This week we’re dealing with the sensitive fine art of privacy. The age of social networking created new challenges and questions regarding what remains your own private affair, and what is in the public domain.

Take our site for example. On one hand, you want to share your choices, reviews and questions. You want to help others in making wise purchase decisions, and get their two cents regarding yours.
On the other hand, you don’t want everyone knowing everything all the time. You want to stay in control.

So we upgraded our privacy settings to let you do just that. Now you can choose who can follow you and see your information – everyone, or just the people you chose to approve. You can see who requested permission to follow you, and check out their profile before deciding. And if you made a mistake and changed your mind – you can always block a user you’re not sure of from following you.

Stay Tuned

We’ve got some big surprises coming. We can’t say more than that – only that you really should check out the site next week.

This week we’re launching a new feature that may, on first glance, appear minor. We’re letting users tag products. Sounds simple right? Every user will now be able to add a tag to every product according to his knowledge or taste. Are you an apple fan? You can add the tag “cool” to the iPhone 4s page. Care about the environment? Tag products as “green”.

The reason this is no small matter for us is that we see it as a small step towards an important goal. We want to hand over the decision making to you guys. Instead of us making all of the calls, we want to use your wisdom, knowledge and experience. After all, there are so many of you and so few of us, right?

Tagging products is just a part of this. You can already create catalogs, upload pictures and share videos. Now we want you to not only share your views and tastes, but actually take part in molding and changing the site and making it better for all users – and for you.

Special Offers on Mobile

Shop Your Way Rewards users get another boost to their mobile experience. Now you check our cool iPhone app for special offers just for members. Browsing in a store? Whip out your mobile and see what’s hot.

And One More Beauty Item

That lovely new discover page we bragged about? Well it just got a little better. Browse the products on the page, and notice they now have a nice quick view enabling you to interact with the items you like. Nice.

It’s not like we’re shallow – but this week is all about eye candy. A vanity post, if you will.

Last week we told you about the new banners on brand pages, controlled by the page admins. No sooner did we release this capability, than the admins started to go wild with it. Check it out and click on the images to see the brand pages themselves:

That’s not all, in the looks department. We streamlined the site, going for elegance and panache. The search box is leaner and lovelier, and the status box is flatter and better looking. Plus, you can now share a product directly from it!

Interested in anything else?

Two other major improvements combine better looks with better functionality. Click on a product you like, or own, or think about owning. The product page now has recommendations for other products you may be interested in, related of course to the one you’re browsing. Relevant, smart and adds color to the page.

Also, the quick view layer is now present in even more areas of the site, enabling you to interact with the product of your choice without too many clicks. Comfort and style folks. That’s us.

The Mobile Way

And on the mobile front: if you’re a Shop Your Way Rewards member – rejoice! From now on you can carry your member card in your iPhone. It’s just permanently there. Pick some items, show your mobile to the associate when you pay – and get some points. Nice and easy.

It’s 2012. The festivities are over, time to get back on track, and start fulfilling those New Year’s resolutions.

Our goals haven’t changed and we’re moving ahead at full steam. This week we’re adding another feature to our lovely brands, giving admins the ability to control banners – we call them Hero banners – on their brand page.

The brand owner will be able to upload up to 5 different images, giving him more control of the content and tone of his brand page, making it easier to stand out of the crowd. We want to let the brand admin have a real influence on the page, and mold it according to the brand’s values and image. The Hero banners are another important step in that direction.

Easy on the Eyes

Meanwhile we’re working on improving the site’s looks, and in a big way. There’s so much new stuff we don’t even know where to start. But here goes.

There’s a new product discovery page in town. Gone are the small formal pictures – feast your eyes on cool large images that just make you want to go click and explore. Check out the tabs on the top of the page – no more searching through menus, just click the right tab and see those products that really interest you. You can easily reach it by clicking that green link on the top right of the homepage. Enjoy.

We also changed the notification icon and added snazzy new icons to the left navigation. Each menu item now has a small stylish icon matching its function. Nice.

The next month is going to be hectic for us: we have big exciting plans for the site that will change and enhance the user experience dramatically. Stay tuned

Hello 2012! We were busy here, dressing up for the New Year’s festivities, and making the site even cooler looking than it already is.

First things first: we’ve got a nice logo and 2 new cliques for you holiday buffs. The New Year Deciders clique is all about New Year’s resolutions – sharing yours and seeing what others want to achieve. The Countdown Party People clique is about partying – welcoming the New Year in style, and keeping the party going well into 2012!

Meanwhile, we’ve been working on getting the site itself ready for 2012. Take a look at the left navigation column: notice it’s prettier and more organized? See how your Shop Your Way Rewards information is clearly visible and more detailed, on the page’s top? Now you can easily see your VIP progress and anything else you might need.

That’s not all. We’ve also redesigned our help pages. Now, whenever you’ll want to learn more about a certain feature, you’ll be able to do so in a better organized and easier to navigate help section.

Empowering Brand Owners

We’re not done yet. As you probably noticed, we’ve been working hard on brands lately. We think brands are cool and interesting, and we want our site to reflect that. Now brand owners get more admin capabilities, enabling them to create an even better user experience for their community.

