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eCommerce - Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Hearst Goes Kaboodle

We have covered early stage social shopping site Kaboodle -it is a dramatic story as one of its co-founders was paralyzed in a para-gliding accident. Kaboodle is an online social shopping community where people share product finds and recommendations with others who have similar taste & style. It has now been acquired by Hearst for an undisclosed amount. Kaboodle had taken $5M in first round funding from angel investors including Ron Conway.

Santa Clara-based Kaboodle says it got more than 2M unique monthly visitors last month. Hearst says it plans to build pages on Kaboodle featuring products from many of its 19 magazine titles, such as Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, aiming to generate buzz around the magazines by allowing shoppers to post about the products they feature online. Interestingly, Kaboodle has a deal with Hearst rival Conde Naste for its Concierge site. We'll see if that lasts.

View - site

Read - Wall Street Journal story