Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites have made it possible for everyone to know about an amazing deal in your neck of the woods or your area of interest.

A number of US social media merchants have sprung up where merchants can entice new customers to try a new product, get an amazing deal on a close-out item or to be one of the first to trial a brand-new service.

The biggest and best-known are Groupon (which pays you $10 if you refer friends), LivingSocial, BuyWithMe and NimbleBuy.

You simply sign up with one or more of them to get daily emailed deals for your city (or for national and/or online-only deals).

Is there a catch? Natch. To make it worth the merchants’ while, they require a minimum number of customers to ”buy in” to the deal. So if you’re keen say to pick up a luxurious massage in Miami or a baby hamper in Baltimore for a ridiculously reduced price, you’ll need a number of others in your area wanting that same thing.

Which is where social media comes in. You Twitter it and/or facebook it like crazy to your mates and get them to pass the word on so you can all benefit from the low, low prices.

This could be great if you’re seeking some bargains on upcoming gifts for an anniversary, birthday, christening, engagement, Mothers’s Day, new baby or wedding gift.

What will they think of next?!

A New Jersey-based company called Cold Cuts Media has created a new iPhone/iPod application called REGIFT that will catalog the gifts you want to pass on. Since two in three adults have regifted at some time (I certainly have), this could prove very useful to keep out sticky social situations (such as eventually giving the gift back to the original gift-giver).

Costing just $0.99 from the ITunes App store, you can: track what you want to regift, take a shot of it, record who gave it to you, when and for what gift occasion, make notes on who NOT to give it to, categorise it, and then mark it off as “regifted” once you’ve rewrapped it and sent it on its merry way.

Just to make extra sure your regifting effort goes um, unnoticed, it even prompts you to check for receipts, engravings, cards or some other identifying factor that would indicate it had been originally given to you.

Perhaps this is one app that all couples should add to their wedding gift registry…

So many organisations now are trying to “encourage” us to switch from receiving our statements via snail mail to email.

It costs them money, paper and effort and it’s much cheaper, faster and easier for them to press a button to send them.

Some of them are even charging a surcharge if you don’t want them delivered in your inbox.

But Australia’s St George Bank is making it more palatable by offering customers who switch from mailed to emailed statements by 5 March 2010 the chance to win one of 100 x $100 Myer department store gift cards.

Have you been offered anything (other than a $2 fee) to make the switch?

It’s In The Stars is seeking a new couple to Be the Face of LoveStars for 2010: could it be you and your partner?

You could win a $AUD500 gift card to spend at your favourite retailer, or one of 5 x BabyStars boxed gift certificates worth $109 each to redeem for your own BabyStars report or to give your favourite new parent for their new baby or as a unique christening gift.

LoveStars reports make ideal personalised gifts for an anniversary, birthday, engagement, Valentine’s Day or wedding and yes, you will need to have one of your own (or borrow a friend’s LoveStars report) to take part.

Set up your camera timer so you can take a great shot of you and your partner enjoying reading your LoveStars report - maybe you’re wearing your wedding outfit, curled up on the sofa, or in a hammock!

For your chance to win, you’ll need to email at least one shot in low resolution (72dpi) and high resolution (300dpi).

Click here for more details. Competition closes 31 March 2010.

As you can probably guess, gift-giving is a pretty big hobby of mine but for some people, it’s not so easy let alone enjoyable!

LeverageCard is a very handy website which combines a few time- and money-saving features to do with gifts.

If you’re likely to forget it’s Aunt Martha’s birthday again, or you’ll be in the doghouse if you overlook your anniversary once more, enter all the key dates in the Calendar section and they’ll remind you when it’s coming up. I estimated a lazy 23 gifts that I have to budget for and remember - you could have many more!

Got a gift card or three lying around in your desk drawer? And lemme guess, you’re one of those people who forget (arghhh! how can anyone forget!?) to use it…Don’t be an ungrateful gift card recipient: Enter the store, value and expiry date in Gift Cards. You can buy, swap or check its balance and in some cases, earn interest!

Belong to a couple of airline and hotel programs? (I have a rapidly dwindling account with United Airlines (mainly because they don’t have a gift program that I can cash them in for) and now concentrate on Velocity which is tied to Virgin Blue, Atlantic and Emirates which offers flights, accommodation AND gifts.

Get all your updates in one place, see how many points you’ve earned (which could pay for an upcoming birthday gift or maybe you could put something away for Christmas?) in Points & Miles.

