an interview

Yesterday afternoon, I was contacted by Ann Zimmerman, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.  She was working on a story about some of the hot electronic toys that are out this holiday season and contacted me based on this random tweet of mine from last Friday:

The article will be published tomorrow, but I found it was already online tonight.  You can read it here:
{The Holiday Toy Popularity Contest}

Thank you, Ann, for including my comments in your story.

The text of my original email is below.  We also spoke for a few minutes on the phone this morning, so it may seem like she put words in my mouth. I assure you, she didn’t.

My daughters are 8 and 6 years old – 3rd and 1st grades, respectively.  The girls started cutting apart the Sunday toy ads and making their lists for Santa in October this year.  A lot of toys got crossed off or torn off the pages, but these little creatures (and Barbie) had staying power.  Slick questions like, “If you could have only one toy off this whole list, what would it be?” and “If you had to pick between (a) and (b), which would you want?”, as well as paying close attention to the websites they asked to visit (again, Fijit Friends and Barbie led the pack) and listening in their playtime conversations, narrowed Santa’s list (and mine) down to the three gifts that they will receive on Christmas morning.

Honestly, I didn’t know anything about the Fijit craze until I started shopping for the toys.  I had seen them in the stores months ago, but didn’t know they’d be on the final list until a couple of weeks ago.  The tweet you referenced was from Friday last week.  We were fighting a stomach bug, so everyone was home that afternoon.  Weekdays seem to be the best time to find deals on eBay, so I decided to see if I could find the toys there.  I used the word “stalking” because that’s how I always feel when I place a bid.  I jumped in during the last 20 minutes of the auctions for 2 of the toys and placed a my bids.

I also had them loaded in my cart at amazon.com…just in case, you know.  However, I won both eBay auctions, and spent less than I would have spent at amazon.  Surprisingly, the box arrived in today’s mail and the Fijits are safely packed away for “the elves” to wrap on Christmas Eve.