AdWeek Jumps In On Social Shopping

I’d like to think that the AdWeek article, Study Says Web Shoppers Crave ‘Social’ Experience, was inspired by my recent Blog posting, Social Shopping Takes Hold As The Next Hot Online Social Network, but I’m not that full of myself.
Fact is the article is further proof that Social Shopping seems like the perfect (and logical) segue for online social networks to grow into a business.
Here’s a snippet:
“Marketers can appeal to social shoppers by participating in community-based Web environments that ‘deliver an integrated social experience’ such as Second Life, said the study. But generally, it claimed, the type of community that social shoppers crave is not offered by the current generation of Web sites.
In order to appeal to social shoppers, analyst Ray Valdes, who oversaw the study, recommended sites adopt four characteristics: an extremely simple buying process; a seamless blending of shopping and nonshopping activities; free-form information not controlled by one vendor; and information and links to other vendor locations.”
The article was based on a study released by Gartner Research on Social Shopping: Social Shopping Will Shape The Future Of E-Commerce.
I’m feeling more and more about Social Shopping the same way I did when I was embedded in the Search Engine business (which was way before Google ever existed) and the idea of buying keywords with text links was just starting to take hold. That rare moment when we jumped from pure organic search results into a practical business model that would not cannibalize the power of search – it’s that exact feeling I have now that the potential of Social Shopping is being explored.
You can read the article here: AdWeek – Study Says Web Shoppers Crave ‘Social’ Experience.