I'd be pissed if someone signed me up for this junk. I guess it's cool if you like "stuff", but it would just be clutter to me.

I'd probably do this for Amazon Prime and I'd probably make the max $5 so I could get something every 5 days. Otherwise in 90 days I'd have 90 pieces of trash.

Relevant:

http://xkcd.com/576/ https://twitter.com/#!/trademe_xkcd576

My old blog post about this: http://bieh.net/wordpress/2010/11/08/xkcd-576/

I remember the bot. I still have the RSS subscription. It was fun to see all of the junk it had purchased.

Example gifts: solar cockroach, stainless steel eyebolt, cuticle nail pusher, bra extender strap, and mini PVC tiles.

I suspect people would either love or hate getting stuff like that with few people being ambivalent.

cuticle nail pushers are very useful, if not essential.

Are there any ways to limit to specific categories or other criteria or is it totally random? I could see more use if it allowed filtering (eg under $10 in "Toys->Action Figures")

Hey Jon, have this planned for v2.

id use dealextreme or something with higher quality products, i dunno, just seemed like a ton of those items had absolutely no use. maybe have a "veto" function or something to avoid items that wouldnt be good gifts [even for $1]

EDIT: On second glance, it actually was a lot better than I thought

One gift PER day? That sounds like way too many gifts.

Or at least that is the impression I got from reading your homepage.

That's the third time I have seen that character representing a startup. Where is he from, where can I get the little guy?

Unique idea, Andrew! I'm also currently exploring the gifting business. Are you leveraging affiliate marketing?

unfortunately not that unique. I wish it were...

It will be great if you can provide oauth or fb for login.Its boring to fill new form again for the site.

:-( Doesn't work in the US and signup form for notification when it will is down.

Thanks Todd - fixed this now

There should be an apostrophe in "friend's" door.

I would add a "only used items" option

eBay is becoming cool again!

How does this seem like a good idea? A dollar could buy a cup of coffee or a cheeseburger or any number of things, but instead you'd waste it on this junk? It's junk. I can not benefit in any way from receiving any of these things. They would all go directly into the trash. Essentially, all that this accomplishes is getting crap out of a warehouse and into a landfill. I'm sorry, but open your eyes. This is either a bad joke, or you need a wake up call.

I completely agree with you. This is a massively irresponsible idea for a company.

Well that was pretty rude of me to say... I'm projecting from a deep and unsatiated desire for folks to rally around trying to create worth. There really aren't so many projects out there that do.

However, these are sincere questions... How does this add worth? Who benefits? What is the point?

I agree with you, but what irks me more is the disingenuously of it all: "We'll take care of the rest".

So basically I sign up a friend to receive petty "gifts" that some third-party chooses on my behalf with absolutely no thought given on my part whatsoever. How is anyone supposed to be happy about that?

And on the receiving end of the deal, if I receive a 2-dollar present for ten days straight then I'll be looking for the unsubscribe button.

The idea behind this startup - bringing random acts of kindness into social networking - is noble, but I feel as if they need to rethink their strategy a bit.