In advance of this event, I’ll be spending time researching relevant case examples. What could be more fun than marrying two topics I love: Technology and shopping?!

So how are companies using social technologies to improve the customer shopping experience? Here are 7 examples I’ve found recently:

1. Recommendations, Reviews, and Ratings

Recommendations, Reviews, and Ratings are standard for any e-commerce site.  But using our social log-ins to access friend recommendations makes this information more powerful. Imagine shopping for a laptop at a Best Buy store, using one of the display computers to read reviews on a particular model, then filtering and finding a friend’s review. Next step: Call your friend for more information. Powerful.

Example: TurboTax’s microsite friendslikeyou.com relies on Gigya’s social brokering technology to allow customers and prospects to log in using their Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter IDs and search for product reviews by  friends. Below, the site is scanning its database for my Twitter contacts.  It turns out none of my friends have written a review, so TurboTax refers me to complete a short questionnaire so it can find reviews by “people like me.”

2. Facebook Likes

The Facebook Like button is similar to recommendations, reviews, and ratings, in that its a form of social proof. I’m identifying it separately because it has the potential for much greater reach. Liking a product or brand is an extremely lightweight activity, lending itself to greater usage. And, every Like publishes to an average of 130 friends’ news feed, igniting word of mouth through layers of extended networks.

Example: Levi’s shoppers can Like any item and add a comment when it publishes to their news feed.

3. Wish Lists

Having a public wish list is like having a wedding registry, except year round. Imagine signing up for a public wish list on your favorite retail site, say Powell’s or DSW, and publishing this on a Facebook app for all your friend’s to see. You’ll never have to exchange a birthday gift again! I haven’t seen such an app yet, but here’s the public wish list feature from Urban Outfitters.

Example: Urban Outfitters shoppers create public wish lists and share these with their friends, as well as search for their friends’ wishlists.

4. Group Buying

When Groupon first launched, I’d send deals to all my friends to make sure there’d be enough people buying the deals. The idea was that a minimum number of purchases were required for the deal to “tip”,” usually at least a couple hundred. These days, that doesn’t ever seem to be a problem – at least in San Francisco – as Groupon has become wildly successful. It’s a great business model which offers a triple win for Groupon, local business, and consumers. Naturally, Groupon has spawned imitators like LivingSocial, SocialBuy, Poggled – and now Yipit is aggregating them all.

Example: Group buying and a-deal-a-day rolled into one with Groupon. It’s also added Facebook Connect so you can share, purchase, and experience Groupon deals with friends.

5. Purchase History

Remember when Facebook launched their Beacon social advertising program? Seems like they still haven’t learned to let users opt in, not opt out. Blippy is like Beacon without being jammed down your throat. Shoppers opt in and share their purchase history with friends, or publicly. Public purchase histories have the same social impact as friend recommendations and reviews. Imagine iTunes having a purchase history pane within its application window. What a great way to discover, and buy, new music.

Example: Blippy users share what they’ve purchased, for how much, and where.

6. Loyalty Check-Ins

Foursquare is picking up a lot of steam, though I admit I’m not one of their early adopters. My circle of friends tends to loathe the habit of checking smartphones during dinner. For those without this problem, checking in to a favorite cafe, bar, restaurant, etc. means potentially being recognized with reward points. Businesses can learn more about their customers, identify and reward customer advocates, and promote word of mouth. Location based services (LBS) include Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite, Google Latitude, Yelp, and possibly Facebook later.

Example: First, Starbucks teamed up with Foursquare to offer Barista badges and discounts to Starbucks “mayors.” Now, The Standard Hotel has reportedly launched a campaign to offer reward points to people who check in at their hotels via Topguest.

Photo credit: johnhaydon

7. Real-time co-shopping

Finally, here’s an example Charlene Li tweeted about yesterday. Mattel is using Decision Step’s ShopTogether technology on its  e-commerce site Shop.Mattel.com. Two or more customers can browse and chat together, making shopping decisions in real time. Charlotte Russe has been using ShopTogether for years to help teens co-shop for prom dresses.

Example: On Shop.Mattel.com, customers can invite their friends or family to shop together, browsing and chatting with each other in real time.

Of course there are more examples of how e-commerce sites are using social technologies to improve the shopping experience. I’ll follow up again with more examples in a later post. In the meantime, please feel free to share examples you’ve spotted.

I’m loving the idea of geolocation, and can’t wait until it becomes more widely accepted. Geolocation, or location based services (LBS), is the “identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other” (Wikipedia).

It’s already available on our mobile apps, for example, Yelp or Google Maps. You log on, your device asks you if it can use your current location, and you’re off – to (in theory) discover new and cool things in the nearby world around you.

What’s cooler than such basic uses of geolocation, is geolocation for social networking. For instance, if you’re using a location-enabled device, tool, or service, you can opt in to notify your social network of your current location. Google Latitude offers continuous location sharing, which allows you to connect with friends who happen to be nearby. Foursquare uses a “check-in” model instead, which may be easier for new users to stomach. Twitter and WordPress are announcing geolocation tools as well. Here’s a neat article on ReadWriteWeb about how geolocation improves Twitter.  And check out Twitter 360, a new Twitter client that really takes it to the extreme by integrating augmented reality and geotagging. Turn on your iPhone camera and see arrows indicating who is Tweeting near you. It’s just a matter of time before Facebook rolls out a more prominent, though probably less invasive, role for location too.

Honestly, I can’t wait for geolocation to become more mainstream. It may be intimidating now and remain an opt-in service for the next few years. But I anticipate that geolocation will become opt-out within 5 years, meaning that most services will set geolocation on by default. It’s the next step towards making our social networks really social. Location gives us another layer of context – a very valuable one. Just think about Facebook status updates posted by local friends or Tweets from Twitterers in the area – much more relevant.

When this happens, you’ll be able to log on to Facebook and see where your friends are posting from and how they’re moving around. Right now, I’m in Southern California for a week visiting family. On my flight down, I was scratching my head trying to remember people in the area I’d want to connect with. That doesn’t even account for the people who happen to be in town on a visit, and obviously not think to let me know.

I’ve loved Facebook ever since I first joined, because it gave me a way to stay in touch with friends who live far away. I’ve been looking forward to the day when I can say, “Hey Jennifer, I’m in Seattle finally. Let’s meet up!.” But how much more compelling will Facebook be when I can see on my news feed that Jennifer posted an update from New York City, where I happen to be for a weekend conference?

It’s a great feature for friends and family, a little less so for our wider social networks. But on Facebook, geolocation integrates well – our closest friends and family are on it, we’ve created different profiles, and we’ve set privacy controls.  That’s why geolocation will be Facebook’s “killer app.”