Crowdstorm, currently in private beta, is a social shopping site that uses buzz to determine the popularity of a product. The goal of Crowdstorm is to make shopping as painless as possible for its users by allowing them to determine if a product is worth purchasing based upon the buzz around the product. It’s an interesting mix of shopping with a Digg-like voting system, product commentary, blogging, and social networking. I’ve recently been invited to try out Crowdstorm and found it to be a fun and beneficial service.

In an interview with Philip Wilkinson, owner of Crowdstorm, Philip mentions how the “power of crowds” brings many possibilities to the online shopping world and can make all the difference when searching for a product. He also mentions how many large scale sites still largely rely on price comparison to get one to purchase a product. He sees this as being unhelpful and would prefer learning what product is most talked about or “buzzy” and what his trusted friends have to say about the product. I completely agree. I didn’t buy my monitor because Best Buy had it in stock at a low price. Instead, I bought it because my friends told me that it worked great and that the picture was of great quality. This is what Crowdstorm and the “power of crowds” is all about - buzz.

With Crowdstorm, users can search on products and learn why they would want to purchase a product based on the buzz around the product. Likewise, users can recommend products that they own using a Digg-style voting system as well as express their opinions about a product using commenting. Crowdstorm also provides blogging support (currently only works with Blogger) where users can add their blog to their profile. The user could then find a product they want to write about, select “blog it,” write about the product, and have the blog posts linked to on the Crowdstorm product page under, “Blogged By.” Crowdstorm is also part social networking in that you can friend other Crowdstorm users and get updated on all of their activity throughout the site when viewing your profile. Lastly, Crowdstorm uses a wiki-like system for products where users can easily add products and edit products on the website while others may view a history log to view past versions.

Overall, Crowdstorm has a very well designed and enjoyable website with a great concept. However, I am going to have to agree with Mashable that it will be difficult to come out on top in an already crowded space of social shopping sites. Nevertheless, I am excited for the public launch of Crowdstorm.