And finally, based on the gift cards and loyalty programs you belong to, you’ll receive targeted offers in the Offers & Savings section.

Sorted!

A very clever quantity surveyor in Ireland has created a gift card with Mastercard that helps the lucky recipient to pay utility bills which can include gas, electricity, water, garbage removal, phone, mobile and television.

Rory McGuigan had received one pay cutback too many in 2008 when he realised that he didn’t have much cash to pay for Christmas presents - but that he would still have to stump up for utilities.

His Utilize gift card allows the gift-giver to put anything on it between 25 and 250 euros. Corporates such as Dell are using it as incentives. It’s obviously a great gift to give any new couple getting married while parents can ensure that their kids will pay their bills with it rather than trusting them with cash which can all-too-temptingly be spent on partying and clothes.

Too many people complain that manners have gone out the window but one crafty (and seemingly thoughtful) way to get them to send you (and others) a thank you card for their anniversary, birthday, christening, Christmas, engagement, housewarming, new baby or wedding gift is creating personalised stamps with their faces on them! 

Get a sweet shot of their littlest member to join the family, of the couple looking super glamorous or maybe it’s your favourite one of yourself that was taken years ago when you weighed less and had more hair. Who cares!

You can order them from Royal Mail in the UK from just GBP7.58 for 10 stamps, from Australia Post for $AUD24.00 for 20 stamps and from Zazzle for the United States Postal Services from $US18.95 for 20 stamps.

You can now even put your logo in there so a sheet of these could be a great gift idea for a friend or family member who’s just begun their own company!

Thinking of giving money to a charity? You might be better off donating directly.

The sheer cost of administering a gift card program means very few charities produce their own specific gift card. Many of them do have an online facility for you to donate straight to their website and even produce  an electronic receipt and thank you message that you can enclose in your birthday Christmas/ engagement/ wedding card for whomever you’re buying it.

America’s largest non-profit organisation, United Way sells gift cards, while Goodwill has stores across the states, but no national gift card program.

There are four major organisations in the US which let you pick your own charity - Charity Choice, JustGive.org, Network for Good and Tisbest. If you decide to use one of these Big Four, keep in mind that:

* some of your donation gets chipped away in administration and transaction fees

* not all organisations transfer the monies to their charities right away; some pay quarterly

* they don’t last indefinitely: Network for Good’s gift cards expire within 6 months.

* only you, as the gift-card-giver, get the tax break - not the recipient who actually selects the charity

Gift card prices range from $1.49 for Tisbest to $5 for the three others. Charity Choice has 100 charities while Network for Good lists an astonishing 1.8 million charities (who knew there were that many?). Network for Good includes its handling fee within its $5 purchase fee but admin costs range from 3% for card-processing for JustGive to Charity Choice’s $1.85 transaction fee per card, 5% admin fee and 3% credit card transaction fee.

Debenhams, a UK department store, is cashing in on the huge (post) wedding gift registry market by - cynically, I would suggest! - creating what might be the world’s first divorce gift registry.

In happier days, the couple (well, really it’s the woman) picks out the chinaware and whitegoods that will adorn their new home.

When couples get divorced, there’s always someone who ends up with the huge plasma TV (often the man), while all those bits and pieces get halved. For example, someone’s going to need more dishes - and not just because a few of them got thrown around in the lead-up to the divorce - which means that more homewares are needed.

As the post-Christmas period is the most common time for couples for separate (they wait until Santa’s arrived for the kids), it is also when most divorce petitions are filed.

And according to this, is also when you get asked to give your mate Chris a toaster all over again…

I went to a hen’s party last night and gave Mirjana a boxed gift certificate for a LoveStars report (so she can redeem it before next Friday night’s engagement party) and was relieved (as were the others) that there were no tacky phallus-shaped ice-cube trays, drinking straws or other gross-out stuff that I have seen at hen’s parties before.

Anyway I recently discovered one product which looks like good old-fashioned-dirty-clean-fun - if that makes sense(!) for either a brilliant hen’s party, bridal shower or Valentines Day gift idea.

The Doodle Bra is a white lightly padded bra which comes with six non-toxic markers and stencils so you can illustrate your hen’s (or girlfriend’s) bra with whatever drawing (hearts, squiggles, stars, symbols etc) you feel like. Needless to say, it’s a lot more fun to do when she’s wearing it…