Welcome to the new edition of “This week’s news”, a selection of links to interesting articles and news from the worlds of blogs, commerce and e-commerce.
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Instagram, the popular photo and video sharing app owned by Facebook, is infamous for not having a business model. Admittedly, since the service belongs to the big social network, there really is no urgency for Instagram to generate revenue, since Facebook itself is doing quite well. But at an event in London, Instagram boss Kevin Systrom explained that his service is becoming a commerce platform for folks in fashion. Many brands publish photos of their fashion items and at least indirectly manage to increase their sales, even if there doesn’t exist a “buy” button. But a link to the company website containing an online shop might be enough for clever fashionistas to get the shirt, pants or shoes from a brand’s Instagram shot.
Systrom didn’t go into details whether Instagram plans to exploit that commercial potential one day, but it’s not unlikely. If Instagram’s role as a facilitator of fashion sales is continuously increasing then Systrom and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be crazy not to profit from that.
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Once upon a time, LivingSocial was seen as a serious competitor to coupon giant Groupon. A recent post by AllThingsD depicts the Washington D.C. based company as somewhat of a copycat, lacking its own innovative ideas and trying to imitate the competition – even though it’s not even clear whether the competitors, like Groupon, can establish a sustainable business.
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PandoDaily asks twhether it is crazy to start an e-commerce company in the age of Amazon. At least for the author the answer is “no”: “If you’re smart and focus on where Amazon fails, an innovative e-commerce startups can grow into a large, successful company”
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In Twingly-country Sweden, fashion is the most popular blog category. It isn’t exactly the same in Germany, our Southern neighbour, but even there fashion blogging has risen and helped some talented, hard-working bloggers to gain expert status and even be acquired by big media companies. A German blog has just published an interview with Jessica Weiss who is said to be Germany’s most popular fashion blogger. For those of you who don’t speak German here is her story in a few sentences: When 20 years old Jessica started the fashion blog LesMads.de, and only a couple of month later German media house Burda took over and helped Jessica to make a living out of blogging while at the same time getting done with her studies. 4 years later, she left Burda and the blog she created. After a gig as editor in chief for another website she did it again and launched another fashion blog: Journelles, which is growing nicely . But instead of again looking for a big partner, she plans to keep her new project independent, enjoying being her own boss.
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One more reading recommendation: In a lengthy Wired-piece, Clive Thompson praises public thinking in form of blogging or posting thoughts on social networks and explains how it powers new ideas and leads to serendipity.