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Issue Date: December 5, 2004
More gifts from our gurus
Every holiday season, USA WEEKEND Magazine invites a panel of top gift-buying authorities to weigh in on the most critical shopping questions of the day. And these days, we know many shoppers are frazzled because they vowed to buy a gadget for the technophile in their lives. After all, this particular loved one is a leading expert on what tech toys are must-haves and which are dogs.
Arriving to the rescue, USA WEEKEND poses the tough questions to our gift gurus: celebrity shopper Allana Baroni, the author of "Flirtini: A Guide to Mixing and Mingling" (Clarkson Potter, $16.95); online shopping expert Kristine Dang of RedEnvelope; Neiman Marcus holiday catalog queen Ginger Reeder; and author Robyn Freedman Spizman, whose latest book is "Make It Memorable: An A-to-Z Guide to Making Any Event, Gift or Occasion ... Dazzling!" (St. Martin's Griffin, $12.95). In the end, our panel proves you don't have to be a gadget genius to shop for a technophile -- just a smart shopper.
Does shopping for the technophile have to be expensive?
Dang: Not at all. You can buy tech-related gifts that are incremental in nature, as opposed to a big-sticker item. If the technophile already subscribes to Netflix, why not buy her a gift certificate? You can buy as little as a month's worth. If she is into financial news, how about a year's subscription to "The Wall Street Journal" online?
How can you make a tech gift more personal?
Spizman: There are lots of ways. Tech isn't about boxy-looking, colorless products anymore. Many products are quite stylish. If your technophile is a NASCAR fan, you can buy him a Nextel phone that features individual driver paint schemes and even a "Gentlemen: Start Your Engines!" ring tone. The iPod mini comes in all kinds of colors these days, so you can find the one that best matches the recipient's style. There are also little things that can personalize even the most generic of tech gifts, such as a desktop PC. You could present the computer with a colorful seasonal bow, along with a screen saver that says, "Compute This: Happy Holidays!"
We always hear about tech toys that drive families apart because the technophile spends all of his or her time with the latest obsession. Aren't there any tech gifts that can bring families together?
Reeder: Sure. Those little iPods are great for that. They're easy to use, and for 99 cents I can download a song and find out what my daughter is listening to, and we can talk about it -- whether I like the song or not.
Baroni: Don't forget about digital cameras, either. I've seen entire families huddle around the tiny camera to check out the latest photos of the crew, weighing in on which photos to keep and which ones to delete. Then, the families continue to stay in touch once those photos start getting circulated around by e-mail.
You could even take Robyn's screen-saver concept a step further and really impress your technophile by building him or her a holiday Web page. If the technophile happens to be a spouse, this can definitely bring families closer together. You post page links to cherished family holiday photos. You create it so your spouse can play favorite holiday carols off the page, along with a streaming holiday greeting from you.
How about research? Do you rely on the Circuit City or Best Buy salesperson? Online resources? Your expert brother-in-law?
Spizman: If you're someone who likes to do his own homework, use all three. Why not? The store assistants are talking about the products all day. But I won't approach the first one I see. I like to observe them, to get a sense of which one really seems to know the products. Then, after consulting with the sales rep, I Google a phrase like "comparison shopping" to find the best bargain prices. And I'm definitely going to call that brother-in-law. He's a prototype of the person I'm buying for, after all. He knows it all and likes being asked to impart his wisdom.
Reeder: Just give me a top magazine that tells me about the 76 coolest tech products out there, and I'm all over it. There are so many Web sites out there that it's daunting to try to go through all of them to figure out what you should buy. I trust that the magazine's researchers already did all of that for me.
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