Hmm… it seems like I just mentioned Web 2.0 marketing a minute ago?  Oh wait… that's because I did.  I asked if your website was Web 2.0 ready.  As a prime example of just what Web 2.0 marketing looks like, ClickZ has an article on social shopping sites and what they hope to offer to online shoppers in the future.

Social shopping, apparently a merge between social networking and online shopping, allows users to interact, feature their favorite items on webpages and blogs, and share experiences with products and companies.  As you can probably imagine, these interactive abilities take online shopping to a new level of personalization that just wasn't possible with traditional online shopping.

As I mentioned before, word of mouth has historically been a driving force behind purchases, both online and off.  But that interaction has been difficult to find online.  User reviews offered the first step toward what would become these new social shopping services, but they didn't go far enough.  Sometimes reviews would be spread out over half a dozen competing websites.  New services, like the Pronto service I talked about last week, collect and display reviews in one location, regardless of the original website.

In a natural progression for affiliate programs, many of the new Web 2.0 shopping services allow users to display and discuss products from various sites on their personal website or blog.  And while shoppers displaying products usually make money from the venture, many do so primarily as a means of sharing good or bad experiences with other shoppers.  But instead of being tied into one company and its products, social shopping sites allow users to display and affiliate themselves with a broad range of products from their collection of affiliated merchants.

As the ClickZ article points out, this is one example of supply coming before the demand.  Even though people are slowly discovering the possibilities of social shopping, large demand for the services isn't expected for a year or longer.  With infrastructure already in place, these early-adopters will be ready when that demand hits.

So do you still think it's too early to get the jump on Web 2.0 initiatives for your company or website?  These guys are already in a position to grab market share, once the market appear.  Remember what they say about the early bird…

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