Among the 14 websites in the eLab eXchange Social Shopping prediction market, our panel of experts judged ThisNext as the most engaging, although Kaboodle received the greatest number of positive tokens by eLab eXchange members. According to eXchange members, the top five social sites were Kaboodle, Buzzillions, ShopWiki, ThisNext and What’s Buzzing, respectively.

In arriving at the winner, the judges evaluated not only traffic statistics for each site (reach, page views, number of sites linking in), but also the customer experience offered on each site.

In terms of the traffic stats, Kaboodle topped the list, closely followed by ThisNext. Buzzillions, and ShopWiki were a distant third and fourth. Although Kaboodle is the top ranked social shopping site in our list, in terms of traffic, its average page views have dropped 15% in the last 3 months, possibly suggesting consumer fatigue. In contrast, average page views for ThisNext have dropped only 6% during the same period. (It's entirely possible that the entire category may need to be rethought, but we'll leave that for a different day.)

Our panel of experts judged Kaboodle good looking and easy to navigate. However, the judges felt it was too user-driven in that it seemed to be more about the users and much less about the products (the judges also noted the prominent placement of Google ads and felt that actual product information would have been more appreciated).

In contrast, the judges felt Buzzillions was much more product focused and much less user-focused, along with being confusing and hard to navigate. One of the judges wondered, "Where are the people?" Shopwiki reminded a number of the judges of early Yahoo.

The judges felt that ThisNext came closest to what a social shopping site should be - the site offers a nice mix of consumer reviews and user-generated content, highlights "standout" recommendations, and organizes recommendations into useful categories and sub-categories (for example, the Christmas Gift Guide). Out of all the social shopping sites on the list, ThisNext makes the most use of Web 2.0 features, including its ThisWorld mashup, tag cloud, blog, "shopcast," and buttons to recommend items, add items to a wish list, add them to MySpace and the like.

The judges felt that ThisNext provides the most compelling and engaging customer experience and deemed ThisNext, more than Kaboodle, the social shopping site to keep on close watch.

Thanks to the eLab eXchange members and our expert panel! Holiday markets are coming this weekend!