We get them all the time, queries about what the perfect gift would be for an upcoming baby shower, parent's anniversary, boyfriend's birthday (he enjoys fly fishing and chick flicks). These days, however, there's an algorithm for everything, including one that's making us Scouters obsolete: Giveter, a new website has handpicked gifts, and drop down menus where you can choose the adjectives that best suits the person you’re buying a gift for, plus a price range. Once you’ve selected those, it throws up options you can buy online.

Giveter's layout is snazzy and easy to use and they add new gifts to their menu at regular intervals. At the time of writing, there were 2,526 gifts on the site, tied up with shopping websites like Flipkart and Healthkart. In order to gift something, you have to log in (you can also choose to log in with your Facebook or Google details) and click ‘Gift this’ on the present you want, which will then redirect you to the home website. We wish there was an option to pay directly on Giveter, to make the process more streamlined.

Giving on the Edge

We decided to give it a spin: the age range was ambiguous so we picked ‘youth’ (others include ‘married’ or ‘middle’), for a ‘Friend (her)’ on her birthday, who is ‘creative, stylish, a frequent traveller, a book lover and a drinker/smoker’. The gifts generated ranged from yes-please (a Canon 60D SLR) to maybe (a pretty blue Japanese sake set) to you-don’t-really-know-us-do-you? (Hitler’s Mein Kampf). Next, we tried a present for our dad, putting in ‘book lover, traveler and stylish’. This was far more of a miss, with uninspired cufflinks, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and an Amar Chitra Katha mythology set (for your dad’s grandkids?). Gifts for our (outgoing, practical) mum turned up an outdoor canopy and a hair dryer.

On the whole, Giveter is useful for people you might not know very well. We found a keychain hipflask, a beautiful set of martini glasses, and a modular laptop desk that fits on your knees when you’re working in bed. Now, if only Mein Kampf didn’t keep showing up under presents for the chick-flick-fly-fishing loving boyfriend, we’d be happy to leave the next special occasion to Giveter’s discretion. Führer your cause!

Getting there: Log on to Giveter, browsing free, Rs 2,750 for a modular desk.