Kelly Mooney's blog about the online shopping experience from the customer's point of view -- MooneyThinks.com

Personalized Gift Registry Makes for Inspired Shopping

As we move into wedding season, I find myself faced with many of the same efficient-but-sterile wedding registry sites. While I truly appreciate that they're typically smooth shopping experiences, most don't endear me to the brand--or the couple for that matter. That's why I was so delighted to get a more personalized Alternative Gift Registry this week.

Sponsored by the Center for the New American Dream, the mission of the alternative registry is to focus on gifts that emphasize "the bond you share" with the couple versus just spending a lot of money. For example, gifts on the registry I received included:

• your old books or board games
• grocery store gift cards
• fridge magnets
• your favorite music
• no more junk mail (which links to an organization you can pay to stop your junk mail)
• plus a number of traditional gift registry items (not surprisingly they are earth-friendly products)

While this socially conscious angle is definitely intriguing, what I found even more compelling (as a wedding guest), is that the registry has a "Description" column, where the couple can add all kinds of details to help explain either what the gift is or why they want it. This single area adds to the wedding guest experience--especially if you've ever attended nuptials for a friend and don't know the spouse-to-be very well, or, frankly, don't know the couple very well. Moreover, with the age of the bride and groom rising with time (one of my 6 sisters just turned 50 and got married for the first time!), most already have glasses from Crate and Barrel or mixing bowls from Williams-Sonoma. Besides, given the state of the economy and world affairs, many couples are asking themselves, "Do we really need more stuff?"

If nothing else, I have a lot more unique ideas, not to mention,  conversation starters for people I meet at their wedding.

VS PINK Winning Facebook Popularity Contest

In what he described as a quick audit of Facebook Pages, blogger radical trust cited our client, Victoria's Secret PINK, as the most popular brand on Facebook, with 384,177 fans. (At the time of his audit, PINK was number 3 in terms of all Facebook Pages, behind Barack Obama and Chris Moyles.)

Through its Facebook Page, PINK excels at all four quadrants of our O.P.E.N. framework, creating an experience that makes it easy for PINK fans to get closer to the brand they love (On-demand), gives them a sense of belonging (Personal), entertains them with digital goodies (Engaging) and, of course, connects them with other fans (Networked).

While the experience has cool perks, like a Flash feature to get fans' attention at the top, and a mobile opt-in they can do right from the Facebook Page, PINK is popular because it's impressively relevant to young women in the collegiate set. PINK has radical appeal because it's focused on getting its merchandising right--and creating a center of gravity online and  off.

Joel Did It Again!

I am not botching lyrics to a Britney tune with that title, I'm admiring RI friend, Joel Levinson, the icitizen that performed at our client symposium by singing a song he prepared just for us, "Thanks to the Internet" -- highlighting his various Internet victories. Take for example, his winning video as Cupman and the "work" he did for paid sponsor, Planet Smoothie when he trekked across country. Or if you're a Nature Valley fan, you might appreciate this attempt to push the granola. Didn't move you? How about this winning entry for Fairvote.org? Not full yet? How about the blue ribbon for the Beef Council? Personally, I could never shill for Best Western, but that hasn't stopped Joel. Check it out. And, if you have a sense of humor, you might find this one worth viewing. And, then there's the Delta home run that earned him a boatload of corporate freebies but I can't link yo uto the videos because they've been pulled down. But, by now, you've gotten the point that there's a whole new  profession emerging online. I think they should make a game show of it. Maybe call it, "I wanna be a web celeb." Joel can be the host with a winning resume that contestants can only dream about.

Foodies Get Savory Content on Foodbuzz

A colleague passed along another niche community site--Foodbuzz. My husband is much more the foodie than I am (he cooks, I eat) but I've had a lot of fun playing around on the site. Foodbuzz makes it easy for you to find other people with food interests like yours, and it also serves up geographically relevant info--foodies near you, ratings and reviews of restaurants in your area.

The site covers just about everything I can think of related to food--recipes, restaurants, photos of food, blogs about food, videos about preparing food, forums about food, news about food---you get the idea. And of course, in true community site fashion, the site is highly networked--members can review, comment, quote, share, save and vote on content, and connect with other foodies.

I love how the site is both functionally intuitive--it doesn't try and reinvent what's working on other community sites--and creatively unique. The idea itself pulls together two content areas that are often separate--recipes and restaurants. Foodbuzz realizes that foodies want them both, together. I also enjoy the little nuances it adds to traditional convention, like instead of offering you the option to "browse," it lets you "graze." Now, if these foodies could simply make the meal appear, that would be something.

CBS Sports Store Breaks Championship News

In this information age, we have so many different ways to get the news, but last night was the first time I got it first from a retailer.

