ThisNext Launches Shopcasting Network, Enables Product Discovery

August 22, 2006; 08:18 AM

ThisNext launched its shopcasting and product discovery network today. Bloggers, tastemakers and power-shoppers use ThisNext to recommend and discover products that best match their lifestyle and interests. In the real world, people often discover new products by asking those around them, "What do you use?" Shopcasting on ThisNext helps shoppers discover new products by letting them pose that same question online.

What's a "shopcast?" It's a personal product playlist created by real people on ThisNext that can also run on blogs. Making a shopcast list is a way for people to let the world know what they think is great and worth spending hard-earned money to buy. ThisNext aggregates its network of shopcasts, which range from parenting to surfing to cooking to design, into a product discovery database where shoppers can leverage the wisdom of crowds to save them from the tyranny of overchoice.

Overchoice, the condition that exists when shoppers are overwhelmed by too many choices, can lead to frustrated purchases and even buyer's remorse. When confronted with myriad choices, every product decision becomes a research project. What a chore! When turning to the Internet, overchoice becomes further aggravated due to the sheer volume of information provided through search-based results.

"Product discovery is a big, well-established behavior among real-world shoppers but it is broken online," says ThisNext CEO and cofounder Gordon Gould. "In the real world we ask our friends and family, 'What products do you use?' to help us discover the products that will be the best fit for our lifestyle. But you can't ask a traditional search engine that question and expect to get a useful response. Product discovery doesn't work for shoppers on the Internet. Today there are over 50 million consumer products on the market. What's missing are effective product discovery tools. Traditional search-based shopping is like running an errand - You know what you want, you get in, you get out. In other words, it's not that much fun. There's no adventure or serendipity in it. But discovering unique and exciting products means finding a way to ask trusted experts what they recommend. Using our social filters, discovery algorithms, shopcast lists and the wisdom of crowds, ThisNext lets online shoppers ask the question, 'What do you use?' in a fun, intuitive, productive way."

What's so special about that? Buying better is a powerful thing. So powerful, in fact that, "buying better helps people live better," Gould says. "People can better express who they are in the world if they're using the right products." From the right vitamins to the right surfboard, products are the tools we use to build our lives. Products on shopcasts are ways for people who like a shopcaster's taste to find and track what that person uses. Or shoppers can search ThisNext to tap into the collective wisdom of crowds to discover what the community recommends - often, those recommendations are fantastic niche products that inhabit the long tail and would not otherwise attract the public eye through traditional (expensive!) brand-driven promotion.

Great shopcasts can be about activities (like camping or cooking) or things (like fashion or food). They can even be about lifestyles (like being green or living with asthma). Whether they're found only on ThisNext or are broadcast on blogs, they are the shopcasters' signature, a digital representation of who they are and how they live.

Shopper benefits

• Discover new products and voices. Visitors can search the network via tags to discover shopcasts, picks, tastemakers and blogs that fit their lifestyle.
• Singular product display with aggregated responses. No need to pour through quantities of search results about the same product. Our singular view presents one result for the product with the aggregated opinions featured below. It's also easy click through to other lists, profiles and blogs.
• Beyond bookmarking. At ThisNext bookmarking is only a means to the end of product discovery. URLs are helpful when talking about a unique piece of content but products can have thousands of URLs associated. Having 500 bookmarks pointing at the iPod Nano adds no value. ThisNext aggregates and sorts product recommendations to simplify the shopping.
• Be free of brand-marketing hype. ThisNext's community lets people escape from the world of brand overhype and tech-spec delirium and take control of their product discovery process.
• Help contribute to the community. People don't have to blog to participate. Anyone with a voice and an opinion about a product that has worked for them can create a free product playlist.
• Easy to use tools. Adding a product or a list is easy and quick. People can use our bookmarklet to instantly add a newfound product as a pick or to lists and the ThisNext system auto-fills pictures and other relevant information. People can also upload their own images and decorate their lists with personalized art bars.

Blogger benefits

• Deepen digital identity. Bloggers spend time building an online representation of their voice with words, images and video. ThisNext is a way to easily promote the products they support.
• Syndicate voice. ThisNext's shopcast tools enable easy creation and syndication of the commerce layer in digital identity. Syndicating taste and insight to new users, as well as providing additional content to existing users, is a powerful tool.
• Blogging tools. Our customizable shopcasting badge keeps a blog's aesthetic while promoting its commerce layer. ThisNext shopcast badges display recommended products and are simulcast on whatever online outlet the blogger chooses, a blog or a Web site. Badges all link back to ThisNext's site for easy access by the blogger's fans. Each list can also be read as an RSS feed.
• Be more discoverable. More traffic means more readers. Shopcasts and picks are tagged and searchable on ThisNext for easy discovery by other people. Profiles can prominently display users' blog links to drive traffic.
• Enrich the community. Bloggers can share insights and feedback to further build the wisdom of crowds while helping browsers discover new products that match their lifestyle.

About ThisNext

ThisNext is a shopcasting network where people discover and recommend products that enhance their lifestyle. We help people buy better to live better by connecting them with products that help express who they are in the world: Great products can help us do, be and experience the things that make us happy. Experts, bloggers and consumers comprise our network of people sharing products they personally endorse to the crowd. Founded in 2005 and based in Los Angeles, ThisNext is a venture-funded Web 2.0 company built by a team of seasoned Internet entrepreneurs, editors and bloggers committed to improving the overall quality of the Internet shopping experience.  Our blog is a swell way to follow what we're up to: blog.thisnext.com.