Social Shopping - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

Snooth is wine review site that previously covered only the US, but recently launched worldwide and now displays information from sellers in 40 countries.

New research published by E-consultancy this week reveals that the comparison engines sector continues to flourish despite challenges presented by the economic downturn and the increased cost of buying search engine traffic.

Shopping comparison site Twenga started up in the UK just six months ago and claims to already be attracting over 2m monthly unique users.

The site was launched in France in 2006 and has since expanded around Europe, with sites in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland and other countries reaching a combined audience of over 9m users a month.

We caught up with Twenga CEO Bastion Duclaux to talk about its growth, as well as what makes his site different from the rest...

Online consumer reviews aggregator Reevoo has announced a second round of funding led by French VC firm Banexi, as well as launching its service across the Channel.

We talked to CEO Richard Anson about the deal:

Amazon is one of the great e-commerce success stories, and we often use the site as an example of best practice. But what can it improve?

The site's usability isn't perfect but users have become familiar with the way it works, and Amazon won't want to mess with a winning formula. It's the same story with eBay. Change isn't so easy once you achieve scale at a global level.

Nevertheless we've spotted some areas that could be improved upon...

Yesterday the Financial Times published an article entitled: "The luxury world after Web 2.0"

It asks:

"What happens when following the fashion herd becomes wisdom of the masses? When everyone can become his or her own fashion editor? When "citizen" journalists replace glossy magazines as oracles of fashion?"

Last week, I was pointed in the direction of an article entitled: “Online Social Media Cheap Alternative In Face Of Recession”.

It describes how Forrester Research is advising marketers to “spend more on online social media as a cheap, efficient way to advertise during tougher economic times.”

Given the fact that it’s increasingly becoming clear that marketing on social networks is ineffective for the vast majority of marketers who have tried it, and is losing money for even the Googles of this world, Forrester Research’s 'research' seems to be quite contrarian to say the least.

French start-up Zlio, which enables site owners to set up their own online stores, is set to launch in the UK today.

Social shopping communities have become increasingly popular for online shoppers when researching their Xmas purchases, according to stats from Nielsen Online.

Nielsen's analysis (pdf) of the 1,000 most influential blogs (ranked by number of inbound links) finds that gift recommendations are dominating holiday discussions on these sites.

The vast majority of product reviews left by consumers on websites are positive, while most of the reviewers are motivated by the desire to help others make better purchase decisions.

That's the verdict of a Keller Fay Group / Bazaarvoice report, which surveyed 1,300 US online reviewers.