matching Book Club
• A ‘learn language’ CD with an online class & community service
• An online “Case-Study” based business community focussed entrepreneurship with a supporting DVD of Case Studies

Now perhaps some of these ideas aren’t revolutionary. Perhaps they already exist and are perhaps owned by different companies. For sure there is potential for partnership/acquisition either by the product company or the service company.

I certainly haven’t worked too hard on building this list of examples, but I think they serve to prove the point. I’d love to hear your point of view and to hear of other examples, real and imaginary that fit this model.

I’m also suggesting that companies think about how to create the perfect “Product+Service” combo, either through partnership, acquisition or development in order to give themselves a competitive advantage. Perhaps the advantage is only temporary if this becomes “expected”, but for the interim it offers the opportunity to displace the existing market leader.

I’ve read of other examples e.g. there’s a company the has a photo book printing service (they allow you to build a gallery online then print it as a real book), but its sold in-store packaged in a cardboard board box in gift stores to real consumers just like any other gift (The box simply includes an activation code).

It’s fun to watch this space evolve and I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for nearly a year. Thanks to Bob Stumpel of result.com / Everything 2.0 fame for encouraging me to post.

We certainly see GiftTRAP as a forerunner in this space as a product who’s content is “crowdsourced” via our website and from other sites like Flickr.com that offer images available under a Creative Commons attribution license.  We sell GiftTRAP in physical stores, but now offer an online game to help us spread the word and communicate the idea of a gift-giving or gift-exchange game.

This product and service combo was always our goal, it just took a little while to get to that position and to complete the service.

We focus on getting our website to support our physical product/sales and and vice versa and it’s certainly working in terms of generating worldwide awareness.

Another great example of a PAAS offering is is Moo a company that prints business cards (and other bits of cool stationery) from user generated content on the web, although I’m not quite sure if they are available for sale in physical stores quite yet. I’d love to know their thoughts on this. It would be easy to imaging Moo gift certificate sold in stores. If Alexa ranking is any judge they seem to be quite successful, it’s certainly a very savvy way of branding your printing company.

I’d love to hear of other examples and will happily add them to the article. Feel free to email me at nick at gift trap dot com

References
Gartner Prediction - Operate All Revenue Generating Channels in a Web 2.0 Architecture by 2008.

I found this link in a blog post by Dion Hinchcliffe on ZD Net

Web 2.0 heads offline: Fabrik acquires much larger SimpleTech group in $43m cash deal

I found this on Silicon Valley Watcher as an example of early acquisition activity in this area.

Mobile Advertising..The Physical World Hyperlink

This seemed like an interesting post connecting real world entities back to online activity.

China VCs double web 2.0 investment

This made me think. If there is one place that can really drive/change the creation of physical product then it has to be China. If China connects web 2.0 with their ability to make physical product then lots of possibilities open up.

Web 2.0 Needs to Get Physical

Postful is great example which supports the general trend of blurring the boundaries of virtual and physical services.. With Postful you can send emails via email or via snail mail where they print and mail the item for you. They are neatly blurring the boundaries of physical and virtual services. They already cater for printing your letter/photo etc directly in 50 countries. It’s a very neat idea and innovative use of the Web.

PS I’m managed so far not to mention the term Web 3.0 as I don’t think from what I’ve read that these are the same issues. 

Every time I go to Facebook (or any Web 2.0 app) to chat with friends who I’d normally email I find myself going through the pain of the double click. It used to drive me crazy (like Windows), but now I’ve got used to it (just like Windows).

(In fact I moved to Mac, but that’s a side comment, but a relevant observation - when frustrated, people move to better places!)... Back to the “double click” problem....

Users click to open an email from Facebook (et al....) (I call this “click one") and then click on the link to open the message in Facebook! (and this I call “click two")

Has anyone computed the total cost to society of this “double click” problem? What’s the total time lost in the workplace?

First let’s take a quick stab at an estimate as to the total cost before I propose a solution!

Let’s assume 24 million users and rising. I’ve heard/read this figure somewhere - perhaps it was Michael Arrington’s interview with Mark Zuckerberg.

How many messages do users send per week? It’s got to be approaching billions per week. Let’s assume 1 billion (= 42 message per user per week). Perhaps a little high…

How long does this double click problem take. Let’s say 1 second, perhaps closer to two.

