Tuesday, February 8, 2011

The Automagical Gift Finder button

Are you a fan of magic tricks? Is Criss Angel just not magical enough for you? Then check out the mysterious and automagical "Find Gifts" button on Etsy's Buy page. Go ahead. Click it. It looks innocent enough, right? And it's there to help you! It's Etsy's way of helping you find personalized and super special gifts for everyone on your list.

What list? How does Etsy know about the people on your list? Is this button going to then ask you to profile who you're buying for--Uncle Bob in Schenectady who has a passion for fly fishing? Aunt Marcie in Boca Raton who loves Bingo night? What exactly does the "Find Gifts" button do?

It automagically connects you to Facebook, where you offer up your list of Facebook followers! Yes! And while you are finding that perfect cowl or ironic cross stitched wall hanging for the one you love, you're also adding to Etsy's ever-growing data mined list of emails that it can use however it sees fit. Can Etsy spam them? Sure! Can Etsy sell them? You bet!

This perky little button, with its precious little scene of a polar bear buying a special gift for his reindeer friend, is one more Etsy tool for getting your personal contact info for free. Genius, isn't it?

Do you know what polar bears do with reindeer and other woodland creatures? They do not buy them gifts. No, no. They eat them.

Food for thought over your morning triple flip latte with soy, eh?

3 comments:

  1. Hi, Cheeky!

    Just catching up a bit on your wonderful blog -- this post made me spew my tea all over my keyboard, especially:

    "Do you know what polar bears do with reindeer and other woodland creatures? They do not buy them gifts. No, no. They eat them."

    Nice writing, great tone -- as someone who was muted and had her shop closed down in October, it's really great to be able to read this classy blog :)

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  2. Good to see you, and thanks for taking the time to comment! Cheers!

    ReplyDelete

Dish the dirt here.