Wish List For A Wish List
November 17, 2001

I decided recently to put my Christmas list on my web site, and let the family get at it that way (pretty much everyone in the family is connected now, short one Grandmother...). While starting this process, I started thinking about "Wish Lists", and their use on the net. Amazon's got one. C|Net's got one. Hell, EVERY site's got one.

But here's the problem. Who wants to maintain a seperate wish list for every site that sells something you want? Not I. Why can't there be a Universal Wish List that stores info on everything, cross-site?

In an effort to answer my question, I turned to Google, and searched for "universal wish list" - and, lo and behold, the first result was StepCast. StepCast offers basically the exact service I just described. Plus, after noticing a few suspicious company references in their service description, I discovered that they're Canadian - they're run out of Vancouver.

I've now spent some time trying out StepCast. It's a good effort, but it just doesn't live up to my (somewhat high) standards. For instance, StepCast allows you to link to a "Suggested Merchant" for each item. This is definitely a good thing, but there's some errors in the execution.

For instance, I can only specify one merchant. I'd like a Compaq iPAQ 3760, and there's lots of people who sell them. It'd be nice to be able to list mutiple vendors for a single product.

The annoyance I ran into is when I tried to add a book to my list. Recently, my favorite prof from school released his first book, "Beyond The Internet: How Expert Systems Will Truly Transform Business". I'd like to read it.

However, books don't seem to fit in at StepCast. They expect me to enter in a bunch of categories like Make, Model, Colour, etc. What do they think I'm asking for, a car? (Hmm...maybe they're on to something...). Nowhere is there any field that would fit the title alone. Not only that, but they only allow me to link to the main page of a site; the field for a URL is so small there's no chance the direct link to the book would fit in there. Likewise for adding a CD; it's a lost cause.

I'd also love to be able to add comments for people looking at the list. Sometimes, gift requests just need an explanation. A Notes section would serve as a catch-all for any missed details, and would work to cover up any other shortcomings.

StepCast is a classic example of the creators not eating their own dog food. I can't stress enough the importance of actually using your own product. It's amazing what you'll find.

All things considered, StepCast has the right idea, but it needs more work before it'll be truly practical to use. Until then, I'll just have to create my own.

UPDATE, November 26, 2001: Yesterday, I received an email from John Lyotier, President of StepCast. He'd read this article, and decided to follow up on it by updating me on the coming changes at StepCast.

Unlike some companies I've criticized before, John was very polite and seemed to genuinely appreciate the criticisms I'd voiced. The fact that he didn't come out defiant and with guns blazing was alone enough to score him a point or two.

In short, it sounds like they're well on their way to getting their act together. Not only are they updating their functionality to allow for more data fields (including a catch-all "Comments" field), but in the long run they'll even be extending the functionality to allow users to create their own custom fields - truly maximizing the flexibility of the service.

One important phrase from his email stuck out. It was, "...the genesis for Stepcast came out of my frustration in dealing with The Bay for my wedding registry".

Why is this phrase important? Because it shows that they understand the user's perpective. Hopefully, this key philosophy will carry through in their renovations of the service, and beyond.

I'll be keeping an eye on their site, and I'm eager to give the new functionality a thorough testing. Unfortunately, and John put it, these changes are still "a few months down the road" (Come on, how long can it take to add a "Comments" field? At least toss that in quickly as a quick fix!) - but at least they're on the way.

They didn't get it right the first time, but from the sounds of things, they just might the second time around.