SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY : THE SARATOGIAN: New Site for Those Who ‘wish’ to Meet Others
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY : THE SARATOGIAN: New Site for Those Who ‘wish’ to Meet Others
Sunday, January 20, 2008 By ANN MARIE FRENCH, The Saratogian
QUEENSBURY — Internet-savvy people are familiar with Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Local entrepreneur Conor Boyd believes that within three years, his new Web site, www.askwish.com, will be as well-known. The site serves as a platform to introduce people from all over the country and from all walks of life. It offers members, who register for free, the opportunity to take advantage of someone else’s knowledge, skills or expertise while offering their own for the use of others.
After creating a profile, members can take advantage of the site’s “wishing” and “dishing” opportunities. Wishing is simply the act of identifying what item, experience or assistance the member is seeking from other members. Dishing is listing the things the member has to offer others.
For example, Bill LePann has offered as a “dish” his knowledge and expertise related to hunting in the Adirondacks by offering a hunting trip. Other dishes include offers for kayaking and hiking trips in the Adirondacks, lake-front cottage rentals, resume-writing assistance and planting bulbs.
LePann’s wish is to connect with people who can assist him in furthering his Aquarium of the Adirondacks project. Other wishes include a birdcage, an old rowboat, someone to teach dog grooming, or an opportunity to intern with a professional photographer.
Askwish.com uses a currency called wishbones, which is regularly shortened to “bones.” Each wish and dish posted includes the amount of bones the posting is worth. Some postings require no bones, but most have a value number attached.
LePann’s hunting trip is listed at 150 bones. The person seeking the rowboat has offered 150 bones. Bones are paid out only after the wisher and the disher connect and complete their exchange. New members are provided 500 bones at sign-up. But the idea, Boyd said, is for people to give as much as they receive by continually offering dish postings.
“The idea for the site came to me at 18,” Boyd said. Running on a treadmill, Boyd recalled wishing he could find a way to expend the same amount of energy and benefit others at the same time. He thought about shoveling driveways or helping with household chores. Put on the back burner while he advanced through school and started his own investment firm, the idea resurfaced several years ago.
Looking to the Internet as the best way to gather people together for the purpose of meeting each other’s needs, Boyd, 28, began to look at companies to build an Internet site.
Ultimately deciding to work with WSI out of Toronto, Boyd spent several years fine tuning his vision.
Launched on Thanksgiving, the site has about 700 members who caught on primarily by word of mouth.
“People get blinded by money,” Boyd said. “There are all kinds of things we want but are not willing to pay for. This site allows us to fulfill each other’s wishes.”
Another benefit to the site, Boyd said, is that it takes the stigma out of asking for help because, in order to have a wish fulfilled, a member must have enough bones to make it happen, and bones are earned by offering up your own special skills. Surprisingly, Boyd said, people tend to dish more than they wish.
“It is a way for many people to connect in a positive, productive way,” said Lisa Fearis, volunteer coordinator for the Warren Washington Homeless Youth Coalition. “It reminds me of the old-fashioned barter system. I really think it is a move in the right direction for people to give in many ways to one another.”
Fearis has used the site to wish for volunteers for the agency. She has also accepted a dish from someone offering a handmade quilt to be used for a fundraiser.
On a personal level, Fearis has discovered the site lends itself to connecting people with similar interests. She regularly chats about weight loss with a woman on the site.
It also allows for posting messages. Members contact the wisher or the disher through this method. The individual then chooses which of the responders to connect with.
Boyd said there is no obligation and that it’s like other sites where each member’s profile includes his or her history of interacting with others.
“This is an icebreaker. It allows people from the safety of home to check out the postings,” Boyd said. “You are not obligated to accept it.”
About 60 percent of the 350 wishes and dishes posted on Askwish.com have had responses. Members provide feedback on those interactions. Called “impact,” members provide a narrative (review) of the person and experience as a resource for other members.
“I believe this site will change people’s lives by exposing them to experiences that they would not normally have. I am honored to be one of the first to be part of this movement,” LePann said.
