Gift-Giving Got You Stumped? This Site Can Help [VIDEO]

 By 
Todd Wasserman
 on 
Gift-Giving Got You Stumped? This Site Can Help [VIDEO]

[brightcove video="1342519539001" /]

If you're scrambling to find a Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa gift, but have no idea what to get, you might want to give Anonysize.me a shot.

The site, created by

Dungan created the site during a hackathon for Zappos and Twillio last week. The site uses APIs from both.

In a trial run at Mashable headquarters, the technology appeared to have a few issues. When I sent the text to colleague Samantha Murphy, she received the following text:

Hi Samantha! Someone you know is shopping for you & wants to know your shoe size. Reply with your size(ex: '9' or '10.5')

After she answered, she got a follow-up question:

Thanks! So, just wondering ... do you prefer flats, heels, sandals or boots? (reply with one of those)

Setting aside the fact that the average person might consider such a message spam, even a successful correspondence in this case didn't much help the prospective gift giver since the site's link to Zappos didn't work. Dungan says that the primary feedback he's gotten about the site so far is that people thought the texts were spam and some women thought they were creepy as well. However, the texts have gotten a 60% response rate, he says. "We're tweaking the messaging," Dungan says. "That [stat] can definitely be improved."

The introduction of the site is another issue: It just went live on Dec. 16, pretty far along into the holiday season. Given the response, though Dungan says we might see another version of Anonysize for the 2012 holiday season, perhaps for other retailers beyond Zappos.

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