Earlier this week a new platform, Snoox, launched itself onto the seemingly over-saturated social utility scene. With an appearance very similar to that of its successor, Pinterest, Snoox is a visual recommendation site that enables users to share the things they love with the people they trust the most-their friends.
Unlike Pinterest, Snoox users only connect with people they know, rather than complete strangers. Similar to Pinterest, the US based start-up gets users to log in via Facebook before they can start building pages under topic headings such as Food, Hotels, Fashion etc. Under these umbrella topics users can then start to recommend brands or individual products. Additionally, Snoox aims to monetise on user recommendations by including a ‘$’ symbol on certain items to encourage click-through sales.
It’s an interesting idea-on a daily basis we tend to make decisions based on peer-to-peer advice concerning what to eat, where to go and which clothes to wear. More and more consumers are relying on friendly recommendations rather than seeking advice from experts or established institutions in order to make the correct purchase decisions. Snoox essentially compiles all this information online, in an attractive image-based format.
Initial reactions to Snoox have been largely mixed. Some have called it ‘Pinterest with a purpose’ crediting the fact users will usually only post valuable content due to the responsibility of sharing a personal recommendation. Others have yet to see anything outstanding about Snoox and believe the real challenge is getting people to start using the site in the first place. Paul Sawers, apps and media editor at The Next Web, sees huge potential in the revenue generating click-to-buy feature but understands its success is entirely dependent on users convincing all their friends to start using the Snoox platform too.
Here at Diffusion, we were quickly enamoured with Snoox’s emphasis on personal, written recommendations and found it to be a much more user-friendly and attractive recommendation platform than the likes of Amazon and TripAdvisor. Yet we can’t help but wonder if our Snoox fling will stand the test of time beyond this first crucial week. As avid tweeters, pinners, LinkedIn lovers and Facebook fanatics-is Snoox one platform too many? Not to mention the whole concept is relying on the rather big assumption that just because your friend likes something-you will too. It certainly will be interesting to see if Snoox can match Pinterest’s rapid rise to the social media hall of fame. Watch this space.
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The post Can Snoox really emulate Pinterest’s success? appeared first on Diffusion Connect Blog.
