Somehow, flowers just seemed, well, not enough. I needed something more meaningful and creative. The site was founded by ex-Microsoft exec Karl Jacob and inspired by the sort of Web community idea that made eBay such a big deal. Actually, it's not quite that random. The site is broken out into 22 categories of subject matter, from culture and religion to parenting and autos.
Some people post their photographs, too, and each counselor is ranked by users.
Get one star, you don't last very long on the site. And to ensure that users get the best advisers the site can attract, a disembodied voice, following the discussion, asks the consumer to press a number from 1 to 5 and rate the expert. Before clicking on Miss Millennial, though, I decided to give the site a test run by checking out its travel advice. I'm planning a trip to Europe this summer and had a few questions. The weekday afternoon I logged on, only 4 of 44 travel advisers specializing in Europe, for example, were listed as being available to take calls.