Well here’s a quick estimate;

24 million users

1 billion messages

1 second per message

We could make assumptions about how many of the Facebook user base is at work, but lets assume its the majority - given their background/profile. For simplicity I’ve assumed 100%. Given the numbers are all growing so fast, any errors will be consumed in time and become true. And in my defense the same problem applies to all Web 2.0 apps that communicate with users via email. So regardless of errors in my numbers and for picking on Facebook, but you get an idea on the size of the problem.

I calculate that is 277,777 hours wasted

Assume 12 hours per day of which 8 are at work, 7 days per week, of which 5 are at work

That’s 11,022 days

Assume 52 weeks of 5 days per week, less a generous 20 days for holidays and public holidays.

That’s a whopping 45 full time equivalents per week

Well this happens every week all year round.

So that’s 2,388 full time people per year.

Or 7.96 people per Facebook employee (assuming a headcount of 300 )

Well that makes those developers pretty effective at getting people to waste their time ( a fun poke well intended! )

Of course here I’m only talking about the 1 second wasted for every message opened (not the reading of messages on company time)

And of course you could argue some people are already waiting in Facebook for their messages to arrive, but perhaps these people are wasting even more time.

And the funny thing is, it’s not even Facebook’s fault, other than the fact they want to control the delivery of their content to make sure you keep on coming back for more. Oh the power of attention! $10 billion dollars worth of attention if you follow the rumor mill (I’m probably out of date)

So that’s enough of a rant on here’s a solution.

Fix the email application(Ok so there are many). It could work the same for any Web 2.0 email from a trusted source.

A quick patch to Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail Yahoo & AOL would be enough to get most people!

If an email comes from a trusted source and there is only one link in the email then simply go to the link directly when you open the email!

A simple extension to emails rules engines. OK, so it’s not a startup opportunity the way I’ve framed it - just fun with numbers.

How long before Facebook launches a full Email app to save us from our woes! We’ll be glad when it arrives!and 2,388 full time equivalent people are returned to the workforce (mostly in North America, although this is fast becoming a worldwide issue)

Well it was fun to work out the numbers.

It’s a very real problem that will probably never get fixed.

I have to ask the question.

When will Facebook launch their own instant messenger client.

Probably never because they’d lose their user’s need to constantly login and view their rich interface and messages.

I had different Facebook defect come to min, but that’s possibly another post.

Hey ho. On with the good stuff. Have a great weekend. I’d love to hear what people think.

References

Active Users
Techcruch Arrington/Zuckerberg Keynote

We just got our first review at Killer Startups for GiftTRAP Live.

Check out the link and give us your vote by clicking on the “+Killer” button.

If enough people click on the link an vote we get listed in the sidebar of the Top 5 startups of the week which has the effect of drawing attention to us has to be a good thing, Right now we only have 5 votes. I’m guessing we need to get to 120-150 votes. So click away and vote

1. There are 6,000+ Web 2.0 Apps and rising
2. These guys have the crazy task of reviewing 30 Web 2.0 Apps per day
3. It seems like a fun thing to do!

In fact the reviewer’s comments (Micaela) were invalid and I’ve written to here with proof from our logs to show what happened, but no answer.

In response to the comments, I’ve updated the forms, the email and the help as whilst her comments were invalid, I could easily see where the misunderstanding camer from. Feedback is such a great thing. So thanks for that.

She was actually sent an email to validate her account (the senders email). She didn’t click on the link to confirm the email, so the gift was not actually sent. (we don’t let you send gifts using any old email without validating it - that would be spam). 

So, in fact, she never actually played the game, so no wonder she’s was uncertain about scoring.

It’s amazing to think there are 6,000+ Web 2.0 apps in the world. I’m guessing the real figure is closer to 10,000 (including ones in development)

I’ve also noticed some of the services reporting on Web 2.0 stuff have slowed down (not surprisingly) which makes breaking through the noise even harder.

One think I found that was odd was that Blufr.com is no more. Answers.com removed it. I liked Blufr.com and thought it was a neat fun idea and it seemed to get a lot of traffic.

I’d love to know the real reasons behind it. None are provided.

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