The Social

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?

eBay announced Monday that it has appointed new CEOs to its Skype and Shopping.com properties. At the helm of telephony company Skype will be current Shopping.com president and former Evite co-founder and CEO Josh Silverman; taking his place at Shopping.com will be Andre Haddad, who joined eBay in 2001 when it acquired his start-up, the European marketplace site iBazar.

This continues an extensive management shakeup at the online commerce giant, which saw the departure of longtime CEO Meg Whitman in January. eBay itself has been going through some tough times, with seller dissatisfaction leading to a boycott over fee hikes and new rules.

Meanwhile, many questioned whether Skype was a smart acquisition for eBay in the first place when the company disclosed a $1.4 billion write-down last year to handle Skype-related charges. Skype also suffered a two-day outage in the summer of 2007.

Silverman will replace interim Skype CEO Michael van Swaaij, who was appointed to the post in October when co-founder Niklas Zennstrom (now at the helm of Joost) left the post amid the $1.4 billion snafu.

When it comes to social networking, some investors seem to think that shopaholics are the next big thing.

ThisNext, a social-shopping site where users create lists of products they recommend and schmooze with others, has pulled in $5 million in second-round funding, according to Private Equity Hub.

Earlier this week, another social shopping site, StyleFeeder, announced that it had netted $2 million in first-round funding.

StyleFeeder is recommendation-driven, a sort of Last.fm for shopping. By contrast, the reviews- and list-focused ThisNext has a model more like that of business-reviews site Yelp.

Santa Monica, Calif.-based ThisNext, which was founded in mid-2006, has a well-stocked executive squad: CEO Gordon Gould previously founded Blogsmith, which was purchased by AOL, and served as president of the now-defunct Silicon Alley Reporter. Serial entrepreneur and Silicon Alley Reporter founder Jason Calacanis is also on ThisNext's board of directors.

No matter what the model is, social-shopping networks are attracting investors because they may be more profitable than the average social network. The sites typically aren't directly connected to retailers. But in addition to the advertising support that so many Web 2.0 sites rely on, social-shopping sites could generate additional revenue through affiliate programs or partnerships with retailers that sell the products recommended by site users.

The $5 million in ThisNext's second-round funding reportedly comes from Anthem Venture Partners and Clearstone Venture Partners. Its first-round funding in early 2006 brought in $2.5 million, according to Private Equity Hub.

StyleFeeder, a social shopping site that aims to do for the retail sector what StumbleUpon did for browsing or Last.fm did for music, has announced that it's pulled in $2 million in Series A venture funding from Highland Capital Partners and Schooner Capital.

The start-up, based in Cambridge, Mass., plans to use the $2 million to hire more employees.

StyleFeeder, which has operated until this point on seed funding, operates a "recommendation engine" for fashionistas based on which products users rate and then purchase through affiliates. Much like other recommendation sites, StyleFeeder then suggests related products and can connect users with similar taste.

The company additionally operates a Facebook application that has been installed by 500,000 users (overall, not active users). That pales in comparison with the 2.5 million who log into Slide's FunWall daily, but it's just slightly under the approximately 570,000 who play that horrifically controversial Facebook game, Scrabulous, each day. Basically, the application reaches a fairly decent number of eyes.

The social shopping niche is crowded with start-ups like ThisNext and StyleHive, as well as M&A buys like ShopStyle (purchased by Sugar Inc.) and Kaboodle (snapped up by Hearst Corp. last year). There has, at least until this point, been no clear front-runner in the space.

If you read that chick-lit classic Bergdorf Blondes (I'm proud to admit that I did), you'll probably recall the scene in which the shopaholic female protagonists hold a military-style planning session in advance of the legendary Chanel sample sale--a chance for them to snag the high-end designer goods at staggering discounts, the only caveat being that hundreds of other viciously competitive Manhattan women were also hoping to get their hands on the same stuff.

It was only a matter of time before that sort of upper-crust cutthroat shopping hit the Web.

Enter Ideeli (pronounced "ideally"), which debuted Monday after several months of soft-launch. Described as a "red-rope online shopping community," Ideeli is an invite-only site that hosts high-speed sales of luxury goods (so far, just accessories) at 50 to 90 percent discounts and keeps its members in the loop through e-mail and mobile alerts to let them know when a sale has started.

