Girly blog company Sugar Inc. has announced a new affiliate marketing program for bloggers, based on ShopStyle, the social-shopping and product-search site that it acquired last year. It's called ShopSense.
Here's how it works: if style, culture, or shopping bloggers write about a given product that's in the ShopStyle directory, they can add a ShopStyle widget so that readers can actually buy the product or can use the ShopStyle API to further customize the app. The blogger gets a cut of the revenue.
Sugar started as a content company, with an inaugural celebrity gossip brand called PopSugar, but has recently expanded significantly into services for other bloggers--furthering the comparisons with Glam Media, the ad network and blogger services company that started with fashion and celebrity news sites but has since moved into more diverse cultural niches.
Sugar recently started allowing bloggers to use its own platform, OnSugar but has said that the affiliate program is open to anyone regardless of how they host their blogs. It is, however, directly integrated into OnSugar.
"Given the current state of the economy, and with the holiday season fast approaching, we are excited to open up a new revenue stream for fashion bloggers and developers alike," said Sugar vice president Andy Moss, who's in charge of ShopStyle. "With ShopStyle's breadth of products and beautiful images, ShopSense has the ability to provide significant income for its participants."
One snag: Given the current state of the economy, is anybody going to cough up the cash for that pair of Louboutin heels?
Women's blog network Sugar Inc. has made a surprise move: it's giving users access to its platform so that they can create their own blogs. The San Francisco-based company made the announcement through a post on its tech blog, Geeksugar.
The new system, called OnSugar, promises a "sweet and simple" alternative to services like Google's Blogger and Six Apart's TypePad. Powered by the Drupal open-source platform, it will give bloggers free access to Sugar's tools for creating multiple kinds of posts: regular text posts as well as photo galleries, polls, quotations, videos, and the like (yes, this is a bit like Tumblr).
OnSugar bloggers can also take advantage of shopping widgets from the Sugar-owned ShopStyle, take a cut of the sales, and use images from Getty Images for free. They can also have Sugar import existing blogs on Blogger, WordPress, or TypePad into the OnSugar platform.
This is surprising, given the fact that the industry trend has been to create an ad network to pull in publishers, not a blogging platform. Sugar, which already has loads of user accounts through its social network, TeamSugar, will not be serving any ads yet but rather will let bloggers use the ad network of their choice. That includes the ad network of Glam Media, which is typically talked about as a Sugar competitor.
Rainbow-hued blog network Sugar Inc. is on one heck of a shopping spree: last month, the women's media company purchased social shopping site ShopStyle, and now it's bought fashion-centric blog hub Coutorture Media.
No financial terms were disclosed.
Coutorture, which will remain a standalone site despite the new Sugar affiliation, isn't a blog network in the traditional sense. The 230+ blogs that it counts under its trendy umbrella aren't officially run by the site, nor are they part of an advertising network like Glam Media; they're the fashion-related blogs run by Coutorture readers who have applied to become part of the site and run a chance of extra hits if their headlines make it to the front page. (Internet historians: Remember WebRing?) The main Coutorture.com site also offers original editorial content.
With the acquisition, Coutorture editor in chief Julie Fredrickson will stay at the helm, and co-founder Phil Leif will take on the role of Senior Engineer at Sugar Inc. The site, meanwhile, will be infused with technology from fellow Sugar buy ShopStyle.
Clearly, Sugar Inc. is pursuing an aggressive acquisition strategy here, and company CEO Brian Sugar indicated in a chat with CNET News.com that these deals are far from over. He also quelled any speculation that Sugar Inc. itself was for sale, a possibility that several bloggers have raised.
"This company is absolutely not for sale," he asserted.
Sugar Inc., the women's-oriented blog network that grew out of a single celebrity gossip title and now encompasses about a dozen others with the word "Sugar" in the title, has now branched into social news. On Monday, the company launched SugarLoving, which is a way for you to submit links that you "heart." Essentially, the model is similar to that of social news pioneer Digg. But SugarLoving is so cute and huggable, there isn't even a way for you to "bury" links that you don't like! Aww! We're all friends here!
This is one of quite a few moves that the rapidly growing Sugar Inc. has made to branch from simply editorial content into social media--in September, the company purchased social shopping site ShopStyle, and it already operates a community site called TeamSugar.
I've got to say that I'm just not loving SugarLoving. On the practical side, I can't see nearly enough stories on the front page without scrolling. Then there's the fact that there are too many hearts and too much pink, to the degree that it sort of made me cringe. The interface, quite honestly, looks like what the end result would be if that girl from Legally Blonde were instructed to give Digg a makeover in the manner of 2001-vintage Hilary Duff. If SugarLoving is a "sweeter version of Digg," as Mashable calls it, I'm more than happy to return to the Kevin Rose-created world of iPhone rumors, bizarre sights that turn up on Google Earth, and incomprehensible posts about Linux.
A girl cannot live on cuteness alone, after all. Sugar Inc. really ought to stick to lifestyle blogs--or tone down the hearts.
Blog network Sugar Publishing, which operates a popular array of pastel-hued women's lifestyle and entertainment titles, has agreed to acquire social shopping start-up ShopStyle.com for an undisclosed amount.
ShopStyle, which competes with sites like ThisNext and StyleHive, aims to make it easier to search multiple retail sites at once and lets members create personal "look books" and network with other digital shopaholics.
In addition, the San Francisco-based blog network has officially changed its name from Sugar Publishing to Sugar Inc. "to better reflect its growing reach and expansion over the past year." Presumably, that's a move to indicate that Sugar considers itself more a community than just a blog publishing network.
Sugar was founded in 2005 as a self-funded operation between dot-com veteran Brian Sugar and his wife Lisa (yes, that's their real last name). According to a blurb on the site, "Brian started Sugar Inc. to keep a close eye on his wife, Lisa, and her obsession with Matt Damon."
Originally consisting just of celebrity gossip blog PopSugar, Sugar now includes about a dozen others like fashion blog FabSugar, gadget blog GeekSugar, fitness blog FitSugar and an overarching social network called TeamSugar.
The network now claims to draw in more than 5 million monthly unique visitors and is backed by Valley V.C. powerhouse Sequoia Capital and NBC Universal, which cross-links Sugar content with its iVillage property.
With the acquisition, Sugar is adding ShopStyle's purchasing capabilities to its shopping-focused editorial content.
ShopStyle widgets are already visible on several Sugar blogs. But ShopStyle, which Sugar fashion blog FabSugar describes as "essentially a search engine for clothes," has assured its readers that the original site will remain intact.
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