Sexy Widget

RIP Martin

I have long complained that there were not enough people in industry who could cross over from the idea and venture fueled world of Silicon Valley, to the bare knuckles, scrape for every dollar world of SEM / SEO.  Both sides, I reasoned, had a lot to learn from each other. 

My SEO friends could learn about sustainability, and building sites that people actually like to use.

My Silicon Valley friends could learn that eventually, you have to pay the bills, and that AJAX and pastel colors will only get you so far.

I've met a handful of folks that cross over between these two worlds, and that appreciate the value that both bring:

JoeDuck
Rand Fishkin
Stuntdubl
Chris Tolles (who also wrote the definitive post on the rift between these worlds)
Aris Vlasakakis
Roger Dooley
and there's more who I don't know personally (Brian Provost and Steve Poland come to mind)

And then there was Martin.

Martin sought me out a couple of years ago on Brett Tabke's recommendation to try and get me to move to LA to work on some project he was invested in. 

The dude was crazy.  All energy and ideas.  Before I knew it, I was actually thinking about going down to LA, despite the fact that I was completely locked into another project.

And just like that, I was part of Martin's network.  He'd hit me up for intros, and I'd do the same from him.  He would try and sell me dodgy domains, and I would politely decline.

I've never seen a networker like him.  But it wasn't networking in the sleazy, car salesman way.  It was networking in the high energy, we're going to make this happen, everybody wins kind of way.  And it didn't matter if he was interacting with blue chip VCs, or with black hat SEOs - Martin was going to shake things up.

I didn't know Martin well at all.  No doubt his network included way more people like me, than mine included people like him.

But he was special.  And he was 23.  And there's no fucking way he should be gone now.

see memories of Martin here, here, here, here.

The Rise of the Distributed Store: CafePress vs. Zazzle

For folks looking for an easy way to design, produce, and sell products like t-shirts, caps, and stickers, there are really only two games in town; Zazzle and CafePress.

With CafePress' recent announcement of their partnership with distributed shopping service Sellit, both companies are now offering embeddable stores that can extend a merchant's presence across a broad a variety of social media sites.

The argument for distributed shopping is pretty simple.  The more distribution a merchant can gain for their wares, the more they will sell.  The promise of embeddable stores is to move beyond simply distributing an advertising message, and actually present the products for sale on multiple sites.

Because widget powered shopping is such a compelling proposition, we've seen quite a few companies try and tackle an aspect or two:

- The now defunct Edgeio tried a distributed content selling network that was designed to help publishers sell content
- Seattle based startup MPire experimented with a widget powered affiliate ad network, a concept that would later morph into Widgetbucks
- Companies like Kaboodle (my analysis), ThisNext (my analysis ), CrowdStorm, MyPickList, Wists, Stylehive, and GiftTagging (my analysis ) all tackled or are tackling a widget powered social shopping angle - helping people recommend products to their friends
- And then there's Adgregate Markets (my analysis), who went all in on distributed shopping and actually allows in widget credit card submission

There have been some mild successes among this group - Kaboodle was acquired by Hearst Media for $40M or so, and Widgetbucks has achieved decent traction.

But I haven't seen a distributed shopping service break into the mainstream yet.  To date it has mostly been start-ups chipping away at the edges, no pun intended.

CafePress and Zazzle bring something different to the table.  Because they both own thriving commerce businesses made up of millions of merchants with a vested interest in increasing their own reach, there is now more muscle behind the effort to push commerce out to the edge.

Let's take a look at the embeddable stores from each:

Zazzle offers both JavaScript and Flash embeddable "panels" that display your products wherever you choose to embed them. 

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Interestingly (and I think confusingly), the Panels seem to be marketed more to affiliate marketers trying to make money from Zazzle than the merchants themselves.  For a merchant to set up a panel for their own products, they first have to search for their own account.  It's clunky.

The panel (widget) itself is attractive, and allows viewers to zoom in on products and check out the product details from within the body of hte widget.  To do anything else (get embed code, rate, comment, and buy) you have to click back to Zazzle.com.

CafePress implementation is powered by distributed commerce provider Sellit (formerly known as Cartfly (my review)) and is a Flash widget.

The primary difference between Sellit / CafePress' execution and Zazzle's is that Sellit / CafePress provides two different views (product grid and full widget), and offers the embed code within the body of the widget.  Like Zazzle, you have to go back to CafePress to purchase the product.

I've been following distributed commerce for a while now, and this is the first time I've felt that we may be seeing some headway into the mainstream.  Cross your fingers.