A social platform that will no doubt raise some eyebrows, Shopcade lets you create your own store and choose the products you want it to have from a catalog that has more than 40 million items. “Hang on a second, what’s wrong with that?” I hear you say. And the answer is that there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great, giving people the chance to have their own stores without having to code anything, or buying a domain. What’s not so great is the way Shopcade works, and how much the whole service lends itself to spammy uses.
Basically, Shopcade encourages people to blast store links to their social networks. This means that those who have got nothing better to do will spam all their friends indiscriminately, and send one store link after the other. It’s the kind of behavior that makes Facebook ban services. That’s what happened to Ad.ly not so long ago, for example. It encouraged people to send each other store links without respite, and Facebook banned it for good.
The way Shopcade works, both the store owner and the buyer get a reward whenever a transaction’s carried to completion. Users can then cash out through PayPal, and (a nice touch) they can also donate all their rewards to charity.
And if we were to question the service for the spammy uses it can have, we should at least mention its really great product discovery and recommendation engine. Shopcade makes it incredibly easy to see these products that your friends are buying, or adding to their stores. And you also get recommendations based on these pages you like, and your overall social networking activity.
Shopcade.com In Their Own Words
Connect with your friends and others to shop and recommend products together and get rewarded for it.
Some Questions About Shopcade.com
How long would it take Facebook to ban this service? Or will its creators somehow manage to make it stay around? 
