Top 10 worst tech presents for Christmas

2. Twitter Peek
Shaun Nichols: Every day we get pitches and announcements for some strange products and companies. Few, however, compare to the Twitter Peek in terms of absurdity.

The Peek is a device that allows you to post Twitter updates on the go. You can use the small tablet device to post Tweets without having to be at a PC. That's all it does - posts and displays Tweets.

In other words, you get to pay a couple hundred dollars and carry around a device that does something your phone likely already does for free, unless you don't have a smartphone yet, in which case you're very likely not the type of person who wants to post Tweets from everywhere anyway.

In short, the Twitter Peek is a hardware device that somehow manages to be even more pointless and absurd than even the most useless of Twitter musings, and that's saying a lot.

Iain Thomson: I remember Shaun and I laughing really quite hard at the thought of the Twitter Peek, and we have yet to see any reason to moderate our smirking.

Surely someone in the product design meeting must have twigged that, if you want a device that can send and read tweets, a standard phone will do just fine, thank you, and it has the added bonus that it can play music and even, gasp, make phone calls.

Single-use devices are the best and the worst of the IT industry. At their best they are unparalleled in their usefulness, for one specific task. High-end GPS systems for ships and planes are a good example of this.

But at the other end of the spectrum there are devices that just do one thing reasonably well. For example, point and click digital cameras are on their way out because you can get a phone camera that does as good a job, if not better. The same is true for this ill-fated device.

1. Facebook gifts
Iain Thomson: OK, I'm keeping calm but seriously, what is going through the mind of someone who gives out Facebook gifts?

More and more often Facebook users are getting bombarded with little virtual gifts, some of which have been bought at not inconsiderable cost. Maybe I'm not down with the kids, but it seems both a colossal waste of time and also rather insulting.

Getting a Facebook gift is the 21st century equivalent of getting something that was obviously bought in a 24-hour garage at the last possible opportunity. It's useless, not something you'd ever use and will continually remind you negatively about the sender.

If you want to buy someone a bottle of Scotch then make it a good single malt, non-chill filtered for taste and wrap it well. Send someone a virtual one and, if they love whisky, they'll hate you for a long time. The same goes for virtual rings, flowers and even eggs, forsooth. Just because some people value them it's not for everyone, and the gift should always suit the recipient, not the sender.

Shaun Nichols: This year I have resolved that anyone sending me a virtual gift via Facebook will receive in the mail a Polaroid of a thank you letter.

I guess I can see the idea behind the Facebook gift, a light-hearted way to celebrate the season, but is it really asking too much of someone to just leave a nice comment on your profile page instead? Heck, even the old cut and paste 'Merry Christmas' is better than getting a pixel of a jack-in-the-box and link to some useless Facebook app installer.

Which brings me to my next point: spam. That little kitten 'gift' you sent out to your friends may be cute, but it also likely tells them that they should respond in kind and download some new application that they otherwise would never want. It's a bit like sending someone a Christmas card packed with magazine subscription forms.

I know that we are more connected and into social networking than ever, but sometimes an old-fashioned gesture of appreciation can mean a lot more.