Warning! Possibly More Addictive than Tagging...

While completing my Bonanzle holiday shopping this year, I realized that with as many great items as have been posted here (almost half a million! w00t!), it can sometimes still be hard to browse to the exact item you might be looking for. Thus, I've spent the last couple days mulling over some new ways to browse, and today I went ahead and added my favorite of the new browsing possibilities.

Fair warning: I think this new way to browse could be more addictive than tagging, which is saying something, because when tagging was added to the site I spent way too much time browsing random booths for taggable items. The new browsing method is called "hand picked lists." It is fairly similar to Etsy's "Treasury" and similar features that may exist at other sites. The idea is that you can create a list with a title, subtitle, optional category and optional emphasis. To create your first list, visit My Bonanzle -> Buying Activity -> Hand picked. Then you browse the site on the lookout for items that fit into your list. Or maybe you already browsed the site, thinking about what items would make for a good themed list, then you created your list. That would probably be the smarter way to do it. But one way or another, you have to hunt down 15 items that fit into the theme of your list. To get an idea of what it looks like, you can check out Bonanzle's first hand picked list, which I created tonight. Its emphasis is stuff for guys -- mostly because my dad and brother always give me the most trouble when I'm holiday shopping, and I figured others might find the same? I haven't had a chance to create any help documentation on hand picked lists yet, but here are the key points to keep in mind:

• Lists expire after two weeks. This keeps fresh inventory showing up on the lists.
• Each user can create a maximum of three lists. In the near future, there will probably be a cap on the overall number of lists (of a few hundred), since no one is probably going to have the time to browse 500 lists.
• There is no way to "delete" an item from a list yet, but if you add more than 15 items, you can shuffle the item you don't want seen below the first 15 items and it won't show up on your list. Once you create your list and start adding items to it, you'll see what I mean by "shuffling items."
• Your lists can only include other sellers' items. This encourages people to get out and explore the site. You can always ask a friend to include some of your booths' items in their list if you want to get featured too.
• Lists are ordered via a secret formula on the main "Hand Picked Lists" page (now the second choice after "Categories" on the buy page). The sooner you setup your list, the less competition you'll have for top ranking!

Hope this helps everyone get a good start on what I think is going to become one of the most fun ways to shop Bonanzle. Let us know if you have any trouble creating your hand picked lists -- it still has a couple rough edges right now, but will get ever-prettier over the next couple weeks.