

Why Facebook, Twitter, and 2,000 others haven’t cracked social commerce yet - kyle4beantown
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/05/5-reasons-why-facebook-twitter-and-2000-others-havent-cracked-social-commerce-yet/
There are over 2,000 startups on AngelList that are categorized as “social commerce.”  That’s equivalent to every Stanford MBA over the last 5 years starting a brand new social commerce company.
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dredmorbius
I've argued on G+ that Google's biggest competitor online isn't Facebook but
Amazon for pretty much just this reason: intentionality.

People on social network sites are largely involved ... in social networking.
Discussion and conversation and sharing. Marketing is an intrusion. Facebook
suffers in this regard. Sucking down ever greater amounts of personal data to
this end starts getting creepier and creepier.

Google's benefited by the match of intentionality to search and capitalizing
on the resulting advertising opportunity. Even if only a fraction of searches
are associated with intention, Google can act on those.

Amazon cuts out the middle man. It doesn't have to advertise because it _is_
the marketplace. The company hasn't even focused on profitability, keying
instead on simple cash flow. So long as it can support current operations,
it's doing fine. And it is creating one of the largest marketplaces on the
planet. Rather than advertising and its low conversion rates, _Amazon is the
point of sale._

Disclaimers: I've used G+ for a couple of years, though I'm winding down my
use due to privacy concerns. I've never trusted Facebook. I prefer shopping
local to using Amazon where at all possible.

