New OblinQ is Here

We are happy to announce the beta launch of our new look.
There is lot more functionality now and the navigation has been streamlined to make it more intuitive. We know we are not there yet. Hence we need your feedback to improve upon this even more.
We dont want to talk about all the new features but instead want to leave it for you to discover them all by yourself. This will tell us if the new design is effective.

So go ahead and have fun.
Nothing's is stopping you from Window Shopping. Not even this economy.

We have been working hard

We have not been timely in updating our blog, but the reason is we have been busy working on some cool stuff around Social Recommendations.

The beta is now just out.

Starting today, you can get recommendations from friends and make recommendations to them. We want to complete the "inbound" and "outbound" cycle of recommendations, so that our community/social circle gets fully involved.

And we achieved this through a unique concept of shared-bookmarking, where you can share some categories of your showcase with your friends in the form of a question or recommendation request. e.g What to wear this summer on budget?

Then your friends can add stuff to your request with Add to OblinQ.
It's a *true* social shopping experience where you can team up with your friends.

Lots of usability tweaks and fun features.


Hope you guys continue to enjoy and provide feedback.

-Rahul

Obama For America

Widgetize your recommendations...

Here's the latest addition to our box of tricks. Now you can widgetize your recommendations and publish the widget to your blog, facebook, etc.

Here's an example ...

Explore Your Self

Every now and then we ask ourselves who we are and what makes us unique. For many people it is the things that they care about, things that they aspire for, things that they look up to etc. that are a proxy for their individualism.

Notice the folks with the over the shoulder cotton pouches with the cool iMac walking around with nary a care. They listen to the coolest music, proudly wear the frayed pair of jeans, dye their hair purple making all of these the expression of their individualism and also faith in what they believe is aspirational in this world.

So also the pin-striped executive who drives a off-road vehicle over the weekend. Each in their own way express what they believe in and in doing so become individuals rather than a collective.

In essence what we do, the things that we own or aspire to own, define us.

Now websites like Oblinq, make it possible for you to share your aspirations with others. You can put them on your blogs and social networks, publish to your friends, share the coolest deals that you found on the web real time, in essence having your personal community of people sharing the ecosystem of best ideas and recommendations.

So the next time you find the coolest gadgets, the best vacation deal, you can add it to your personal site at the click of a button. Surely there no faster way of getting word around to your friends and they will love you for it...

OblinQ partners with Bravisa

We are excited to announce our partnership with Bravisa.

Bravisa offers a powerful new service in Social retailing. They bring to you unique products direct from suppliers worldwide, you get to set the pricing on them and sell them with your creative marketing efforts. Since there are no large retailers involved in the middle, you get a higher payout on sales.

With the OblinQ/Bravisa partnership, users can begin by choosing products from Bravisa's direct supplier list and then bringing them into their OblinQ personal store with just a click. There after other value-added features offered by OblinQ come into play. Users can add other complementary products from through out the Internet and effectively cross-sell, get promotional videos from YouTube featured on their store, or benefit from social commenting at their store to get customer discussion going.

If you are a new OblinQ user and looking to fill up your store with interesting products, Bravisa is a great place to start.

See example OblinQ store featuring Bravisa products:
http://www.oblinq.com/Sweetdeals

Get more information about Bravisa at
http://www.bravisa.com

YouTube Videos on OblinQ!

Videos are all the new rage. Thanks to YouTube, everyone can be a broadcaster. But have you given it thought that you can actually use your home videos to endorse products you have showcased on your OblinQ store. That is the best possible recommendation any body can give and it is also very helpful to the other users because they benefit from your experiences.

With OblinQ now you can add Videos! We have extended the simplicity of OblinQ "One Click" technology to let you add any video from YouTube to your store.

If you are just having fun, this is a great way to showcase videos you like.
If you are trying to build your brand, you can put together your own home created video promotions, product use examples such as kitchen gadgets, DIY videos, or kids playing with toy videos and put them on your OblinQ store.

So while you YouTube Broadcast channel is forming, you also get your OblinQ store branding going on at the same time.

Please give this a try and let us know what you think.

Rahul