I wasn't home in time to catch the Lakers/Celtics game (and DVRing a big sports game just isn't the same for me), so I jumped online a little before midnight when this email came in from the CBS Sports Store with the subject line: Boston Celtics 2008 NBA Championship gear. (And of course I know CBS itself is a media outlet, but this email was about selling stuff, not communicating information.)

So, congratulations to the Celtics, of course, but also to the CBS Sports Store for being prepared, proactive and on-demand by cutting to the chase quickly--true sports fans don't need the news, just a way to celebrate when their team wins. Cha-ching.

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The Girl Effect is Still Affecting Me

My colleague passed this link onto me last week and it stopped me in my tracks. It stayed with me all weekend and now I'm still thinking about it. Emotionally engaging.

I'm sure it wasn't written by committee. And the budget was probably tragically low. But the message and the graphics, together, have inspired me in a big way. You?

Find the Color of Your Inspiration

Are you a home remodeler? Or, maybe compelled to fix up your place and stay put while the home market is in flux? Personally, I love to paint. It relaxes me and I find it amazing what a can of paint can do to spice up a room. But, it's often hard to choose the right color or to get inspired by simply standing in front of a sea of paint swatches.

So, we teamed up with Sherwin-Williams to make inspiration the easiest part of your project. Check it out -- The Color of Inspiration. The idea is to create color palettes from fav photos that inspire you. You can browse the gallery or upload yourr own and Sherwin-Williams will  instantly reveall which colors from its paint palette match your photo. You can also add comments, tags, or forward to a friend (or spouse/partner you're negotiating with for color over beige!), and of course, then save it to the site or print it out to take it to the store for a fast and easy transaction. No more guessing! C'mon...what's stopping you? Upload your dreamiest vacation pic and get one step closer to that sea blue bedroom you've been dreaming of.

Too Many Planes But, Hey, It's Ze Frank!

I've been remiss in posting much lately.  Mainly, I've been traveling a bunch and spending my spare time at my kids' softball and baseball games. Although it's been nearly 2 weeks, I have to give overdue kudos to the Brett Hurt and his team at BazaarVoice for putting on a killer conference on social commerce in Austin. They had a stellar line up speakers including Ed Keller, Josh Bernoff, Andy Sernovitz, Bryan Eisenberg, just to name a few. I shared Strategies for Opening Your Brand but the highlight for me, personally, was interviewing Ze Frank on stage. He did a 15 minute stand up routine that showcased his rise of web celebrity status by getting people to make earth sandwiches, dress up their vacuum cleaners, pass along inane jokes and games. His list of projects is long, silly, and impressive. Check out ColorWars 2008. Anyway, our discussion was intended to help retailers learn and apply his lessons for building a community -- commitment, transparency, and humor. Speaking of funny, the BazaarVoice exces left everyone laughing with their must-see homemade video.

Explore the Tag Galaxy

For as many times as I see the word "explore" used as a call-to-action online, I have to say it's often an over-estimation of the available experience. But here's a site that is both engaging and networked and begs to be explored!

Checkout Tag Galaxy. It's a thesis project from a student at a university in Germany, created using Papervision3D and Flickr API. Type in a subject and it pulls images tagged (I assume, I don't actually see the tags) with that topic.

What I love is the playfulness of the experience. Use your mouse to spin the globe and look for an image that catches your eye. Click on it to see it up close.

What an inspirational technique that could be used so many different ways! (Imagine a tag galaxy for shoe shopping...or any topic you're passionate about!)

Honey Bees and Haagen Dazs -- What's Up With That?

Have you heard about the honey bee crisis? To tell you the truth,  I never used to be a fan.  I used to be quite afraid of bees. But, whether they're giving us honey or painful stings, their cause has quickly worked its way onto my radar and, gulp, into my heart. It started off with my neighbor,  Markus, who decided to become the neighborhood beekeeper. Imagine, tens of thousands of beens in a relatively small, wooden box just across the street from my house. Yikes. I had to learn more! After a few cold beers on numerous spring evenings, he has enlightened me about the plight of this insect and why we should care.

Maybe that's why I tuned into the scattering of media buzz and helpthehoneybees.com, a site sponsored by Haagen Dazs. You'll find a nice combination of knowledge, inspiration and opportunity to get involved.

To be honest, knowledge and opportunity are table stakes. What Haagen Dazs has done is bring the incredibly important, but often overlooked element of inspiration (or call it creativity, fun, engagement, motivation...) to the experience.

On site you can learn about bees, what they do, what threatens them, why Haagen Dasz cares and what it's doing, plus you can buy funky bee T's, learn things you can do on your own to help them (like planting bee-friendly flowers) or send Bee-Mail. May not sound like breakthrough innovation, but how fun (and fast and easy) was it to make my little (sting-free) Bee friend (above) and send her on to a friend?!