MyWorstGiftEver.com Highlights the Worst Gifts Received This Holiday Season
LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - December 28, 2009) -
Lottay, the online gift-giving company, is providing consumers with a way to share their holiday gift misfortunes with others through MyWorstGiftEver.com. The website documents gift-giving gone wrong by featuring a variety of "giftastrophies," such as a ribbed acrylic banana case, men's bow tie g-string, and fruit cake sampler.
Visitors to MyWorstGiftEver.com will find an array of very bad gifts, submitted by people from across the world that are willing to anonymously share their misfortune. Users are encouraged to send photos and descriptions of their own worst-gift candidates to worstgift@lottay.com.
"Every year, millions of dollars are wasted on unwanted gifts like the ones featured on MyWorstGiftEver.com," said Harry Lin, CEO of Lottay. "That's why we made the site equal parts PSA, OMG and WTF by featuring gifts like the Chia Obama and long-handled toe-nail clippers. By doing this, we're calling out bad gift-giving habits to help people avoid future 'giftastrophies.' People can give better, and that's what Lottay helps them do with our online gift-giving service."
Rather than giving a bad gift, adding to the complexity of gift returns, or tying people to a gift card which may be loaded with fees, expiration dates and merchant restrictions, the Lottay online gift-giving and wish-list service helps individuals and groups give the gift of cash. According to a recent Western Union survey, 53 percent of consumers surveyed knew someone who wanted cash as a gift to help cover daily expenses this holiday season.
Through its partnership with PayPal, Lottay is helping consumers gift cash to friends and family for any occasion -- holidays, birthdays, weddings -- in a personalized way with e-greeting cards, customized messages, images and pictures. The cash gift is sent instantly and securely, delivered as a surprise via email and Facebook. Givers can specify the gift they would like the money to buy -- from a cup of coffee to a Caribbean cruise and beyond -- while receivers are free to use the money to buy the intended gift or anything else they want.
For more information on Lottay, please visit www.lottay.com. To get breaking Lottay news and additional perspectives, visit and subscribe to Lottay RSS blog feeds athttp://hintsdontwork.blogspot.com. Follow Lottay on Twitter at @GiveGiftsOnline, and visit the Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/LottayInc.
Additional Resources
Lottay website: http://www.lottay.com
Lottay blog: http://hintsdontwork.blogspot.com
Lottay on Twitter: @GiveGiftsOnline
Lottay Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/LottayInc
My Worst Gift Ever website: http://www.myworstgiftever.com
Our Wishing Wall website: http://www.ourwishingwall.com
About Lottay
Lottay™ Inc. makes giving and receiving the gift of money a personal, heartfelt experience. The free, online service uses e-greeting cards, private messages, images and pictures to wrap money in the emotion of the occasion. Gift givers and recipients enjoy the intimacy of a personalized present and the flexibility of money -- all backed up by the safety and security of PayPal. Lottay was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in the greater Los Angeles area. For more information, please visit www.lottay.com.
Lottay is a trademark of Lottay Inc. Other product and company names are property of their respective owners.
LOS ANGELES — December 10, 2009 — Lottay, the online gift-giving company, today launched MyWorstGiftEver.com, a website that documents gift giving gone wrong and reveals the gifts to avoid this holiday shopping season. Top gifting failures to date include a Chia Pet donkey, men’s bow tie g-string, and faux wooden art. Users are invited to share their own “giftastrophes” by submitting photos and descriptions to worstgift@lottay.com.
“MyWorstGiftEver.com is equal parts PSA, OMG and WTF,” said Harry Lin, CEO of Lottay. “There’s a certain, rubber-necking quality to MyWorstGiftEver.com. I mean, how many wish lists include the Chia Pet’s distant relative, the Chia Obama? Or a pair of long-handled toe nail trimmers? Not many. People can give better, and that’s what Lottay helps them do.”
Visitors to MyWorstGiftEver.com will find an array of very bad gifts, submitted by people from across the world who are willing to anonymously share their misfortune. People can also vote for which gift they think should top the list of worst “giftastrophes” ever. Users are encouraged to send photos and descriptions of their own worst-gift candidates to worstgift@lottay.com. By establishing an unofficial “don’t give” list, Lottay hopes to improve the 2009 holiday gift-giving experience.
People seeking a more satisfying gifting experience may consider the “most wished for” items from Lottay’s 1,000-wish survey, including the Nintendo Wii and Wii games and accessories, cash and travel to France, Disneyland and Las Vegas. Or users can come up with their own creative, thoughtful gifts which they can give in the form of cash wrapped in Lottay’s e-greeting cards, personalized messages, images and pictures, and then delivered safely and securely via PayPal.
For a social snapshot of online gift giving worldwide, people can also visit Our Wishing Wall, http://www.OurWishingWall.com, which prompts people to create wish lists that reflect what they really want for the holidays and other gifting occasions.
