Why Ping Is the Future of Social Commerce

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Apple received much of this social capability with the acquisition of Lala, an online music service, which as a standalone company used sharing of social objects to drive folks toward paid music downloads. Now Apple is only closing the loop by further sharing what users bought. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if sales of music on the iTunes Store rocket upward, thanks to social discovery.

Amazon's Turn

Amazon, which recently started experimenting with Facebook Connect, has similar ideas, but its implementation leaves a lot to be desired. On Amazon, I'm reduced to reading reviews from absolute strangers for music. I have a handful of friends who have impeccable taste in nonfiction business books, are all members of Amazon, and they already use e-mail to share new book suggestions with me.

What if they too could share their likes and dislikes via a social layer inside Amazon.com? Or what if I could follow my favorite authors and get updates on their books? Much like Apple, Amazon owns book-based social service Shelfari and should find ways to embed the social layer inside of all Amazon products and connect its tens of millions of users.

Like Apple, Amazon too has a lot more data about its customers and their behaviors and could create a compelling discovery experience. I believe with tens of thousands of products in its store, the retail giant needs to figure out ways to surface content and other offerings smartly.

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