It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow. That statement will have sent those of you who haven’t yet bought your partner the perfect gift into a blind panic. But fear not, because social wish list app Toast is riding to the rescue. The Toast team have launched Marmalade, a way to to use tailored recommendations from friends and family to ensure the present you buy for your loved one won’t be a massive disappointment.
Just enter the name of the recipient on the Marmalade page – you can connect to their Facebook page if you wish – and then pass on the link to others, who can then rate the potential gifts selected from the Toast database. The feature, dubbed the Doodle for gift ideas, is currently in beta, but Silicon Allee readers can get a sneak preview find out how below.
Since the app’s launch last October, Toast users have been using its wish lists to help eliminate the enormous amounts of presents we give and receive which are unwanted and, therefore, a waste – €46 billion worth were returned during the 2011 Christmas period. With the app, you can make your contacts aware of exactly what you want, thus enabling them to know what to buy you for your birthday, for example.
Marmalade is taking that idea a step further – and with impeccable timing. Having ramped up their efforts in time for the busy Christmas gift-buying season, the Toast team, led by founders Benedikt Bingler and Travis J. Todd, are hoping to tap into the lucrative market for partners buying each other gifts, not only for Valentine’s Day but all year round.
“Marmalade is the next logical step on our mission to help people find the perfect gifts for friends, family, colleagues and themselves,” Benedikt said. “Our suggestions are based on their knowledge about their mutual friends’ tastes.”
If you do link the Marmalade page to the recipient’s Facebook page, they won’t find out, and nothing will be posted. Benedikt added that Marmalade emerged from Toast’s user-driven development approach and was built as a side project to test certain aspects of the data they have already collected – and its future will depend on the reaction and feedback it provokes.
Toast was founded a year ago and closed a seed funding involving Christophe Maire, Peter Read, Michael Hohaus, and Dr. Rolf Johannes as well as JMES Investments, the force behind the Factory where the team is located. They spent six months working on the app in beta and, at the same time, delving deep into the psychology of gift-giving.
To check out Marmalade on Toast, click here and use the special invite code silicon142.