Conde Nast Launches "Santa's Hideout" - a Free Digital Gift-Giving Service

NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Conde Nast has launched "Santa's Hideout" (www.santashideout.com), a free, gift-giving service that easily organizes Christmas wish lists while engaging the whole family in a lively conversation with Santa, it was announced today by Joe Simon, chief technology officer at Conde Nast. Santa's Hideout is the second digital product launched by Conde Nast, independent of its portfolio of iconic brands. The first, Idea Flight an iPad productivity app, was released this June.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111121/NY09437 )

Santa's Hideout offers a modern twist on the timeless tradition of sending wish lists to St. Nick that also enables parents to juggle holiday festivities in conjunction with fielding friend and family requests for gift ideas. In addition, in collaboration with BlogHer Inc., the premium cross-platform media network and publisher for women, Santa's Hideout will also provide parents with holiday tips and ideas on decorating, baking and crafts, along with an assortment of helpful gift guides to make Christmas more fun and less of a hassle. 

"Santa's Hideout is another example of the highly creative, entrepreneurial spirit we fervently support throughout the company," said Mr. Simon. "We've created an exciting digital experience that will help parents cope with the difficulties of holiday gift organization while giving those with children a modern way to interact with Santa."

How it Works:

Step 1: In just a few simple steps, parents can create a private, password-protected account and set up individual lists for each child to fill. Lists can be controlled and customized by setting parameters that include gender, number of gifts, price range, types of gifts, quantity and more. Group lists can also be created for those gifts the whole household might share.

Step 2: Under the guise of Santa, parents can send an email to their kids inviting them to add items to their personalized holiday wish list, or the family can walk through the process together.

Step 3: The child can respond by adding gifts, using a fun, easy-to-use drag and drop interface, and parents are alerted when updates have been made to a list. That's it―set-up is complete!

Key Features:

• Gift requests can be reserved for "Santa only" while others can be sent to family and friends via email and social media.
• Once purchased or reserved, the parent's view of the child's list is automatically updated, and if a reserved item hasn't been purchased within 48 hours, a gentle reminder email from "Santa" is sent.
• "Santa's Desk" is a tool that allows parents to trigger email messages to their children from "Santa," encouraging them to share, do well in school, use kind words, be helpers at home or customize their own message.

"BlogHer is delighted to join Conde Nast in contributing creative and useful holiday tips, ideas and content to this innovative new gifting tool for families this season," says Lisa Stone, CEO and co-founder, BlogHer Inc. "It's great to have a useful service like Santa's Hideout to help family and friends learn about each other's latest interests, so that the gifts we exchange reflect that care and consideration – even if we don't get to see each other everyday."

Santa's Hideout was developed in conjunction with an advisory board consisting of technically savvy and digitally influential mothers. The site is optimized for mobile devices.

About Conde Nast

Conde Nast is home to some of the world's most celebrated media brands. In the United States, Conde Nast publishes 18 consumer magazines, four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 40 apps for mobile and tablet devices, all of which define excellence in their categories. The company also owns Fairchild Fashion Media (FFM), whose portfolio of brands serves as the leading source of news and analysis for the global fashion community. Conde Nast has won more National Magazine Awards over the past ten years than all of its competitors combined. Follow us on Twitter @CondeNastCorp.

About BlogHer

Reaching more than 27 million women each month (Nielsen Site Census, September 2011), BlogHer (http://www.blogher.com) is the leading cross-platform media network created by, for and with women social media leaders. BlogHer developed and leads the marketplace with the most robust economic and networking opportunities for women in social media and brands seeking to engage in authentic and persuasive dialog with them. Founded in February 2005 by Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, BlogHer publishes and syndicates news, information, advice and recommendations to and from 2,500 premium blogs, delivers uniquely insightful research on women in social media across interest areas, hosts the world's largest conferences for women in social media and curates a daily news service, BlogHer.com. BlogHer's investors are Venrock, GE/NBC Universal's Peacock Equity Fund, and Azure Capital Partners.

SOURCE Conde Nast