The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Cloud Shopper
Quick Pitch: Cloud Shopper asks your FacebookFacebook
friends to review products you’re interested in purchasing. If you’re buying a gift or deciding between similar products, you can share a list of potential items.
Genius Idea: The majority of consumers rely to some extent on social networks to guide them in their purchase decisions, according to a 2009 survey by Gartner research firm.
Cloud Shopper aims to organize the way people solicit this advice. Users can browse products (pulled from Amazon.com), and select those they’d like to start a conversation about. They can either create a Facebook wall post asking for comments on that specific item or compile a list — let’s say, “possible gifts for Suzie” — and share it with friends. When friends click on the Facebook link, they’re directed to a commenting section where they can review each product. Products each user likes are kept in a tabbed section for others to browse.
But why not just create a wall post or a Facebook question when soliciting shopping advice from your Facebook friends? The best reason is a feature that is due for release in about two weeks, which will let users solicit advice from specific friends in their networks. So, for instance, if you were thinking about buying a camera, you could ask only your photographer friends for advice. If you’re shopping for a birthday present for John, you can share your potential gift list exclusively with you and John’s mutual friends.
Another cool feature of the site is that it pulls information about a product into its dashboard from multiple other sources like TwitterTwitter
, YouTubeYouTube and FlickrFlickr. We’ve seen similar functions work well on product sites like Retrevo, and having the information handy while browsing and commenting is convenient.
Cloud Shopper’s site, which launched on December 15, is still suffering from its newness. When Facebook friends click on the products you’re asking them to review, for now they land on a page that is less than intuitive to navigate. Options like Facebook Poll and Facebook Question integrations are also still on the way.
The idea could have some weight if the promised features pan out. People like to discuss purchasing decisions — if that weren’t true there wouldn’t be so many peer-written review sites — why not take friends’ advice instead of a stranger’s? The success of the self-funded company, however, depends more on its users following through with Amazon purchases. Collecting a fee on a significant number of referrals could be a task equally as tricky as building a network.
Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, sjlocke
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
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