Unlimited Svpply

Some of my favorite sites are aggregate sites that, like this blog, just feature interesting and cool products from all over the planet, albeit in much greater volume. In recent times, my two faves have been BLTD (Better Living Through Design) and Svpply. Until recently, Svpply featured products added only by a select group of editors, to pollinate its site with a well-coordinated, curated range of products. I think that tactic helped attract like-minded aesthetes. They just opened up the site to membership and individual profiles, each with their own feed of desirable items that you can then add to your own feeds, creating a social network of lookie-loo shoppers.

With an easy "Buy Later" marklet you can just drag into your browser toolbar to facilitate adding new finds, Svpply has a very spare interface that dispenses with verbose descriptions and lets the captured photos do the talking. It's what I think the site gets really right. With standardized white backgrounds for most ecommerce product shots, the pages take on a very clean front-of-the-book magazine feel. It's very easy to get engrossed in the constant magpie mentality of just adding things you want to an ever-expanding wish list, with cool products just scattered willy-nilly all over your virtual floor.

I personally have a feed of my own, but I'm still wondering how I plan on using this site. One part of me is making it my online wish list, adding all the things I like much like I did with earlier sites like del.icio.us and stumbleupon (does anyone use those sites anymore?), or even this blog. But I'm a bit on the fence with that idea. I spend a lot of time shopping obscure sites, reading tons of blogs and subscribing to dozens and dozens of feeds, all so I can see and edit the offerings to find the latest, greatest and most obscure items, and bring them into my world, literally. So I'm loathe to show links to, say, the Japanese clothing sites I've found, and have everyone buying the stuff I want ahead of me!

But the other part of me wants to find, choose and show the best of the best. These aggregator sites literally encourage you to show off what great taste you have - a common enough attitude on the net (lookbook.nu, for example, is all about showing people how great your outfits are). Svpply allows other users to 'follow' your feed and add things you find to their own lists. There's an element of bragging rights for users who've got the best-looking hoard. Everyone's a tastemaker, and now you have a stash to prove it. It's yet another new facet of the Me generation that the internet has spawned.

Of course, these are just my musings. You may just want to look at lots and lots of shiny stuff! And you certainly can, in what seems to be an... unlimited supply. Check it out at svpply.com.