You're Never Fully Dressed Without Your Tigits

Out for a big night on the town. Keys? Wallet? Phone? Tigits?

Check. Check. Check. Check.

It’s a brave new world out there, and the savvy single needs more than a wing and prayer when meeting other like-minded souls. This isn’t your parents’ dating scene, where there was one phone in the house and it never rang after 10:00 pm. Now is the time of on-line dating, speed dating and even Twitter dating. You want to be able to connect later, but not at the expense of giving out your real cell phone number.

Enter Tigits.

Tigits are temporary digits for your phone - a vanity number, if you will, that protects the safety and security of your real cell or home phone number. You meet someone who *seems* nice at a bar, but one nice conversation does not guarantee sanity. Offer up your tigits so that you can connect again, for futher discovery. If the budding relationship goes sideways, you haven’t relinquished your cherished cell number.

The singles scene may be the primo application for Tigits, but I can also think of quite a few additional scenarios where having a second phone number for your cell makes sense.

• Teachers can’t give out personal phone numbers to parents or students, but with a Tigit, they can still be reached for questions and discussion.
• Your 10 year old entrepreneur wants to start a weed pulling business, what better number to add to the flier?
• Want to cut down on the telemarketing, use a Tigit for all of your retail shopping requirements.

I spoke with a few savvy singles, and their initial scoff that they didn’t need a Tigit quickly dissolved into quiet agreement when I reminded them of the time when a jilted date continuously rang their cell one night. Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman or man ;-D

You have a vanity address for your email, it makes sense to have a vanity number for your cell now too.

The upside:

• Your number is active as soon as you register on-line for the service.
• You can screen callers and choose to answer or send them off to voice mail.
• You can protect your number on out-bound calls as well.

The downside:

• At some point, you may need to divulge the fact that someone has passed the *Tigits test* and give them your real cell number. This is likely a good problem to have :-D

Any way you cut it, it’s a neat service with real-life applications. Be safe, be secure and don’t forget your Tigits…

Shopping in a Swarm

Are you getting your Groupon? Are you a Wagjagger? How about Living Social? Maybe you prefer something a little more highbrow like HauteLook, Beyond The Rack or Homesav?

2010 saw the launch of a myriad of group shopping services, offering customers significant discounts from bulk volumes, and this phenomenon is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Once these *retail facilitators* manage to tie in friend recommendations, the sky is the limit.Social media will become the spearhead in driving retail sales.

Shwowp is already starting to marry shopping history with social media in its ability to share your shopping history with your friends. Now it just needs to integrate a bit better with established social media networks, allow for a bit more interaction and offer an easy transition right to vendors, so you too can pick up the jeans your bff is raving about.

Amazon led the way with customer feedback. Now shopping commentary and product references, coupled with friend recommendations, are tablestakes for the majority of on-line retail sites. Nothing kills a product faster than 20 bad product reviews. :-( Reviews will soon drive the product catalog of on-line retailers. Last month I was in the market for a new coffee maker. I checked the feedback on every maker on the Canadian Tire website, and there wasn’t a single product that had glowing customer reviews. Skipping over to Amazon, they carried coffee makers with positive customer feedback. Goodbye Canadian Tire, hello Amazon.

I’m ready to take the retail world by storm, with my friend swarm. Hello 2011!