In the same way that flickr and YouTube provide a photo and video layer in a blogger’s identity, ThisNext’s shopcasting tools enable the easy creation and syndication of a blogger’s product-recommendation layer.

ThisNext shopcasts let tastemakers/bloggers who are super-passionate about products spread the word in a way that benefits the blogger while enriching the community. Bloggers benefit by being more discoverable and by syndicating their taste/insight to new users, as well as providing additional content to existing users. (Bloggers are also able to insert their own affiliate links and keep 100% of any revenues generated on a user-session initiated on their shopcast list.)

Users benefit by being able to discover and ask relevant tastemakers “what do you use?” We all pose this question everyday to friends and trusted sources to help us discover new products, whether it is about tech, food, parenting, sports, whatever.

But, in today’s active/directed search world where you pretty much need to know what you want to find in advance of a search, product discovery is very difficult. ThisNext’s discovery algorithms help surface products you may have never known about but that will be of interest to you based on what your favorite bloggers like and what has interested you in the past.

IOW, we are both celebrating the individual tastemakers while harnessing the collective wisdom of crowds to help people find products that really fit their lifestyle.

except in this case, it’s the influencer who benefits, not just the network

jason and gordon go way back … to the early days of The Silicon Alley Reporter