Yes, thanks to all of your feedback last Christmas, when we first launched the gift matching service, it’s now even better than ever.

The personality questions are now more relevant. The site is easier to use and perhaps more importantly, we’ve crammed it full of even more fabulous gifts.

We really believe that Giftassist could be your saviour when it comes to finding great gifts this Christmas, but there is no way that will happen unless we find out what you think of it.

Can you us help to make the site better for you?

All I ask is that you try it out and let me know what you think.

So, if you can spare 2 minutes. Just think of someone that deserves a gift, then click the link below:

Giftassist – The Gift Matching Service.

A big thank you in advance.

Well, far be it for us to rest on our laurels. We listened to all of your comments, we’ve been putting in the time and we are nearly ready to relaunch with version 2.

We’ve sourced even more original gifts, greatly improved the personality questions and given users more gift options at the end.

We’ve just got a few cosmetic tweaks and a bunch of testing to do, but the new site will be good to go early September.

It would be a huge understatement to say we are all really pleased with the improvements and we can’t wait to show it to you.  I think you will be impressed.

However, since it’s all-hands-on-deck to meet this deadline, there will be no more articles from me for a few weeks. In the meantime I’ll be keeping everyone up-to-date with the project through our Facebook page, it would be great for you to join us there.

This new version will join the staggering 1,812 other versions of Monopoloy that have been produced.

Clearly a game where people are rewarding for accumulating massive wealth, whilst trying to bankrupt their opponents is a winning formula.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to take a moral high ground – I’m a sucker for Monopoly myself. There are 3 versions of the game in my house, including 1 of the 4 Star Wars versions, My First Monopoly (that my kids love) and Ghettopoly – Monopoly for da ‘hood.

There are editions for cities all over the world including:

• Coratia
• Egypt
• Iran
• Latvia
• Peru
• Panama
• Zimbabwe (Rhodesia edition)

In fact a version of the game even sold in Czechoslovakia during the commuist era, though the theme was changed to horse racing.

But I love the non geographic versions the most. Talk about appealing to people’s niche interests. Check these out for a taster:

Kiss Opoly

Game play is the same as the original, but properties become songs from the KISS back catalogue.

I’m surprised I didn’t find too many other Band versions of Monopoly. The only other one I noticed was for The Beatles.

Bible Opoly

Good vibes rule in the Christian version, where good deads are rewarded, including helping other players. You travel through biblical cities, doing community service, making offerings whilst building churches.

Doesn’t sound very Monopoly like to me!

Chocolate Opoly

Collect chunks of chocolate, trade in for chocolate factories and try to avoid a visit to chocoholics anonymous!

The only downside might be avoiding eating the pieces.

I love lucy edition

TV nostalgia ahoy! I bet you know someone who would live this one.

FedEx edition

Even corporations get a slice of the monopoly action.

This one I find absolutely baffling. Can you imagine being round someone’s house when they pull this one out. You’d have to hope there would be a good explanation.

With all these choices, unless the person you are buying a gift for has a serious aversion to board games, you really can’t go wrong with Monopoly.

So congratulations to Blackpool, you’ll certainly be in good company.

This year I’ve decided to take a different approach. I’m going to welcome Eurovision with open arms, and savour every last minute of it.

But since there is clearly no chance the UK will win, I’ve decided to do what any logical person would do.

I’m going throw my support behind 5 different countries.

But which to choose.

Since this is Eurovision, I’m going to throw logic out of the window and go with what ever feels right.

In the spirit of Eurovision Koo and I have decided to abandon dignity and logic and have made ourselves some lame flags to wave around in support of our newly adopted nationalities. Read on for my excellent reasons for supporting these countries!

I hated learning French at school, so now i’m going to take a little step to build that bridge.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, so great they have 2 names! Plus their flag has stars. Perfect.

I wanted to draw a flag that had some black. Ahh, Belgium will do nicely.

Koo caught the Greek song during the 1st semi final and spend the rest of the night shouting “Hopa!”. It’s gotta be a contender.

Koo started out drawing the Malta flag, but it went wrong and she ended up supporting Turkey. True story.

At this point the 2nd semi final has yet to finish, so we’re not sure exactly who else will be getting our support and to be honest I really don’t mind. We’ve got our flags, a song in our heart and plenty of alcohol.

If anyone else has any great idea for getting into the Eurovision spirit, please share them here.

A family get together perhaps? Maybe take a few of their friends bowling?

Yet my wife and I have noticed that the other parties they’ve been to this year have included the entire class.

That’s 30 kids for a party.

Now, my memory my be a little flaky, but I don’t remember ever inviting my whole class to one of my birthday parties. Where has this new trend come from?

So we’ve succumb. I’ve booked a local play centre, where 30 5 year olds can run around like loons for an hour and a half.

On the plus side, we don’t have to worry about tidying up and we know all the kids are going to love it. It just leaves the small issue of having to prepare 30 lunches. So if anyone feels like helping out there, I’d love to hear from you!

Photo credit Joshzam

Your comments, good and bad, have been extremely helpful. So I thought it was important to let you know how we will improve the site for you.

So here is a quick breakdown of what you said:

• Do I have to answer all these questions? Yeah, that one came up a lot! The questions stage will be changed.
• What if I just want to buy someone a treat? We didn’t want to add too many options to the occasions list, but this one is definitely too important to miss out.
• I didn’t expect to end up on Amazon’s website. Good point. That will become a lot clearer.
• I couldn’t find the right present. This is by far the biggest issue and we are determined to fix this, mainly by making the personality questions far more relevant.

At the beginning of 2010 we will be getting stuck into fixing all of these issues and turning Giftassist into something really useful.

The only thing left is to wish you all a fantastic Christmas and very happy new year!

Trouble is you spend far too much energy beforehand, worrying what gifts to get everyone.

So to help put the fun back into your Christmas we’ve devised a personal shopper to help you.

Simply visit Giftassist.co.uk and tell us who you are buying for, we will then find you the perfect gift.

It only takes 2 minutes and will save you hours.

So why not give it a try today?

And please, let me know what you think.