Quantities are limited and can sell out within minutes--if this sounds familiar, it's because it's a model pioneered by rapid-fire sale sites like Woot.com, which has built up an enviable cult following, and the girlier Delight.com.

But as the luxury market warms up to the Web, the Woot model is being applied to sites that are more Sex and the City than Star Trek. Following in the vein of "velvet rope" social networks like ASmallWorld (for the jet set) and Metrofunk (for the club set), Ideeli and similar sites like Gilt Groupe (which hosts high-end online sample sales), are invite-only.

Ideeli has some twists thrown in the mix, too. The site offers a paid "first row" membership ($7.99 per month) that enables mobile alerts and also allows for an hour of early access to sales.

It's obviously not for everyone. Even considering the discounted prices, these are still luxury goods, and hence typically cost a few hundred dollars at the minimum. Some pragmatic shopaholics aren't willing to plunk down that kind of cash without seeing the item in person, or with that kind of impulse-buying required. But some money types are banking on success: Ideeli announced Monday that it has secured $3.8 million in capital from Kodiak Ventures and a handful of angel investors.

Snobbish? Totally. But so are Apple fanboys, for the record. We also happen to have Ideeli invites available for readers: go to ideeli.com and use "cnet" as your invitation code.

(Credit: Henri Bendel)

According to the PSFK blog, Manhattan's legendary luxury department store Henri Bendel is so notoriously old-school that it launched its first Web site a month ago. But the retailer is moving a step further into the Digital Age by opening a holiday gadget "pop-up store"-- curated by bloggers--inside its Fifth Avenue space.

Last year, Bendel had a holiday shop centered on the youth-oriented mobile phone carrier Helio.

But for 2007, Popgadget, which caters to female readers who appreciate both style and function and is staffed by a team of writers around the world, has selected an array of about 20 gadgets to be sold at Bendel for the duration of the holiday season. The "pop-up store" apparently opened on Monday; I might have to go check it out.

As for Bendel, this is probably a smart move for the store. The upscale women's fashion hub, which first opened in 1895, has become closely associated with the young and tech-savvy Gossip Girl crowd, so the displays of Prada cell phones, Archos portable media players, and high-end Griffin iPod accessories won't be particularly out of place.

But if the selection (or the luxe atmosphere at Bendel) isn't quite your thing, there are other holiday tech shops that have sprung up around the city--like the Wired Store, which opened in SoHo last week.

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.

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.

Late on Tuesday night, the news broke on the Wall Street Journal's Web site that publishing empire Hearst Corp. has made plans to acquire Kaboodle, a social shopping site that launched last year and now draws in over two million unique visitors per month. Like rivals ThisNext and StyleHive, Kaboodle lets members recommend and learn about new products through compiling lists; it also connects users who have similar shopping tastes.

Hearst and Kaboodle issued a joint press release on Wednesday morning announcing the acquisition deal. "With its impressive technology, tools and audience, Kaboodle is a natural overlap for Hearst Magazines," Cathleen P. Black, president of Hearst Magazines, said in the statement. "We think Kaboodle has terrific potential for many of our brands, especially in the fashion, beauty and consumer technology categories. Our readers will be able to find the products featured in our magazines, shop electronically with their friends and get their feedback. It's another means for making sure our readers stay engaged in today's saturated media landscape."

Kaboodle will become a property of Hearst Interactive Media and Hearst Magazines Digital Media. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but blog reports have suggested that it's as much as $40 million.

Journalists and bloggers have been quick to note that recent months have seen a sizeable number of Internet start-up acquisitions (and rumors thereof) by large media companies, many of which are headquartered in New York or Los Angeles rather than Mountain View or Redmond. In May, finance news video blog Wallstrip was purchased by CBS Interactive and media-sharing site Photobucket was acquired by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media; more recently, environmental blog TreeHugger was acquired by Discovery Communications, and the latest rumor is that social bookmarking site Clipmarks is in the midst of a deal with Forbes.

GigaOm's Om Malik noted on Tuesday night that "from a Silicon Valley perspective, emergence of buyers outside of the G-Y-M (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) triumvirate is a good thing."