Today, the WSJ did a little round-up of weblogs that offer gift lists ("Blogs for Shoppers," Dec 13, 06), and the main takeaway point here was that shopping-type blogs can get a leg up by becoming specialized by consumer good category.
I have been interested in shopping blogs for quite some time (e-mail me if you'd like to see some reporting I did on it a while back), and I contend that there are two reasons they appeal to readers: first, they offer expertise in a product category; second, they offer lifestyle curation. Not all shopping blogs fulfill both purposes (expertise and curation). Some excel at one or the other.
Three shopping weblogs that I read because I love the editorial voice and the lifestyle curation are Oh My That's Awesome, Sundry Buzz and Cool Tools. (Yep -- shopping blogs are not automatically girly-product repositories.)
My friend Lauren hipped me to Want Not, which is a funky new twist on the shopping blog because it's very event-dependent. I think that's another shopping-blog category we're going to see growing popular, especially as RSS feeds affect the bargain-hunting game ("RSS Delivers Web's Best Deals," Wired News, Dec 11, 06). ( also wrote about RSS feeds and shopping back in the day. Again, e-mail if you're interested in the reporting. Also, e-mail if you'd want me to write about e-commerce for you.) Woot! was just the start here.
So what are your favorite look-at-this-thing-you-can-buy blogs?
On a related note: one of the other things I noticed about the WSJ article was how many of the weblogs were not shopping blogs -- sites Chocolate & Zucchini or Shelterrific. These are, instead, area-of-expertise weblogs that have parlayed their editorial focus into gift guides.
There's a boatload of gift guides on the web that reflect a non-shopping-blog's editorial sensibilities -- I'm thinking of Miss Doxie's, for example.
So I'm wondering: what role do you think gift guides play for these sites? Are they possible only because the site's authors spend the rest of the time establishing and maintaining their editorial value to the reader? Do these gift guides ever detract from the weblog? Do you think there's a difference between a professional or semiprofessional blog's gift guide versus one done on a personal weblog?
"Are they possible only because the site's authors spend the rest of the time establishing and maintaining their editorial value to the reader?"
I think so, yes. I marvel at mav's design sensibilit on port2port http://port2port.visualblogging.com/ all year long, and I love her art work, so I take her gift guide (http://port2port.my-expressions.com/giftguide.html) seriously. I prefer personal recommendations to professional ones because I tend to think that the personal bloggers opinions are more sincere (me and my GenX cynicism).
Posted by: Jecca | 2006.12.13 at 15:26
My favorite editorial shopping site by far is Tanga.com and then 2nd is Woot.com. They are both daily deal sites and I check both every evening.
Posted by: Michael Johnson | 2006.12.13 at 22:06
Oooooh, thank you for the mention. Actually Want Not is supposed to lean more towards overall spending philosophy than various events, but with the impending holidays I'll confess to most of my time going into "Look! A deal! Look over there! Another deal!" Tis always nice to be noticed, either way.
Posted by: Mir | 2006.12.14 at 08:42
Well design and work - If you get time
visit Online Shopping Mall And wishes from
http://e-purchase.blogspot.com for your best blog
Posted by: anitta | 2007.03.13 at 02:43