Fancy, the social discovery and commerce site that competes with Pinterest, just picked up a big name user: Mark Zuckerberg. Fancy said Zuckerberg joined the site Friday morning under the name zuckd.
It may just be that Zuckerberg is interested in finding some gift ideas for his new bride. But it also prompts some interesting questions about Facebook’s potential interest in Fancy. As we’ve reported before, Fancy is growing quickly, bringing the self-expression and social discovery of Pinterest together with the commerce component of Amazon. It allows retailers and merchants to see what people are Fancying and allows them to sell those products directly through the site. Fancy now has about a million users and recently launched its commerce platform for iOS.
Zuckerberg could be interested to see how you can fuse social discovery with commerce. Others are also looking at this opportunity. TheFind recently launched Glimpse, a Facebook app that takes people’s likes and marries it with a huge product database. Facebook hasn’t been a great place for brands to sell directly to consumers. But we’re seeing how more and more companies are able to unlock commerce through social channels.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Zuckerberg wanted to sniff around Fancy as a potential acquisition. It would give it an answer to Pinterest, the hottest start-up right now. And Fancy has the added bonus of having a more mature commerce model than Pinterest. Or it could just be that Zuckerberg is just seeing what’s out there or maybe he just wants to express himself. So far he’s just fancied one item: an Extendo library shelving system.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
- Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
- Social media in Q1: commerce and discovery dominated
- Controversy, courtrooms and the cloud in Q1
