More social shopping

This article from the La Crosse Tribune sums up the social shopping segment well.  I'd recommend a quick read.

Many users find it utterly addicting, logging on at least daily to see products that other people are looking for or have discovered. These members say the shopping lists their fellow users post are often funky, personal elements of self-expression, as much as that may sound like an overly exalted way of describing what is, after all, consumption.

"We want to create a million mini Oprah Winfreys," said ThisNext CEO Gordon Gould. "Why is she powerful? Because people think she's genuine, she's authentic. She's giving recommendations from the heart. We're (doing that and) scaling that across every product category across the Web."

Scott Hurff

Comments

[NeillK]

There's social shopping and then there's shopping and instant messaging with your buddies. Bud-e-commerce.

Neill Kramer
founder
www.bunnybot.com

[Scott Hurff]

Neill, drop me a line. I'd like to learn more about BunnyBot.

[AG]

I like the concept of social shopping and I think many of the social shopping websites (thisnext, wists, kaboodle...) went a long way in establishing their unique place and role in web 2.0 world.

But still, I believe the industry segment by itself has still a lot of growing to do. Some concepts like pricing of the products through web services like shopping.com are extremely immature, often totally not targeted at all.

I believe retail industry can push social shopping much further once they come to take it seriously. But we are not in that stage yet.

Another good one, my own project is SaleGrab (http://www.salegrab.com). Not really social shopping and not really a deals site. Something between them, new and fresh.