Hey loyal readers, I need your help on this one. If you’re viewing this note on Facebook, click through to read it on the blog…

… welcome.

As you may know, I’ve been trying a new tool called Wishpot. Part of what lured me into it was the ability to have folks contribute small chunks to buy expensive items.  The idea sounds fantastic: no more coordinating on get-together gifts, simpler cross-store wedding registries, etc. Of course, the way Wishpot integrated their contributions is a little half-baked, since when an item reaches the full contribution amount, it isn’t automatically purchased and shipped. They don’t even have fancy scripts to determine how much your contribution should ACTUALLY be based on the estimated assessed PayPal fees (boo PayPal fees!). It’s close though, to true distributed cofunding.

To test this (selflessly), I want to enlist you readers to help us out. It’s pretty simple, actually, and there’s a couple things you can do: first, Kari and I want to see Quantum or Solace in the theater. The tickets are a little pricey, and with our spending freeze it’s notgunnahappen. I’ve added the value of two tickets (plus PayPal fees) to my Wishpot, so you can go there and pitch in to help us out. Secondly, as a bigger attempt, I have added the entire box-set of James Bond DVDs to my Wishpot. As you can imagine, it’s quite expensive, at $120 for 20 DVDs (doesn’t include Casino Royale, which we already own).

What I need you to do is click on one of the following links to either pitch in for QoS tickets or the box set. What you do is up to you, based on the total contributed amount, total percentage, and final value of the goods. I pay about $100 per year, plus my time for this blog, so I’m hoping in one fell swoop it can all be worth it.

Click here to see the Quantom of Solice tickets Wishpot item

Click here to see the James Bond Box Set Wishpot item

As I see it, I get about 200 unique visitors a month, on average. If each person pitched in a dollar, we could go see QoS tomorrow. If each person pitched in $10, we’d have a Bond, James Bond collection in two days. If I run this for 2 weeks, and everyone pitches in $3, we’ll hit both goals. If this is a total failure, and nobody gives, I learn something, and probably try to bum a couple tickets off friends the old fashioned way.

When the dust settles in 2 weeks, I’ll report back with what happened, whether I think it worked out, and what Wishpot (or future distributed cofunding sites) should do to improve the experience. Please let me know in the comments what you think about the theory of distributed cofunding, or wishpot’s flavor in general. Do you know of a better way to do it?