Gift Finder: Taking the guesswork out of Christmas

Choosing gifts for Jesus' birthday is a nightmare. Unless you're a sock-giving grandparent, you almost always end up choosing pointless presents that get binned or swapped in the January sales. We could start buying present before 6pm on Christmas Eve, we suppose, but where's the fun in that?

There's help at hand, thanks to that t'Internet. Gift Finder is a Web site that helps you decide which gifts to give, and which gifts people should give you. Log on, answer a few short questions by clicking one of 15 images per topic, and it calculates your 'true personality'. You get a one-paragraph summary describing what type of person you are, and a list of gifts that it thinks will suit you.

We tried it out this morning and it's a very helpful, if slightly flawed service. It 'guesses' your 'personality' well enough, but the list of presents is pretty random. The suggestion of a RoboMop was right up our street, but we weren't so keen on the long match holder, tomato squeeze bottle or cheese basket.

Anyway, if you see something you like, you can click the 'love it' button to prioritise items, then send your entire gift list via email so everyone knows what a desperate, materialistic saddo you really are. Philanthropic types can complete the questionnaire from the point of view of someone else to get an idea of what to buy them.

The service isn't perfect, but it should at least give you a few more ideas about the types of gifts you can give your friends and family. Check it out here. -Rory Reid