For more information on Lottay, please visit www.lottay.com. To get breaking Lottay news and additional perspectives, visit and subscribe to Lottay RSS blog feeds at http://hintsdontwork.blogspot.com. Follow Lottay on Twitter at @GiveGiftsOnline, and visit the Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/LottayInc.
Additional Resources
Lottay website: http://www.lottay.com
Lottay blog: http://hintsdontwork.blogspot.com
Lottay on Twitter: @GiveGiftsOnline
Lottay Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/LottayInc
About Lottay
Lottay™ Inc. makes giving and receiving the gift of money a personal, heartfelt experience. The free, online service uses e-greeting cards, private messages, images and pictures to wrap money in the emotion of the occasion. Gift givers and recipients enjoy the intimacy of a personalized present and the flexibility of money — all backed up by the safety and security of PayPal. Lottay was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in the greater Los Angeles area. For more information, please visit www.lottay.com.
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Lottay is a trademark of Lottay Inc. Other product and company names are property of their respective owners.
Tags: Lottay, PayPal, GiveGiftsOnline, MyWorstGiftEver, gift cards, online shopping, holiday shopping, gifts
Authored by Harry Lin, CEO of Lottay.com
In a world where Google, Wikipedia, and Twitter can tell you almost anything almost instantly, are we smarter or dumber than we've ever been?
Think about these examples:
- You're with a group of people and the question comes up, "When is daylight savings time?" Someone whips out their iPhone and Googles the answer. They can even tell you which countries follow daylight savings and which don't. This info takes about 60 seconds to find, and you could be anywhere, as long as there's Internet connectivity.
- You're in Best Buy shopping for a digital camera and wonder if that sale price is a bargain. With your iPhone, you snap a picture of the barcode and upload it to an app that scans a database of UPCs and tells you that camera is available at Amazon.com for $9.45 less, plus free shipping.
- It's Thanksgiving morning, you're in the kitchen preparing to cook, and you suddenly realize you don't know what to do with that acorn squash you picked up at the grocery [because it just looked so autumnal!]. Go to Twitter, tweet your question ("Best recipes for acorn squash?"; 30 characters!), and your followers tweet back links to web sites with great recipes, including reviews from other cooks.
The breadth and depth of information currently available literally at our fingertips is remarkable.
But has this made us smarter?
Not yet. Because there's a gap between information and knowledge and we're just starting to cross it.
That gap is the difference between a library and a librarian or a school and a scholar. One is a place with information, the other is a person with knowledge. You can also think of it as the difference between data and comprehension.
Within the Internet industry (my career for the last dozen years), we constantly talk about What's Next? What is "Web 3.0"?
For some Internet companies, the answer is knowledge. Some companies are attempting to close the gap between the library and the librarian.
New search engines such as Hunch and Wolfram Alpha are less about matching keywords and more about knowledge discovery. You type in "How do I find a marketing job in San Francisco?" or "Should I move to Seattle?", and these next-generation sites actually give you a meaningful set of answers. (Play around with Wolfram Alpha; it'll blow your mind.)
Today, though, we're still just drowning in data. The Internet is mostly noise. That's exactly why the consumer yearns for comprehension. The Internet businesses that innovate in that direction will be the next successes.
Harry Lin is CEO of Lottay.com, an Internet startup based in Ventura, California.
Lottay Cautions “Gift Cards Are the New Fruitcake”
Launch of ‘Our Wishing Wall’ Provides Social Snapshot of Online Gift Giving Worldwide; Prompts Wish List Creation to Avoid Unwanted Gift Cards (and Fruitcakes)
“With all due respect to fruitcake fans, the object of your affection has become the popular, brandy-soaked symbol of the gift nobody wants,” said Harry Lin, CEO of Lottay. “Now, gift cards are vying for that title, sans brandy and green maraschino cherries. Instead, the ingredients of unwanted gift cards are expiration dates, service fees and lock-in to a single store. Our mission is to help you give better gifts, and Our Wishing Wall is a place to inspire and be inspired, where wishes can be anything, from anywhere, limited only by your imagination.”
Our Wishing Wall and the Gift Card Fail
Our Wishing Wall helps avoid the perils of gift cards and other unwanted gifts. An aggregation of wishes from around the world, Our Wishing Wall encourages people to “wish outside the box.” Likewise, gift givers are prompted to “give outside the box,” coming up with creative, thoughtful gifts they can give in the form of cash wrapped in Lottay’s e-greeting cards, personalized messages, images and pictures, and then delivered safely and securely via PayPal.
Visitors to Our Wishing Wall can scroll through its pages, viewing what other people are wishing for and posting their own wishes. It also offers an at-a-glance summary of the site’s most popular wishes. All wishes on Our Wishing Wall are anonymous. People who want to share their wishes with friends and family members can create their own, personal wish lists on Lottay.com and post them to Facebook or Twitter or simply email them to whomever they want.
For more information on Lottay, please visit www.lottay.com. To get breaking Lottay news and additional perspectives, visit the Lottay blog at http://hintsdontwork.blogspot.com. Follow Lottay on Twitter at @GiveGiftsOnline and visit the Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/LottayInc.
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