Tanya did a spectacular job on stage yesterday at DEMO. Here’s the video, which includes a sneak preview of SocialWish. Be sure to sign up for the private beta today at http://www.socialwish.com/.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Social Commerce Site SocialWish.com Shows its Stuff at DEMO Spring 2010

Online Destination Lets People Crowdsource their Dreams

March 22, 2010 — New York and Palm Desert, Calif. — SocialWish unveiled its online destination for making wishes come true to a packed house and a live online audience at the DEMO Spring 2010 Conference today. SocialWish enters the Social Commerce category with a site that combines social networking with ecommerce, allowing people to post their wish — whether it’s altruistic, materialistic or anywhere in-between — and reach out to their personal community to help make it happen. It is now accepting email addresses for a closed beta.

SocialWish makes wish lists both universal and collaborative. Make a wish — for yourself or someone else — and share it with others on SocialWish to make it come true. This can be through social gifting by wishing for that new TV for you or camera for your friend; or it can be through social fundraising by helping fund a big donation for your favorite charity. Contribute any amount toward a wish, and make your donations publicly or confidentially.

Founded on a Birthday Wish

“SocialWish started when my wife Tanya asked me to update my Amazon wish list before my birthday. My friends were all asking what they could get me. The fact is, I wanted an expensive Canon lens and I knew I couldn’t ask any one person to spring for it,” said CEO and Co-Founder Yan Tsirklin. “That’s when it hit us: why can’t we make it easy for groups of people to get together on a single item?”

“Social technologies are no longer just about communicating between people,” said Matt Marshall, Executive Producer of DEMO. “We’re seeing a blending of technologies in which social networking and commerce come together to allow the type of product that has emerged with SocialWish.”

One List to Rule Them All

SocialWish works for a range of desires, whether your focus is gifts, charitable giving, even education. The site enables people to come together to achieve a financial goal, whether that’s buying a camera for a budding photographer or sending a student to study in an exotic locale. Ideas are endless, but include:

• Weddings in which the couple has a long-term financial goal that guests can help them achieve, like paying off debt or buying a house;
• Parents looking for more interesting ways to combine birthday gift giving with charitable donations or long-term educational goals;
• Professionals in need of new skills or equipment to help advance their careers; or
• An individual starting a business.

People Want Control Over their Own Gifts

Designed to fuse the popularity and interface of social networking with the consumer drive behind online wish lists and gift cards, SocialWish advances the idea of the online “wish list” beyond a simple registry. Amazon.com unveiled the online wish list more than a decade ago, which was a digital advancement and expansion of the wedding registry pioneered by legendary department store Marshall Field’s in 1924. Over the years these lists have expanded in importance and been made more accessible thanks to the Internet, but until now it was a one-to-one activity. A person put items on the list and individuals bought those items as gifts.

“When you consider that one of the primary gifts given over the holidays were gift cards and that millions of people have online wish lists, it’s obvious that people want more control over their own gifts. At SocialWish we want to help people achieve that, no matter how large the purchase,” said Tsirklin.

SocialWish democratizes the process by helping groups of people easily come together to fulfill a wish. Users can build a wish on the web site by entering a wish name, filling in details, and then sharing the wish online through socially-integrated options like e-mail, Facebook and Twitter.

Pricing and Availability

SocialWish is currently in a closed beta. To apply to be a beta user simply go to www.socialwish.com and enter your email address. Wishes are free to create and share; each contribution includes a small handling charge. Payouts come in the form of a SocialWish-branded prepaid Visa card that includes a one-time $4 charge to cover shipping and handling fees.

About SocialWish

SocialWish is dedicated to helping people realize the full potential of social commerce, social gifting and social fundraising. Founded in 2009, the company enables people to create, share and collaborate on big-ticket purchases, charitable contributions or any situation in which people can collaborate to reach a financial goal. With a commitment to wish-fulfillment, SocialWish donates 10 percent of its profits to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. You can find SocialWish online at www.socialwish.com.

About DEMO
Produced by the IDG Enterprise events group, the worldwide DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products innovations, which are hand selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying cutting-edge technologies and helping entrepreneurs secure venture funding and establish critical business. For more information on the DEMO conferences, visit http://www.demo.com/.

Editorial Contacts
Chuck Tanowitz or Todd Van Hoosear
Fresh Ground, Inc.
socialwish@itsfreshground.com
617.575.9643

If you haven’t become a fan of Social Wish this is a good time to do it. There is Flickr feed of Tanya and Yan practicing their presentation on the Demo stage. Becoming a fan is easy, just go to this link or you can search for Social Wish on Facebook and become a fan.

So we are all packed, on our way to Demo.  The development efforts, marketing, PR – it all comes down to the show.

We are now collecting names for the closed Beta.  Become one of the first people to try out Social Wish.  As an added bonus we are giving away a $500 Visa Gift Card to someone that signs up for our Beta.  You can sign up at Social Wish.

Social Wish is experiencing a whole new level of usability thanks in part to the work of Jonathan Knoll.  Jonathan is helping us simplify and organize the web application for total user friendliness.  We are really going to have a great user experience when we go live.