Emergence Media

Introduction

Tonight, I attended the SF Tech Session on social bookmarking, which had speakers from Wists, Kaboodle and Ma.gnolia. Fellow bloggers Natasha Robinson and Karl Long were with me. Other notable people in attendance were Om Malik, Scott Beal (Laughing Squid) and Tantek Celek (Technorati).

Summary: Retailers need to watch Kaboodle

From the presentation given, Kaboodle appears to be the most interesting website. More than social bookmarketing, it’s a social shopping website where people (mostly women) can share home décor products, bridal items and all the way to clothing ensembles.

Here are some quick notes from CEO Manish Chandra talk on Kaboodle:

• 70% of information stored is centered around shopping
• 20-40 year old women
• Women use it as a social shopping tool, share shopping list
• Able to collect, share shopping items in groups listings or collages

Kaboodle is like a cross between Flickr (a community of sharing photos) with a user-generated version of Lucky Magazine (a magazine where featured products are the articles).

For retail websites looking to engage their audience online, this is a website to monitor.

A retailer could create a profile on Kaboodle, listing featured products on groups for “Hiking Gear”, “Beach Outfits” etc, with open comments by connected Friends. Simultaneously products listed in the retailers “Hiking Gear” group are also listed on the Kaboodle Search Engine, giving another channel to reach out to the shopping audience.

While this type of “Sponsored Profile”, similar to MySpace corporate profiles, are not available yet, this is an obvious move to make as Kaboodle looks to expand their monetization beyond PPC-based ads.

Personal Notes on the Presentation

Along with Flickr Photos, here are some notes from the event:

David Galbraith, Wists.com

• Bookmarking based Pictures
• Technology powers Popgloss and Gawker Stalker
• Stresses on ease of use, non-techie audience
• Demographic: 25 Year Old Women

Manish Chandra, Kaboodle

• 70% of information stored is centered around shopping
• Demographic: 20-40 year old women
• Women use it as a social shopping tool, share shopping list
• Able to collect, share shopping items in groups listings or collages
• Collecting and Sharing Shopping Items (Bridal-related, home decor etc)
• Collage to create ensembles from the list

Larry Halff, Ma.gnolia

• Bookmarks based on groups interests, social network
• Archives the pages that are bookmarked
• Del.icio.us is for early adopter techies, Ma.gnolia is for your Mom
• Demographics: Designers, Christians, Mac Users