What are you going to buy this holiday season? Gift cards aren't very personal, but friends' recommendations can be.

Richard MacManus recently covered the trends in e-commerce over the past decade. He noted that Amazon and eBay have dominated the online retail market with their model of using implicit user data to generate recommendations for others. Although this model will surely remain a centerpiece of the online retail experience, it may soon face competition as "social shopping" takes off.

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This guest post was written by Brynn Evans.

What is social shopping? This is similar to the question of "What is social search," which I addressed previously by describing the three flavors of social search: what they are, why they're relevant and how they will help you search better. The Amazon and eBay model of online retail tapped into what I refer to as "collective social search." Social shopping, on the other hand, is more like "friend-filtered social search."

In social shopping, you see recommendations and reviews that your friends have shared. You see items that your friends have purchased or brands that your friends have shopped with. This matters a lot when you're shopping for a digital camera and are stuck deciding between three different models. Of course, the last 10 years' worth/> [...]

Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:35 am

Dear Old Spice,

I just want to say that I love you.

Not in a romantic way, but in a way that I have the utmost respect for your ability to take a concept and run with it as far as you can. Your “guy on a horse” campaign premiered to fantastic reviews a few months back, and now you’ve done it again with a one-take masterpiece that once again features the swarthy and muscley Isaiah Mustafah (aka “the man your man could smell like”), and I am as impressed now as I was when I saw the first spot. Nay, I am MORE impressed with this spot.

You’ve proved to a relatively hard-to-impress demographic that your brand understands them, and you appreciate them. I appreciate that, Old Spice. I appreciate your humor and your candor with your audience, and your uncompromising willingness to engage your followers. You stepped up to the big boy table today, though, Old Spice. You stepped up and grabbed a hunk of meat and said, “this belongs to me, no one else can touch it,” and everyone else at the table paid attention because that was something no one had done before.

People were talking about your commercials. You paid attention and let them know you were paying attention by responding to their questions and comments. But you didn't just say, "hey, thanks for the comment!" or, "great! Glad you love our products, buy some more!" No, you responded in a creative, efficient, and strategic way.

Creative 

Your ad agency, W+K, must be jumping up and down right now at how clever they are. Someone over there is hopefully sitting pretty with a nice little bonus in his pocket f/> [...]

Wed Jul 14, 2010 10:14 am

Image by churl via Flickr

One of my colleagues calls me "committed." Others think I should be committed. But one way or the other, I post an entry to my blog every work day. How do I do it? Often, it's a labor of love, but sometimes it feels like a chore. I find something I think is worth saying every day, but I admit that it is not always easy. Today, it was easy, because I can tell you all of the things that I do to post every day.

First, I cheat by asking other people to post to my blog. It might strike you as the easiest way to fill the days, and in some ways it is. We have a great staff of Biznology bloggers, ranging Chris Angus, who posted his first one yesterday to Frank Reed, our most prolific blogger, posting each Friday. But it tooka few years to create a popular enough blog for others to want to contribute. And I still must be constantly talking to bloggers and getting new ones or cajoling veterans for another post. It's important, but it isn't always easy.

Despite these great contributions from others, I still write more of the posts than anyone, and people want to know how I pull that off. I have a few methods that keep those posts coming, some obvious, but I hope a few are new to you:

• Save ideas. Keep a running list of every idea that occurs to you that might be /> [...]
  
  Mon Apr 05, 2010 22:50 pm

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  Keep LinkedIn Clean
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  In my last post, I talked about making sure we Use LinkedIn Effectively. Here’s something else to think about: stop importing your Twitter feed into LinkedIn indiscriminately. If LinkedIn is meant for business networking, what do you think these updates (pulled at random) are doing to help your business?

  

  Let’s see, we have:
  A quote – shows you can copy and paste (okay, and a little bit of where your head is).
  A link – this one’s actually pretty good, as it leads me somewhere, but it’s a request for help with a contest. (still okay)
  News talk
  Sports talk
  Location talk – which is good for finding potential business meetings.
  Software talk (?)
  Another quote
  Um… wtf?
  And a retweet of a retweet of a quote.

  Business Value

  There’s nearly no business value in any of those items listed above (I’ll give Lewis a pass for his location quote). As someone using LinkedIn for business networking, what do you think others see when they read those bits of information? Do you think they’re at the desk, thinking, “Wow. Now THIS is actionable. I’m going to get a little deeper with this person right now.”

  I’m going with no.

  Use LinkedIn for Business Status

  Now, what does that mean? Advertise? No. Maybe it’s a mix of uses. Here are a few I put out there over the last few days:

  

  In one, I ask a question about using LinkedIn for networking. It gets 27 comments (which isn’t bad, but also tells me that people certainly had some thoughts about the topic, so I make a note to blog more about /> [...]
  
  Mon May 24, 2010 11:55 am

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