Can’t decide what to give your friends this holiday? No worries. There’s now an app for that. It’s Walmart’s ShopyCat. ShopyCat is a Facebook app that can track people’s online activities and make gift recommendations. No more having to drop hints. Thank you, brave new world!
For this to be effective, users must consent to having their data mined, which means the cyber-shy and the very private may get a lump of coal in their stocking. One of the possible upsides to this new technology is that it will likely incentivize Facebook users to post more and “like” more. Or “like” less. Who wants to risk getting a fondue set just because they “liked” Strictly Fondue’s Facebook page.
Of course, Walmart isn’t the only online retailer using Social Media to stimulate sales. The online giant, Etsy has also launched an app quite similar to Shopycat. Plus, in addition to these clever shopping list apps, there are entire websites like GiveEmThis.com dedicated to matching your list of friends with gift ideas. GiveEmThis monitors both Facebook “likes” and Twitter activity to give you an educated guess on what your friend might want for Christmas.
This new trend is just another example of how advertising agencies and their clients can leverage Social Media to make cash registers jingle their bells. These apps and websites are just the logical progression of the growing practice of doing holiday shopping online. A phenomenon that is conspicuous from Denmark to Dallas.
How accurately can these new cyber tools match gifts to willing Social Media users? Good question. Maybe Walmart will come up with an app to help us return all of those mismatched gifts.