The new tools let brand owners control the type of content published on the brand news feed or the brand followers feed, decide who gets to publish on the page and lots more. The end result will be a more exciting and interesting brand page. Nice.

Have a great year!

‘Tis the season, right now, and we’ve got several reasons to be jolly. As you can see by our decorated logo we’re deep into the holiday spirit, with 2 new cliques: Present Hunters and Christmas Decorators. All you Christmas enthusiasts are invited to share your wishlists, decoration tips, tree pics and so on.

And speaking of cliques, we’ve made some major changes to all of them. Visit your favorite clique and check it out: on the left navigation you can see a products link. Clicking on it will give you a list of all items relevant to your clique’s topic. Nifty. Following the bookworms clique? You’ll see books, E-readers, armchairs for comfy reading and lots more.

But that’s only the beginning. Cliques are no longer a closed members only club. Let’s say you don’t want to follow the Joggers clique – not ready to commit to it just yet. Yet you do have sage advice for runners. Well just go ahead and speak your mind. As of now, non-members can express themselves on cliques freely too.

And last but definitely not least: follow a clique and you’ll notice your newsfeed just got way more interesting. How so? Say you’re a Fashionista at heart. Start following our fashion clique and notice how your newsfeed starts filling up with great clothes, shoes, jewels, accessories and what not. We’re just smart like that.

The Cavalry is Coming

Look closely at your newsfeed and you’ll notice help stories, designed to further explain features on Sears Social. Check them out and let us know what you think. Also in the works: a new and improved help page. Coming soon…

Continuing last week’s brand festivities, we have – as these lines are being written – over 20 brands with loving and caring owners. Check out, for example, the Nike, Shop Your Way Rewards and Apple pages and you’ll find cool new content to enjoy and interact with.

And this is just the beginning. We plan to let brand owners have more and more control over brand pages and the user experience. Changing logos, adding outside links, creating user activities and communicating with the community – it’s all coming soon to a brand page near you. we even set up a nice and easy guide for brand owners. We’re that nice.

It’s Hot

We got some new and cool stories for you – search your feed and ye shall find the latest headlines about the newest most desired gadgets around. Find out what’s happening with the new iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus or the Kindle Fire – and check their prices right here at Sears Social.

Shop Your Way Mobile-Style

We keep taking huge giant like steps towards fully integrating your Shop Your Way Rewards experience with our mobile app. now you can see your current status, manage your points, see all your account history and filter it any way you like, and much more. So go mobile, it’s the bomb.

As we told you last week, brands are now up for grabs – users can try and claim brand ownership and control the brand page’s content. We started last week by letting users send in their brand ownership request. This week we’ve started adding owner capabilities.

If you’ll check out our brand pages you’ll start seeing changes. Owners will be able to publish stories as brands – stories that will appear in your newsfeed. So start following the brands you like, and see what surprising cool content pops up in your feed.

Share, and Do It Fast 

‘Tis the season and everyone’s in a sugar coated mood. Accordingly, we made it even easier to share content with your Sears Social friends and spread the joy. First we added the ability to recommend from the quickview, now you can also share – who knows what we’ll think of next.

Activate, Link, Shop 

We’re keeping up the good work on integrating Shop Your Way Rewards features into Sears Social. Now you can easily link your Shop Your Way Rewards account with your Sears Social one, or you’re your membership online. Redeemable points and social, oh my.

Brands were always important to us, and now we’re trying something exciting and new – letting go of them. We’re letting you manage brands, and decide what will go around in a brand page, what kind of content the brand followers will see and so on.

Before you get too excited, brand ownership is not to be handled lightly. We intend to make sure only official brand representatives become brand owners. However, those lucky devils may decide they need the help of some loyal fans who’ll act as page administrators. So who, knows, you might get lucky. Also, in the future, you can expect tag ownership – stay tuned.

Stores You’ve Been to, Items You Want

Coming soon on mobile: did you Shop in at one of our stores? Cool. in the very near future you’ll be able to see a list of stores you visited on the site and follow them. And even better, once you Shop in your iPhone will alert you if one of your wishlist items is on sale in this particular store.

You’re all out of wishes you say? We’ll show you products your friends were interested in. maybe you’ll find something you like. All that, combined with our improved chat, your friends’ tips about the store you’re in and your Shop Your Way Rewards info, makes mobile a unique and fun shopping tool.

Some exciting news this week: we are starting to reach out and let you share stuff from other sites on your newsfeed.

What does that mean? Well now you can be a good friend and share stuff with your Sears Social buddies from other sites, and not just directly from Sears Social.

The first site enabling this is naturally Sears.com. In the Sears.com homepage click on “New Local Ad”, choose a store you like and pick a product. Now click “Share this item”. Wait for it… and lo and behold – you can share the item to Sears Social! Amazing.

Your History and Let’s Chat

Two new items on the mobile front: You can now go through your Shop Your Way Rewards history in your iPhone, which is very convenient if you’re on the move a lot. We also upgraded our chat, making notifications clickable, and letting you know how many times your friend tried to reach you – now you’ll know how annoyed he’ll be when you finally get back to him.