The Universal Wish List is pretty much just what it sounds like. You get a bookmarklet which pops up a div over a web page that has something you want to buy. You put in the price, pick a picture and a wish list (if you have more than one), and save it.

Yes, there are clear downsides:

• It doesn’t track prices
• It doesn’t know if an item is no longer available

But there are more and equally obvious upsides:

• No more having accounts at every shopping website to keep a wishlist at those sites
• Super easy to use
• Ability to add to any of your wishlists (public and private)
• Ability to add priorities to all items
• Centralization!

Honestly, it’s a lot better than my current system of either creating an account at a site (some have stuff that I want frequently, but churn through stock before I make the decision to buy something) or bookmarking pages in del.icio.us (for sites that are probably only going to have one thing I want). I don’t look at my del.icio.us “wishlist” tag as often as you might think. And people who buy me gifts probably look at it even less. But those folks do look at my Amazon wishlist(s). And I look at them too. So, I’m more likely to check for price drops and notice if something is no longer available.

I am waiting to confirm, but it should also add the item to the Amazon Wishlist RSS feed, so then they can show up in things like FriendFeed, Jaiku, etc.

I’m not sure how long this has been around, but it’s great! Not as newsworthy as Amazon’s new Checkout and Simple Pay… but useful to an entirely different segment of the e-commerce market. I am seriously considering investing in some AMZN at this point.

Other Stuff Like This

• Jay-Z is on fire, and so is Lala.com