Social shopping sites in the New York Times: “They are as much about personal taste and online conversation as they are about buying itself, although no products are sold on the sites. They are also more elaborately designed, functional and interactive than regular chat rooms. Visitors can read about what’s popular and what’s hip in often surprisingly bright prose written by the visitors themselves. They can get ideas for their Christmas shopping lists, and store that information as bookmarks. They can find links to interesting, distinctive products they wouldn’t find in most storefronts. And they can become members and contributors, posting pictures and comments to describe themselves and the clothes, makeup, shoes, bags, electronics, games, movies and even dolls they think are worth a look.”

What it means: this “shopping list” of functionalities (no pun intended!) would fit well within any local search sites . Sites mentioned in the article include ThisNext.com, Stylehive.com, StyleFeeder.com and Crowdstorm.com.

User-generated content revenue sharing on ZDnet’s blog: “The overwhelming majority of video enthusiasts uploading content to Revver with expectations of fortune, however, will undoubtedly be disappointed. The advertiser-centric reality of Revver’s business model, coupled with its Pay Per Ad Click pricing model, yields little “action” for the typical amateur video fare.”

What it means: there’s still a lot of debate around the merits of paying users for user-generated content. And if you’re the creator stuck in the long tail, you might not get much out of it.