SYRACUSE NY: THE POST-STANDARD: Upstate Site Links Wishers With Helpers
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SYRACUSE NY: THE POST-STANDARD: Upstate Site Links Wishers With Helpers
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
By Michelle Breidenbach, Staff Writer
SYRACUSE, THE POST-STANDARD
Tom from Oswego will teach you how to kayak. He'll give you a ride to the store. He'll even shop for the groceries if you give him a list and the required legal tender. In return, he's looking for some banjo lessons.
Jeannie from Watertown needs help with her flower garden. Ruth from Gouverneur has some calla and dahlia bulbs to give away. A professor from Potsdam will pick a quart of berries for you or write a poem about your Adirondack camp.
The favors are exchanged for a new kind of e-currency called wishbones at a new Web site called Askwish.com. In the Askwish language, you earn wishbones for dishing other people's wishes and you pay wishbones to others who dish your wishes.
It works like this: A member posts a wish and it must be accepted by someone with the means to make it happen. Or, a member posts a Õ7BoydÕ favor he has the talent to dish and someone takes him up on it. The wishers and dishers set their own wishbone prices and can increase or decrease the price as the market demands.
Conor Boyd came up with the idea when he was 18 years old, running on the treadmill in training for the football team in his hometown of Potsdam. What if he could change his workout to do something more useful than wasting energy on a treadmill? He could shovel snow for someone, for example.
Boyd put the idea on hold while he finished Siena College and started his own investment firm in the Glens Falls area. At the same time, the Internet grew into social networking and public auctions with Web sites such as eBay and MySpace.
Boyd, now 27, launched his Web site at Thanksgiving. About 400 people have already signed up. Membership spans from New York to California and the United Kingdom. There are about 250 wishes and dishes, and there have been about 60 agreements between people, he said.
It is possible to search the site for wishes and dishes in your own state or ZIP code or within a certain distance from a ZIP code.
Strangers are offering to make Christmas cards and garden stepping stones, teach conflict management and archery, help buy car parts, shop for clothes, look for college financial aid, edit papers or photos, design desktop wallpaper, draw a portrait or simply listen.
Members wish for help buying a home, a good place to go deer hunting, travel advice and a low-stakes Texas Hold 'Em game.
Tom Rees, the Oswego kayaker who wants to learn the banjo, represents a lot of members who seem to have plenty to dish but not so many wishes. He said he joined the site because he likes to do things for other people and he was not doing much over the winter.
"I just thought about what I had and what I could do for other people," he said. "I can't really think of anything I need."
Boyd wrote that he has a very clear wish for Askwish.com.
"I am looking for others who are willing to dedicate some of their time and enthusiasm to help me shape this site's future and fulfill this vision. I am one person and need the support of others who believe in this site and the possibilities it represents," he wrote.
His wish is for more wishes.
Boyd said he has already cashed in wishbones for a snowshoe hike, help with his blog and a professional massage all dishes from strangers he met through the site.
Any worries about accepting a massage from a stranger?
He said it was a professional salon. Besides, Boyd tends to believe in the goodness of others.
"I really believe that 1 percent of the population makes a lot of noise," he said. "There is a real drive to do good things for other people, and there's definitely an emotional gain from that. I think, evolutionarily speaking, we were designed that way, to want to help each other because we know, in helping each other, ultimately we help ourselves."
The company can get involved in the case of a wishbone payment dispute, and there are rules about posting inappropriate materials. Members must be 18 or sign on with an adult.
Boyd said he paid for the site himself, but he did not disclose the cost. He hopes eventually to sell advertising to support it. He plans to build a separate section on the site where companies can wish and dish as a form of advertising.
A company such as Nike could dish a free golf lesson with a pro, for example, then give the wishbones to a charity such as the Red Cross. Then, the Red Cross could give the wishbones to someone who donates blood.
He said everything will remain free in real currency.
Boyd said the concept eliminates the barriers that money puts on people who need help or want to learn something new.
"There's really no excuse," he said. "If you say you want to do it, there's somebody out there in the world who does it. If they're willing to take you or show you, here's a resource for that."
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Michelle Breidenbach can be reached at mbreidenbach@syracuse.com or 470-3186.
GLENS FALLS NY: THE POST STAR: Wish and Dish Online
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GLENS FALLS NY: THE POST STAR: Wish and Dish Online
Published: Tuesday, January 01, 2008 By Erin DeMuth Judd ejudd@poststar.com
QUEENSBURY -- Other than the delicate, brown bone tacked to one wall, Conor Boyd has a pretty average office.
