The past few years I’ve pretty much purchased all my presents for people online. I’m not a huge fan of the holidays (reverting to 3rd grade…. “no, YOUR the Scrooge!”), and when people ask me what I want for Christmas or my birthday, I never know what to say. We live in a wonderful world where I really have no needs for any extra stuff.

But, when I do find something I wouldn’t mind letting someone else buy for me, I need to somehow convey this.

Case in point: My wife asks me every year what I want. I never know, but I’m a guy and if I don’t say something, she’ll get me a turtleneck and as much as I’d like to be, I’m not Steve Jobs and I wouldn’t dress like he does if I were.

Del.icio.us to the rescue.

Pre-disclaimer here… all you techies already know this stuff. This post isn’t for you.

What is Del.icio.us?

It’s a bookmarking service. What’s that? Well, it’s just a way to keep your bookmarks somewhere other than on that bar on your browser.

One of the things that a bookmarking service like Del.icio.us does, other than make you pause every time you write it because you have to get all the dots in the right place, is to allow you to share bookmarks in categories (or “tags” as the digerati like to say).

Enter the “wishlist”

Instead of bookmarking all the things I’d like to have purchased for me in my own browser and then forcing people by gunpoint to all come over to my house and look at my bookmarks, I can simply use Del.icio.us to bookmark them and give them a tag titled “wishlist”. That categorizes all those items under one roof, the “wishlist” tag. The beautiful thing about how this all comes together is now, when I want to give someone a list of things I want, I can just send them to http://del.icio.us/nateritter/wishlist.

Notice how that url is constructed.

First, there’s of course the service itself: “http://del.icio.us/”. It’s a crazy website name, but whatever.

Second, there’s my username: “nateritter”. That’s pretty easy to remember.

Third, there’s the tag/category name that I gave the list: “wishlist”.

That’s pretty easy to remember (other than the “del.icio.us” part). So, I can send that url to everyone I know will want to buy me presents and they get links directly to the products. Plus, they can get an idea of what I like and get me something else if they want.

But, how do I do that?

Ok, so here’s how you can get your own wishlist and share it with your friends and family.

1. Go to Del.icio.us and get an account. The signup link is on the top right of the screen.
2. Once you’ve gone through all that process, jump over to this page which has “buttons” on it. Follow the directions by clicking (and holding down your mouse button) on the links they provide and drag that link up into your bookmarks bar (yes, the real one on your browser).
3. Now, go to some website which has a product you like… maybe you’re a little geeky and want something from an awesome geeky store? (aff)
4. Once you find the product you want to bookmark, you just click that fresh little bookmark you just added to your browser. it will ask you what title you want to give it and allow you to add notes or a description. The last part, “tags” is where you’ll add the word “wishlist” (without the quotes).
5. Once that’s all done and you hit submit, you can visit your special url: http://del.icio.us/[your-username]/wishlist and you’ll see the link to the item you just bookmarked.
6. Run wildly around the web flailing your digital arms with exuberance and bookmark everything in sight.
7. Share the url with your friends and family in an email or something.
8. Collect loot / make a profit
9. Take over the world

It’s as easy as that. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. That’s how I created my wishlist and populated it with all kinds of stuff. Now I can get stuff I want for Christmas and my birthday without having to remember it all.

Maybe I should ask for my memory back.

[tags]delicious, del.icio.us, bookmark, wishlist, christmas, holiday, birthday, wish-list, howto, how to make a christmas wishlist, how to create a christmas wishlist, online[/tags]