Facebook Connect Social Shopping
We’ve been looking at various forms of social shopping for a while at Optaros, including the leverage of technologies like Facebook Connect in the context of ecommerce.
Why should shopping online be a solitary activity between a shopper and a site, when shopping in the real world is so eminently social?
This week a Magento extension developed at Optaros was finally released to the Magento community: Facebook Connect Social Shopping. (We’d been calling it Fangento, based on an early “Fans” concept plus Magento, but I like the official name better).
Essentially the extension allows you to leverage Facebook Connect in the context of your Magento-based eCommerce experience. Specifically, users can use their Facebook social graph to ask friends for (and recieve) recommendations about products:
Facebook Connect in a Magento context: Product recommendations from friends
From the overview blurb:
Facebook Connect Social Shopping (FCSS) provides your site visitors the ability to connect with their Facebook friends without leaving your ecommerce store. They can recommend to their friends a purchase that they are making or ask advice to choose between items to purchase. This will increase conversion rates on your site as well as pull in free traffic from Facebook through a direct contact from one of their friends – turning Facebook into a free, word-of-mouth affiliate. If friends are online on Facebook the interaction can be real-time.
I think the most intriguing part is the real-time possibilities – if your friends are actually online in Facebook you can ask them their opinion in real-time – essentially embedding a kind of Facebook chat into the shopping experience.
Can’t wait to see what experiences people (including Optaros teams but also others) build on top of this!
Tags: Assembled Web, Facebook, Facebook Connect, Fangento, Magento, optaros, Recommendations, Social Graph, social shopping
October 1st, 2009 at 12:13 pm
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Magento Connect – [link to post]
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October 1st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
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Magento Connect: Facebook based social shopping 4 Magento sites, built by @optaros released as open source [link to post] (via@jeckman)
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October 1st, 2009 at 2:44 pm
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Curious how to use #Magento for social shopping in #Facebook? Magento Connect – [link to post]
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October 2nd, 2009 at 2:18 am
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RT @jeckman: Magento Connect – Facebook Connect based social shopping for Magento sites, built by @optaros [link to post]
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October 2nd, 2009 at 6:35 am
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RT @hanimic: Magento Connect – Facebook Connect based social shopping for Magento sites, built by @optaros open source [link to post]
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January 14th, 2010 at 5:32 am
[...] Facebook Connect – Addon zur Facebook Anbindung [...]
February 28th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Love the concept
Having a little difficulty getting it to work though :( Not sure what I’m missing..
Am I required to use the Modern template in order for it to function? I am using a custom template, which is quite similar to Modern anyway. My assumption is that the reason for utilizing the Modern template is only due to aesthetic fit (pls correct me if I’m wrong!)
I’ve downloaded Version 0.1.3 and followed the instructions as per the Magento site. Copied relevant “fangento” files into my current template (layout, template, css, & images folders). No issues with configuration ie API Key & App Secret
Would be great if you could give me in the right direction..
Many thanks :)
February 28th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Oh nevermind, it was working.. just I hadn’t viewed any products so wasn’t showing up! Silly me