Wish Lists

Wish Lists
By Pappy

Well, another X-Mas is done.  What did YOU get?  I hope you received all sorts of tonal goodness if you celebrate X-Mas, and if you don't celebrate X-Mas, I hope the ones that do didn't annoy you too much.

It was during this holiday season that a brilliant thought occurred to me, thanks to Sweetwater.  See, Sweetwater sends me some really cool catalogs.  Besides the big ones that come every now and then, they also send this little pamphlet sporadically that focuses on a few pieces of gear, talks about a wide range of equipment and interviews a Sweetwater employee.

By the way, one of the questions they ask these employees is what their favorite music websites are and I now have a new goal to be one.  Not for them to SAY that the Fifth Fret is one of their favorite sites, but to MEAN it if they do say it.  Everyone has dreams.

Anyway, my wife checked the mail and was walking back to the house when I saw a pamphlet and knew right away what it was, but then this light clicked in my head.

The light said "lazy people."

What followed was my brilliant idea.

Almost everyone who uses Amazon has an Amazon wish list.  Stuff they want that they publish for the world to see (or specific people) and hope that someone buys them something from it.  People make these lists and then hope their friends or relatives will be sitting around before a birthday or any gift-giving occasion and remark to each other "I don't know what to get Mark this gift-giving occasion!  I'll just hop on Amazon and... yup, there's his list.  Now I'll just pick the most expensive thing..."

But here's the snag: everyone is lazy.  Maybe it's a laziness that exists on a subconscious level, but no-one really thinks to do this.  Instead they sit there and say "I don't know what to get Mark!  Hey, wait a minute... Mark likes books.  I'll just pick up the new Dan Brown."

They took a WAG (Wild-Butt Guess) and this is a good way to lose friends.  Especially if you get them a Dan Brown book.  A lot of people are forgiving in nature, but there are lines, people.  Lines that shouldn't be crossed and giving someone a book written poorly in bullet-style format for people who don't like to read is a good way to get crossed off the X-Mas card list.

I know I would never think to check Amazon for a wish list.  Who says you use Amazon?  Or any other website that features a wish list feature?  Am I supposed to troll around the internet like some sort of stalker looking for your name, hope it's actually you, and purchase something?

That's asking a lot of me.

So here's a proposal:

Sweetwater, or any guitar store with the means, really, sets up a program.  You go through and pick things you want with a limit of, say, 10 items.  These items populate a double-sided piece of paper (a big one) and have little areas where you can add your own comment.  Keep it Twitter-sized.  The company's description of the product is also included.  You organize the order you would like the products presented and then fill in the fields on the site that make it able to be sent to five people of your choosing.  Break out the address book.  In addition to the product picture, description, your additional comment and the available colors, it will feature a QR code.  A QR code is important.  In November 2010, smart phones comprised 28% of the US cellphone market and that has only gone up.  Some carriers are looking to drop traditional cellphones in favor of smart phones and some cellphone companies are dropping their traditional cellphones as well because it seems people don't want them anymore.

And if you have a smart phone, you probably have a QR reader.

QR codes look like this:

They can bring you directly to videos, websites, or (in this case) it can make a note on your phone with contact information.  

They're ridiculously easy to use once you get your QR Reader (they're free) and any potential buyer can peruse your short list, find the bracket they feel most comfortable with, scan the code and buy the item.

What would be REALLY cool is if, once bought, it takes it off the list, like you would find at a department store wedding/baby registry.  "Oh, someone already bought Mark a Classic Vibe Telecaster... Guess I can go with the Joe Satriani Ice 9 pedal.  I bet he'd like that."

I think I KNOW he would like it, because I would be theoretically holding a piece of paper with items he picked himself, why he picked them, and the description that makes them all seem so cool.

And it would have been delivered to my mailbox, not my email box where I would look at it like spam and delete it, or hidden away on some website that I'll never look for.  I have a tangible wish list in my hand, probably a smart phone in my pocket and all the potential in the world.

Seems like a good idea to me.

XXX---XXX

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