He's not an archaeologist or anthropologist, but that bone is special to Boyd.
It's a wishbone -- an item to be whimsically broken by children for the chance to have their wishes granted.
But not for Boyd.
For this 27-year-old investment and insurance professional from Queensbury, it's an icon -- a symbol of his new Web site.
On Thanksgiving, Boyd launched AskWish.com into the virtual world and introduced a whole new lingo to Internet users everywhere.
AskWish.com is based on the principles of "wishing and dishing," and is designed to encourage people to help one another.
Boyd explained how it works: site users can either wish or dish, or both. That is, they can wish for something they would like or need, or they can grant the wish of someone else by dishing.
"We all have things we're passionate about or want to experience," Boyd said, adjusting his baseball cap. "This giving and receiving -- really wishing and dishing -- has gone on since the beginning of time. This is just a system to make it easier. And if you can give the way you want to give, on the time frame you want, it becomes more likely that you're going to give."
Danelle Dessaint of Argyle is proof positive of this.
It's allowed her and her fiance to give to other people in a way they haven't before.
"We put a dish out on kayaking in the Adirondacks," the 31-year-old said. "We can offer someone an opportunity to go to the Adirondacks for kayaking or fishing. We can offer them the chance for their own personal tour guide.
"It's like MySpace, but I think it's better, because you get more out of it. It's free, and you meet new people, and you can give someone an experience they might not have."
Dessaint has also posted a wish on AskWish.com that she's thrilled was quickly granted.
"I have a wedding soon, so I wanted to know about people's experiences planning a wedding," she said. "I wished it, and then somebody wrote me back and said, 'You can have this wedding planner. Just give me your address, and I'll send it to you.' "
The book arrived in about a week, Dessaint said.
Marie Congalosi has also had a wish granted by other AskWish users.
Congalosi owns WSI Internet Consulting in Glens Falls and worked with Boyd on AskWish.com. She recently did some Web site work for the Warren/Washington Counties Homeless Youth Coalition.
Wanting to stay involved and continue supporting the organization, she posted the following wish on AskWish.com:
"I am offering 50 wishbones to the first 3 people who are willing to donate a $20 Hannaford Gift Certificate/Gift Card to the Warren Washington Homeless Youth Coalition, www.hycwaithouse.org," Congalosi wrote.
Wishbones are basically the currency of AskWish.com and are designed to facilitate wishing and dishing.
"These Gift Certificate/Gift Cards will be used to purchase food for the shelter's Christmas Dinner," the message adds.
Two people have granted Congalosi's wish, with one going above and beyond the request that was made.
"There was one individual from Warrensburg -- not only did he give the certificate, he said, 'You don't have to give me the 50 wishbones,' " Congalosi said happily.
"The whole platform is, if you do something for someone, you get those wishbones," Congalosi said. "Then you're able to redeem those wishbones for something you want to wish for."
But, Boyd pointed out, wishers and dishers don't have to trade wishbones, and they don't have to pay to get wishbones when they join the site, either.
The site is totally free to individuals, though that is not necessarily the case for businesses.
"I believe, for any great effort, money is always a byproduct," Boyd said. "Companies can wish and dish like you or I, but it's also a form of advertising for them."
As a result, participation in AskWish.com will be on a subscription basis for corporations, he said.
By making the site free for others, however, Boyd hopes to shift the socially acceptable process of being charitable.
"Let's say you kayak all the time, and someone asks you to take a friend. That's just fine," Boyd said. "But if you stand out in the street and say you'll take people, everyone looks at you like you're crazy."
To Boyd, AskWish.com is a chance for someone who has something to give to proclaim it to the world -- without looking unstable.
"I've always believed everyone deserves the chance to give or be given to," Boyd said. "This site is the icebreaker to get that started."
ASKWISH.COM LAUNCHES!We have been working on this site for the past 2 years. It is finally done in time for the Holidays. Thank you for all who have helped me in the creation of this site. If you are reading this you are one of the few who will be able to say they signed up for ASKWISH back when you could still get your own name as a Username.
We have quietly launched this site. The media does not yet know we have launched. Who is going to be the first to let the cat out of the bag?
Enjoy the site,
Conor
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