Crowdstorm, social shopping

Crowdstorm is where you make better informed purchase decisions based on the crowd’s advice and recomendations. Your crowd includes the most trusted and knowledgeable people on the web – giving you advice on what to buy

First things first. To put the words social and shopping in the same sentence is a no-no as far as I am concerned! With (very) few exceptions shopping is a chore that has to be endured, a means to an end, a – you get the picture.

That said, the concept of a web site where you ask for and obtain the opinion of your trusted ‘crowd’ is pretty cool as concepts go. Currently offering the opportunity to apply to be part of the beta, Crowdstorm has 7 months behind them, so they should be driven by a detailed and thorough database of product information.

As far as I can gather there are three components to the service:

• Expert Reviews: Aggregated from a vast range of professional sites and blogs across the web.
• Knowledge & Trust: A powerful algorithm measures user knowledge and trust between people, processing thousands of calculations every minute.
• Ask the Crowd: Submit a personalized question to a unique chosen crowd of experts and trusted advisors who can help you.

It is this last point that intrigues me most and makes me think this may be a success. Your thoughts?

Via [Crowdstorm]