Review: ThisNext

ThisNext is a brand new social shopping site that just officially opened last week. I have been using it for a little while now - it powers the Japanese Snacks feature you see on the sidebar of this site.

While I have never used other social shopping sites before except to browse around them a bit, I find ThisNext very easy to use. The interface also encourages users to leave meaningful comments on their items, which really makes the listings far more useful than a simple picture and a short 'i luv this' type of comment. You can also put cute little stickers on your item pictures if you wish, and subscribe to the RSS feeds of individual members or lists. It's not perfect - there can be duplicate entries of the same item under different names for example, and there is no negativity allowed (if you comment on an item, you're automatically listed as recommending it). It's very early days though. There's no fancy Flash badge to put on your site yet, though for me that's not a minus - their Javascript badge can be styled with CSS, so you can mash it up to fit the design of your site.

The reason I'm posting about it here on my food blog (besides the fact that my personal blog is in a state of dormancy at the moment) is that it has a number of interesting food related lists up there already. One is from Nate Appleman, the executive chef and co-owner of A16 restaurant in San Francisco. His list of Kitchen Essentials has several knife recommendations among other things. There's also a list from Regan Burns, editor of Chow magazine. There's my Japanese snack list too! On the non-food side there are lots of new and unusual design oriented items listed, which I love, and lots else. Browsing around by tag can lead you to discover new sites to visit as well as products to check out. From the blogger perspective, making a good list on ThisNext could lead to new traffic to your site.

Sean at ThisNext has posted a short Q and A with me up on their blog...if you are interested in my esoteric shopping habits.

Shelteriffic has a nice review of ThisNext also.