I have been referred to as a geek more often lately than before, and in the same conversation little miss socialite that might be addicted to shopping. I am still not sure how I manage to be both, but it is definitely starting to come through in my online tools of choice. I have always wanted a fashion website, after http://www.stylespotted.co.za have been put on hold, i have been closely monitoring the global market, and well, some local ones.

I therefore dedicate this post to Friends & Fashion, and the odd online web insight here and there. Because I just love online start ups, really good websites and tools that make my life better.

From Online Shopping  Gilt.com & Asos.com ( who now delivers to South africa 🙂

To Newsletters, blogs, social networks, etc. The reason why I highlight the shopping sites, is because I have recently gotten an iPad. And something happened to me – I started shopping, and this made me realize – the future of mobile devices, the commercial future of mobile – lies in online shopping. Several articles I have read and new figures on apps, clearly indicates that mobile devices such as the iPad – will lead to an increase in online shopping. Why – i think it moves beyond the mere design and technology benefits, or the fact that you already put your credit card details in to download apps, or to the fact that you can share it with your friends, and that it is a more personal device – so you almost less scared of the ” computer shopping ” stigma.

It is debatable, but lets see what happens.

So within my favourite article of the week –

20 New York City Start-Ups You Need To Know About

I could not help but get stuck in – Rent The Runway

Rent the Runway, like a “Netflix for dresses,” is an NYC start-up founded by two Harvard Business School graduates, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Carter Fleiss. The site allows women to rent dresses from notable fashion designers like Diane Von Furstenberg, Hervé Léger and Proenza Schouler for about one-tenth of what they would cost to buy in a retail store. Dry cleaning is included in the price and damage insurance costs $5. The renter is responsible for the full retail price in case the dress is completely destroyed. While their long-term business plan hasn’t been laid out yet, NYC fashion consultant Felicia Tumaneng envisions the brand opening up outlet stores to sell dresses that have gone out of season – via – http://thenextweb.com

It is clever, and it makes my life better.

My first attempt to start my own online fashion site, did not go so well, because I wanted to be too much. Refer to one of my earlier blog posts – My love affair with social networks –  and if there is only one point i make today, it is bringing together a couple of points I have been making recently:

I think often we think ” value add ” and “value proposition” is the same thing.

What I have learned is that you need one key ” value proposition” and if you can put it in one sentence, even better. Then you focus the “value add” in terms of tools to make the key function of your value proposition an unforgettable experience.

Like my favourite snap today – via – MASHABLE

Name: Radbox

Quick Pitch: Bookmark movies as you browse the web; view them all at Radbox when you have time.

Genius Idea: People watch 2 billion videos every day on YouTube alone. Most television shows post their content or clips online, just about every major newspapers has video content, and people are increasingly linking to video content in their e-mails, tweets, and Facebook posts. The problem is that most people (at least those with full-time jobs) don’t have time to watch the interesting videos they stumble across during the day.Sites like Instapaper and Read it Later helped solved this problem for online articles by allowing users to collect them for reading later. Radbox has applied the same solution to video – Source: http://mashable.com/2010/11/09/radbox/

Just Genius, and not long after this rather ecstatic discovery I found this new feature on Facebook –

A view your friendship with combination of everything and anything related to you and your friendship. And this is my second point – sometimes i think we forget to think about what happens 12months down the line – when your combination of information, links, images, videos any content becomes soooo much that you are over loaded, overwhelmed and thinking about shutting it all down! Here facebook took the information overload, and turned it into a “memorabilia” display of your friendship. Still focusing on one key value proposition ” friends” – but utilizing technology and web tools to make the experience better.

And this is ofcourse where the semantic web comes in, where we try and make sense of all the trillions of gigs of data hosted on the world wide web. We try and make it relevant. We try and make it feel good. We develop to make peoples lives better.

I think i will end this post now, but to summarize and snap this is the jist of it:

1.  MOBILE SHOPPING – you are going to love it.

2. DEVELOP TOOLS THAT – make my life better

3. 1 key VALUE PROPOSITION  –  plenty of value added features, tools, viewers, customization, real time notifications, location based features, social web, games, rewards, badges, etc

4. Make it SOCIAL – social networks is a no brainer. The Next Web – brilliant example of social integration – use this tool: http://www.apture.com/

5. PLAN FOR THE FUTURE – think about what happens when you information, data and people grow and how you are going to help people make sense of the web of things – Research – web.30 and the Semantic Web!

And one last point

6. MAKE IT LOOK GOOD< there is a reason why FASHION is a multi billion dollar industry – everyone likes beautiful things 🙂