Stylefeeder ("The Personal Shopping Engine") hat sich, obwohl bereits profitabel, 500.000 Dollar zusätzliches Kapital von seinen bestehenden Investoren besorgt.

Seit dem Start im Jahr 2005 hat Stylefeeder damit (je nach Quelle) 3,5 Mio. (bis 4 Mio.) Dollar eingesammelt.

Im Interview mit Xconomy ("Stylefeeder's Execs on How to Do A Lot With A Little") äußern sich die Gründer u.a. zu ihren Erfahrungen mit Facebook:

"Xconomy: How important is Facebook for you these days as a channel? At one time it was your main source of new members, wasn’t it?

Phil Jacob: It’s no longer what it once was.
Facebook has really deemphasized applications through a series of
user-interface changes that make it impossible at this point to scale
to the level that a Slide or a RockYou got to.

We still have people
using it, and there is this viral nature where people can see what
other people have posted to their Facebook feed, and it does drive some
traffic, but the window of opportunity for third-party apps is gone.

But it was a huge success for us, in terms of driving awareness and
registered users. It was the single best thing we’ve done from a growth
standpoint."

Und dann kommt natürlich die Standardfrage, die immer kommen muss beim Thema Social Shopping:

"X: I have to confess that I’m not a huge user of
StyleFeeder, because I’m not usually looking for product
recommendations. I know what I want, I go in to a store or a website
and buy it, and I’m out.

PJ: That’s because you’re a man. And it’s actually
been frustrating over the years, as we were raising money, trying to
talk to venture capitalists—who are almost all men and who shop the
same way you do. Women browse a lot more and tend to be less direct,
more circuitous.

There is this idea called the “savannah hypothesis
of shopping” that says men are hunters and women are gatherers, and we
totally see that on the site. As you rate products on the site, and as
you add things to your style feed or wish list, those are strong
signals, and we can predict your gender with an accuracy rate of 95
percent just from these things you do as a user."

Das Interview ist sehr lang, aber extrem informativ. Teil 1 gibts hier und Teil 2 hier.

Frühere Beiträge zum Thema:

• Exciting Facebook: Stylefeeder holt sich weitere 2 Mio. Dollar
• Exciting Facebook: Stylefeeder gibt wieder Gas
• pick!t today: Venture Capital für Stylefeeder

Kategorien:Facebook, Shopping Widgets, Social Commerce