New BFFs: To Help Personalize Its Gift-Shopping Process, Amazon Partners with Facebook to Recommend the Best Products for Shoppers By Referencing Their Facebook Profiles
A new service from the team of Amazon and Facebook can help shoppers find just the right gift for their Facebook friends —it recommends the best products for shoppers by peeking at their beneficiaries' Facebook profiles. Launched as a beta this week, the new opt-in service will suggest gifts for "friends" by checking out their favorite movies, music, books and other items derived from their Facebook accounts. The page also displays a list of friends with upcoming birthdays so you know who to put on your immediate shopping list.
And don't worry — if you're in the mood to buy something for yourself, Amazon also looks at your own Facebook profile to suggest products that might interest you. You can try out the service by browsing to Amazon's recommendations page where you'll see the "Tap into Your Facebook Network" pane on the right. Click on the Sign in and Connect button. After you confirm your Amazon credentials, a window pops up describing the service and asking you to connect with Facebook, CNET News.com reports.
A Facebook page warns you what content you'll be sharing with Amazon, including your basic profile information, your friends' lists, and your friends' profile information. If you opt in, Amazon then fills the recommendations page with products popular among your Facebook friends and items you may want to buy for yourself based on your own interests, reports CNET writer Lance Whitney on a network blog.
BurrellesLuce's Johna Burke interviews Ed Mackey, VP of communications for Goodyear, and Geoff Phelps, VP at Coyne PR, who discuss targeting influencers — and how to work with traditional and social media.
