Stylehive is Looking Good
Michael Arrington
35 comments »
Stylehive is a social bookmarking site that is focused on shopping. I believe that there is promise in this space, which includes the just funded Kaboodle, as well as Wists and the upcoming Plum. Why? Because 80% of online shopping is “research” and only 20% is actually “buying”. Stylehive addresses the 80% piece of the market.
Stylehive, designed by Emily Chang and Max Kiesler at Ideacodes, is also a visually stunning site - just check out the home page. They are focusing specifically on hot designs and trends.
The key differences between Stylehive and a normal bookmarking engine is the attention to different types of metadata (descriptive tags, prices, etc.), and the focus on images. When you use the Stylehive bookmarklet to bookmark a page, the images are automatically included as well for inclusion.
New functionality is rolling out regularly, including a commenting feature on all bookmarks yesterday. The company was founed by CEO Michael Carrier and is based in San Francisco.
Huge fan of Emily Chang. Her work is always top class. My wife is going to go crazy. It would be great if they actually focused on creating/acquiring technology like PriceHeat to allow pricing comparisons (so when you come back to a bookmark, you can find the best price).
I’m going to assume(hope?) the use of “visually stunning” was sarcasm.
This is definitely a big need though I am not sure if stylehive is aiming to address generic shopping research. It seems to focus more on community bookmarking of stylish products/designs than just shopping research. This is definitely an interesting segment - if the listings showed a price range it would be helpful to consider the value of the product understanding the price point.
Rich, the site is simple to navigate and easy to find what you’re looking for. Just because it’s not flashy, doesn’t mean it isn’t visually stunning. It’s UI does what it is supposed to do… and very well. I concur with Michael on this.
You have got to give the Stylehive bookmarklet a shot. It is pretty slick!
Why is their site so slow? I like the Kaboodle UI a lot better, everything on StyleHive seems to be in large font, is this the new trend in website design?
Looks like this space is getting very crowded. Goodluck to folks at StyleHive.
Stylehive excites me, mostly because I’m a shopping addict but also because so much of Rogue Connect focuses on fashion (well, our next major update will anyway).
What I’d really love to see from Stylehive is an API!
What about Yub.com?
http://www.yub.com
Buy.com bought this a while back… I forgot the original name for it.
Apparently Emily didn’t read Fred of WeBreakStuff’s post regarding the use of the color red.
Apparently she didn’t read WeBreakStuff’s post regarding the use of the color red.
A visually stunning site? Wow, I find their layout to be really clunky. The orange and the green, the oversized everything and the square boxes just don’t work for me personally.
I know it’s in alpha (the new beta?), but shouldn’t they at least have alt attributes on their images and generally write valid HTML?
The trouble with too many 2.0 startups is, in the rush to market, the collective wisdom of standards and accessibility has been thrown aside.
Yeah not visually stunning at all. I mean its your blog and you can say what you want and all… but it aint visually stunning!
Can’t wait till the site actually gets some usage. Having 1 or 2 people save bookmarks and the same 9 people contributing shows the site doesn’t have much to offer. Me thinks that StyleHive has no stickiness and can’t retain anyone except for the people that are working on the site and their friends. BTW, you really ought to offer some innovation rather than the “me-too” typical web 2.0 features such as tag clouds and social bookmarking, fonts to help the blind and the like. Web 2.0 sites should not just be about imitating the status quo, but should also have some innovation somewhere in the site.
StyleHive is exactly what it purports to be. It is about fashion, fads and the latest in “trendiness”. I like that anyone can post their products and I like that look and feel of the screens. I like the “hive” concept as well. What I don’t like about it, is the difficulty in adding your ideas. I have to go through too many screens. Also, I am getting no sense of price or what is the the best price for given items. I am a beta tester for cheapr.com and what I like about that site is that it emphasises users entering products, dialog among users (social) and getting the best deal.
this site looks like crap. sorry, emily chang whoever the heck you are, but you need to learn to not design like you’re making a fisher price instruction booklet.
shut the site and move on. it sucks.
I am going to assume that Arrington is saying the site is good because he is most likely friends with Michael Carrier or Emily Chang, and not because the site is visually appealing because it’s not. This weblog subject has the foul stench of nepotism.
The idea is pretty interesting. Fads are fickle, styles change and the websites that cater to it have to work hard to keep up. Getting community input is a great way to do this.
Like some of the previous posters I feel like the layout detracts from the overall idea (too many pics, too little associated content,unnecessary duplicates take up way too much space etc)
BTW thanks for the cheapr.com linkage Carlos.
Too true Mike. Stick a fork in both this post and stylehive, they both reek.
visually stunning? i guess that’s one way to put it. kinda like our POTUS is quite stunning, too.
the problem w/ stylehive, cheapr, wists, and all these “community shopping” sites is that they get spammed by bastards w/ affiliate accounts. There’s nothing interesting on the stylehive site…just a punch of crappy looking furniture and clothes that some bastard spammer added.
if myspace is the cesspool of online community then stylehive is the cesspool of shopping.
ouch!
i am probably one of the only women posting my comment here, so given I am the target audience, i just want to say that this is the best shopping website ever.
Stylehive is slow, thats for sure, but its the beste social shopping website fo now
Unlike other prescription drugs, the only other effective method of treatment for ED, ProVIGRAX has absolutely no side-effects, is safe for use by everyone and has no short term or long-term disadvantages from continual usage. sudden erectile dysfunction
ERR s