That’s right… We’re pleased to announce that the Shopit Store application is now available to all 500,000 of Ning’s social networks. Haven’t heard of Ning? They are behind the scenes of this white-label social network platform, providing the functionality for users to create and customize their own social networks. Giving users the freedom to build any type of social network has lead to a profound and diverse range of new online communities.

Musicians like 50Cent and T.I. have jumped on board creating their own social networks, ThisIs50 and T.I. community. Mom’s across the world are joining networks created just for them; like Navy Moms and Twitter Moms. From athletes, bloggers, video channels, journalists, students, educators, parents, craft hobbyists, alumni, and interest groups, any user is sure to find a place that’s just for them. If not, then create one; it can be about anything your little heart desires.

Commerce enabling these communities means buying and selling without ever have to leave the page. Talk about convenience! Maybe you’re a member of the Cute Dog Clothes social network? Sell your bling collars to buyers right from your profile page. Chatting with fellow sneakers addicts about the latest kicks? Sell Nike’s new AirMax to your friends with a click of a button. The possibilities are endless.

We’re excited to be a part of Ning’s OpenSocial applications. And we couldn’t have done it, or done it so well :), without the help of the diligent Ning team! Shout-outs to Jinen Kamdar, Will Jelliffe, Ernie Hsiung, Kyle Ford. Thanks for your help guys!

The Shopit application that has become so popular with Facebook and MySpace is now available on the hi5 networks. I am a computer science student at the University of California, Los Angeles interning at Shopit and have been working over the past several weeks to bring this application to a true OpenSocial environment. OpenSocial initially had some stumbles but has now shown that it is capable of hosting robust and unique application experiences with easy portability.
The application provides users with a dashboard to view all the current incoming or outgoing orders, see the latest products, add or remove products, and even make purchases from start to finish all from within the hi5 network. This combination offers both a easy and friendly interface as well as a viral market for both buyers and sellers.
The biggest feature of any social application is sharing and with the Shopit application it is as easy as clicking share, selecting your friends, and watching your business spread. You can just as easily let your friends know when you’ve found a great deal. Save money on the products you need just by watching your notifications in hi5.
As an intern in a continuing learning experience I have found the development and testing of this application to be exciting. I was able to watch the power of the sharing features grow as I built them beneath my fingertips. The hi5 API is becoming more and more complete ever day as it moves towards OpenSocial 0.8 and a more finalized REST interface. Although I’m still awaiting a PHP client library.
Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the application and finds those great deals. I will be heading off to explore Europe in my first backpacking experience next week. Thanks for your interest in my efforts. I’d also like to give a big thanks to Sameer and Eric, and the rest of the hi5 team for their continued help.

-Matt Snider

If you haven’t already heard, there’s a new Facebook! To keep up with the recent changes, we’ve updated the Shopit Facebook application. So here’s what you can do now with your Shopit Store on the new Facebook.

-The Publisher enables you to publish content— such as the newest items you’re selling on Shopit, latest sales, new product commercials, and so on—directly to your Wall. You can add content to your own profile or to a friends’!

-The Tabbed Profile is the new display of your profile. Now you’re in control of the information you want your friends to see. You can add your Shopit store to the new Info and Wall Tabs.

-The Info Tab shows information about you that doesn’t change frequently. Include your Shopit store directly to your Info Tab, so it will always display on your profile.

-The Wall Tab displays information both by you (that you publish) and about you (that others publish). Add your Shopit store to display your products for all your potential buyers to see. Keep your wall updated with your hottest items and best deals.

We hope these new features will allow you to gain maximum visibility for your store and help you make some money! In addition to these small changes, we’re currently working on a complete overhaul of our Shopit Facebook application. Besides a great design, the new Shopit application will have a ton of new functionality for selling and buying on facebook! We think we’re doing quite a thorough job, but we’re not perfect, so if you have any ideas and suggestions we’d love to hear them!

-Stephanie

We know that most of you would love to hear from us every day, but surprisingly some of you don’t? So we got over ourselves. We built a tool for you to change your email settings all on your own, so that you can decide what you’d like or not like to be notified about. Now, you can choose to be emailed about network invitations, new orders, messages from friends, or any combination you’d like. You can find these email options in your Privacy Settings. Your trust is important to us and we will continue to make improvements to help protect your privacy. Any suggestions or comments are welcomed.

Hope this helps!

July 16, 2008 Shopit Inc., a free peer-to-peer social commerce network, teamed up with Revolution Money Inc.,an online payment network, to offer the Revolution MoneyExchange…. [ Read More ]

MoneyExchange Gives Shopit Users $10 for Signing Up*

(Los Angeles, CA) - July 8, 2008 - Shopit, the fastest growing free Peer-to-Peer Social Commerce Network, today announced a partnership with Revolution Money Inc. to provide its customers with a special offer for its official online payment service of choice, Revolution MoneyExchange™. This dynamic online payment service is free to sign up and offers Shopit users a $10* credit when they open a new MoneyExchange account. [Read More]

I’m delighted to see that our users are as eager as we are to adopt this new free payment option! We’ve had a great response from you guys so far, and would love to hear more about what you think of MoneyExchange. We’re excited to provide many more tools to help you better transact free online. Thats what we’re here for

If you haven’t checked out MoneyExchange yet, nows the time. Here’s all the info to get you started.


-Stephanie

With online networks and a plethora of desktop applications connecting people across the world, there’s no reason why online store can’t be better integrated into all of these platforms. That’s what Shopit thinks, at least. Given the freedom for communication that the web has allowed, the ability to build on such freedom has allowed for the growth of web-based banking, dating, and shopping. It’s expected for these forms of communication and commerce to want to go where the people are. It’s the nature of the beast, and a catalyst for the ideal meeting of supply and demand.[ Read More ]

Your products come in all kinds of shapes and forms and now you can let your customers know it right from the Shopit Social Applications.  That’s right, we’ve added Colors and Sizes to our apps, that lets you create the right options for all your products.

How it Works

1. Click on the “Add Colors and Sizes” link when you’re adding a product.
2. Add as many colors and sizes as you want by entering the quantity, size, and color for your product.

• Tip:  You can add either a size, a color, or both!

Well, maybe not exactly 50…after, 30 we stopped counting! The point is, we’ve revamped our widgets to include a suped up grab menu where you can, in just a couple of seconds, post your widget onto major blogs (Blogger, TypePad, Vox), social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, hi5), and a variety of other sites as well (Netvibes, iGoogle, Yahoo). You can see a full list of supported widget destinations here.

Be sure to get the latest version of your widget by going to Widget Options in MyShopit. Once you’ve posted your widget, all your friends and fans can grab it and post it somewhere to help promote your stuff. So, have fun and post your widgets far and wide!

Bryan Landers, Product Manager and Flash Guy