Yahoo Shopping announced the beta launch of The Shoposphere and Pick Lists, a set of commerce features designed to bring the social elements of the shopping experience to the online world. The new features allow online shoppers to find, use, share and expand product information, as well as search for other shoppers' recommendations.

The heart of the new features is the "Pick List," somewhat like Amazon's Listmania feature. Yahoo's Pick List allows users to save their favorite products available via Yahoo Shopping (http://shopping.yahoo.com) onto one personalized page. Shoppers can create and assign a theme to as many lists as they wish, and can personalize their pages with a title, a note describing the particular list, their name, photo and a listing of other self-generated Pick Lists, plus reviews, thoughts or descriptions of each product. Consumers can also comment on others' Pick Lists, subscribe to and view Pick Lists via RSS (Really Simple Syndication), and also see how another user may be connected to them through the Yahoo 360 community service.

Yahoo's new "Shoposphere" feature aggregates and sorts Pick Lists created by the Yahoo Shopping community, facilitating a social online shopping experience by allowing users to search, view, read about and purchase specific products recommended by people they know and trust, experts they’ve never met, and everyone in between.

Rob Solomon, vice president of the Yahoo Shopping Group, said, "We're excited to deliver a more personalized, entertaining and informative online shopping and search experience by pioneering innovative products that usher in an era of social commerce."

In addition to Shoposphere and Pick Lists, Yahoo Shopping rolled out other new features and enhancements, including Open Web Service APIs. Any developer or web site publisher can now create innovative applications that utilize Yahoo Shopping's shopping search, price compare, reviews, and product specifications.

http://shopping.yahoo.com