I’m a chronic deal finder and honestly, it is sometimes a very boring, tedious and above all, a very solitary event. Sitting behind a computer, click, click… click. Yeah… what happened to the days when you went out, shared what you liked, got advice on the spot from your relatively outspoken friends and got instant feedback on what you liked, didn’t like.

If you’re anything like the majority of the shoppers now, you’ll probably have to go back to the bell bottoms that your friends somehow convinced you to buy way back… oh wait. Maybe that’s just me. Anyway, bad fashion decisions aside, Friendshopper.com wants to bring back that feeling of camaraderie and the joy of bringing folks together when they shop together, something that is sorely missing from the online shopping experience.

But that’s not possible without a very robust framework that allows for bookmark sharing, item sharing and communication in real time.

Now, to the important bits. This isn’t like Kaboodle which had the social shopping bit “tacked on” – it’s there but it’s not the same. Kaboodle is about as social (to me) as showing you my want list on Amazon.com. Via the FriendShopper.com bookmarklet – look ma, no installs! – and some clever tech, you can decide what’s private and what you will share with other FriendShopper.com members/friends. And in the next coming month, Josh Bochner, the CEO of FriendShopper.com has let me know that a few surprises are in store. An Apple iPhone app and Facebook integration are both forthcoming.

And some other surprises too

With that, I really like FriendShopper.com. It allows me to get instant feedback from my friends, see what they’re looking at while we’re talking, instantly share images and links and finally get rid of that solitary confinement feeling when I’m sitting here behind my desk shopping online.

If only FriendShopper.com also did blogging tools too… oh well. Just another tool to use in shopping online and trying to save that buck or three in this economy.

[ FriendShopper ]

Photo Credit: Image via Morguefile.com member Alvimann.