The Surprise.com Story
Surprise.com in the News
Forbes Best of the Web: "A fascinating maze of online shops offering more than 4,000 items in almost any category imaginable. Each item's description comes with links to online stores where you can make a purchase. Search by recipient, occasion or the What Are They Like section with innovative categories like Wants a Little Peace and Quiet (snore stopper wristband), Fidgeter (golf tabletop zen garden) or Aspires to Savoir Faire (wine club membership). Gift ideas come from the site's own community of shoppers. "
- Forbes, Summer, 2005
PC Magazine Top 100 Classic Web Sites: "Surprise.com: Gift ideas for your favorite secret agent, gardener, or chocoholic, or anyone else in your life."
- PC Magazine, April, 2004
American Way Lifestyle Trends: "If you haven't been a successful gift giver in the past, then click into your future. Surprise.com is an all-out idea factory that offers links by category - Krispy Kreme Maniac, Caffeine Fiend, Has A Small Apartment - to sites that sell the goods for any and every personality type."
- American (Airlines) Way, February, 2004
Kiplinger's The Slacker's Guide to Gift-Giving: "I set about testing gift-suggestion sites on the Web... The winner by a wide margin was Surprise.com, which had about an 80% success rate."
- Kiplinger's, December, 2003
Reader's Digest Santa's Electronic Helper: "Stuck on what to give family and friends for the holidays? Surprise.com can give you a nudge."
- Reader's Digest, December, 2003
USA WEEKEND Magazine Where on the Web: "Wouldn't it be great to hire a gift finder to come up with new ideas my mom would really like? That's the thinking behind Surprise.com."
- USA WEEKEND Magazine, May 4, 2003
Time Best Web Sites for Business: "Buying Gifts - When you're stumped for a gift idea, head here for suggestions in dozens of categories, from 'Loves Their Car' to 'Wants a Little Peace & Quiet.' The site will also link you to where to buy."
- Time, November 19, 2002
CNN.com A Gifting Solution: "...Surprise.com, a Web site offering gift suggestions for people addicted to caffeine, sporting a quirky sense of humor and more..."
- CNN.com, November 15, 2002
Forbes Best of the Web: "Creative ideas without the hard sell. Click here to find more than 4,000 unique gift suggestions in over 200 categories. Since surprise.com doesn't sell, each item description comes with links to online stores that do. Huge array of thoughtful categories, like Facing Illness, Works too Much or Has the Blues."
- Forbes, November 19, 2002
Time 50 Best Web Sites:  "Most gift-finder sites suggest presents that are either predictable or tacky. But Surprise.com's categories (some 300 of them) help you zero in on appropriate, personal gifts."
- Time, April 1, 2002
The Wall Street Journal The Best Places to Shop Online:  "What makes Surprise different from other shopping portals is that it organizes its site by the gift recipient rather than the gift...users can sort products by price or popularity, which makes narrowing down a long list of gift ideas easier."
-The Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2001
Yahoo Internet Life Get the Right Gift: "Aunt Betty lives in a big city with a small apartment but loves hosting parties. What would be a good gift for her? Visit Surprise.com to find the right gift for anyone, no matter what their taste or interest. A bubble-blower for a party lover or a sweater for a hiker. It's all here, filed in categories such as 'Works Too Much' and 'Bath Connoisseur'."
-Yahoo! Internet Life, December, 2001
Entrepreneur Magazine Encore Perfomance: "Surprise.com is an online community sharing gift ideas and has become a media darling."
-Entrepreneur Magazine, June, 2001
About.com Shop Online for Mother's Day: "Surprise.com offers gift suggestions for more than 200 different types of moms. You'll find some great gifts starting as low as $1 and going up to over $100."
-About.com, May, 2001
CNET.com Shopping Sites for that Last-Minute Valentine: "Here's a unique way to find a gift. Instead of categorizing gifts by product type, Surprise.com categorizes people by personality type and lists potential gifts under those categories. For example, if your boyfriend is an all-around jokester, then click the Unusual Sense Of Humor link under the What's He Like? section."
-CNET, February 13, 2001
Wired News Gifts Online-Where to Find 'Em: "Surprise.com has an interesting gift guide created by its users. The site - which doesn't actually sell the gifts, just links to them - has a clever scheme for categorizing recipients: Lives in a Small Apartment; Wants a Little Peace & Quiet; Shops Garage Sales. Gifts are suggested and rated by users, and can be sorted by popularity or price. The site also keeps track of gifts you have browsed, making it easy to find them if you wander around a bit. There are some fun ideas here, like the steak branding iron for barbecue cowboys."
-Wired News, December 15, 2000
People Magazine IDEA-BEREFT: "Get inspired at Surprise.com, which suggests gifts for kids and grown-ups in hundreds of hard-to-please categories. 'Harry Potter Fan' might like a child-sized broom; 'Still Lives with Parents,' a mini fridge."
-People, December 11, 2000
CNN.com 'Tis the Season - Curing gift headaches: Surprise.com, one of CNN's recommended sites.
-CNN, December 1, 2000
New York Times Christmas Arrives Online: "I was cautious because I remembered the perfunctory gift-suggestion sites I visited last year, which tended to recommend impersonal items, like macadamia nuts in a tin, that one would find in an airport gift shop. But Surprise.com surprised me by actually recommending interesting gifts. Here's how it worked. I clicked on Who's It For? on the home page, which took me to a list of 3,500 inventive gifts appropriate for recipients who fell into 250 categories like Movie Buff, Caffeine Fiend and Former New Yorker."
-The New York Times, November 16, 2000
inStyle 44 Great Web Sites: "For unusual gifts that are bound to astound, look into surprise.com, a wonderful clearinghouse for creative gift ideas and links."
-InStyle, November, 2000
Tech TV Start-up Stories: "An eight week feature that takes viewers inside Surprise.com to watch how it evolves and succeeds." 
-Tech TV, November, 2000
Family PC Surprise.com: "If you're looking to buy a gift but you just can't figure out what to get, this site offers suggestions on presents for every occasion from baptisms to weddings."
-Family PC, September, 2000