Social Shopping Web sites

The sites we researched and found to be innovative are Kaboodle and Stylehive.

Stylehive is more innovative because it integrates elements of MySpace with the interactive concepts of social shopping found in Kaboodle. The main purpose of the site is to allow users to share with others things they found to be fashionable. Stylehive users can personalize their profiles, blog about fashion, and establish their own communities. Like Twitter, users can choose to “follow” others and comment on their profiles.

In Kaboodle users make tons of lists, and if they're social oriented (hot scarves in 2008) then others can use them. Otherwise, you just end up with a hyperlinked shopping list. Kaboodle attempts to foster such a network by creating a leaderboard-type arrangement, called an “A-list,” where the most active Kaboodlers are featured and, as an incentive, given “exclusive deals and discounts!” The first-added tag rewards people for making good finds, and encourages people to be innovative. Users can start a blog based on various themes such as shopping for prom dresses.

Bad points: Users have to add the “Kaboodle” button onto their browser, so they can’t necessarily “kaboodle” everywhere.

Photo Sharing Web Sites

We found Flickr to be the most innovative of the photo sharing Web sites. It is innovative because:

• Site is used by both amateurs and professionals.
• Able to search for photos by place using an interactive map and tag photos by geographic area.
• Comment directly on photos (not just underneath).
• Similar to social networking site; able to have "friends" and join "groups."
• Emphasis on the artistic aspect of photography.
• Easy to use, navigate.

Radar (owned by TINY) emphasized more on photos as a social tool , not the art of photography.What we didn't like:

• Difficult to navigate.
• Purpose of site unclear.
• Photos/video are meant to be viewed on mobile technologies. This requires higher-end devices, limiting users to those who can afford it.

Zooomer was similar to Flickr in photo content, however it was not innovative.

• Less organized than Flickr (the homepage was overwhelming).
• Standard commenting (underneath photos).

Who cares about social aggregators

Who cares?

As a group we were underwhelmed and unimpressed by the content of social aggregators.

We didn't see anything innovative about the sites we researched. All of the sites offered the same basic idea and no one site stood out. We also questioned if there is anyone out there who would want to use a social aggregator.

We looked at about a dozen sites and only found one that could be relatively interesting. Profilefly.com combines not only social networks, but also blogs, photo sites, love and dating, and professional profiles.

Video Sharing Sites

For our class assignment, we've explored social media through the video sharing sites below.

Youtube may be the overall leader in video sharing site, but these other sites are popular because they serve different functions:

Hulu This site hosts full length tv shows and has better quality. It also has special news categories including a category called "Election '08" which has all debates and other videos pertaining to presidential campaigns. Vimeo also has a category of HD videos, as well movie excerpts. Everything is organized into categories so videos are easy to search. Vimeo also has comprehensive and accurate information about the video. Television shows are timely uploaded, showing up a day after it was broadcasted on TV. - Nadia

Stickam - People can broadcast themselves live. Most of the radio stations are using them and users can chat with whoever is broadcasting. There are also some people who broadcast themselves playing games. MySpace bought it last year. -Utku

Vimeo Shows videos has a socialization aspect to it because you can have a feed to your videos, you can add friends and have subscribers. Vimeo also has channels allows you to showcase videos with common themes. It also has a category of HD videos and a Vimeo Badge section where you can make a montage of all your videos. Vimeo also allows you to manipulate video, such as making it superslow or superfast for special effects. -Shaleem

Your Truman Show attempts to add social networking to videos, like a mashup between Facebook and Youtube. Features include timelines for connecting video stories, which let people do episodic video storytelling and create social groups around those video threads. The site recently announced a new widget it calls "Video Map" to integrate with Facebook profiles. It's like a video diary where people talk about who they are and their day, hobbies, experiences etc. - Matt.

Veoh is attempting to bring Internet video to TV screens. It's similar to Hulu in that it brings TV to the internet so that people can watch their favorite tv shows when they want to. It's different and innovative from Youtube because they don't have to deal with copyright issues since they get their content legally from the TV networks and studios and they also can have long video formats up to about 40 minutes in length. - Hannah