Social commerce offers something radically different than traditional e-commerce by carefully blending buying and selling with a sense of urgency across communities

E-commerce sure is tapping the power of the crowds (think ModCloth, Groupon, FashionStake), but I wouldn’t call this social

what we’re calling online “social commerce” today doesn’t look what we’ve seen traditionally. In fact, so much of what we call “social commerce” is not done within our social graphs - rather it’s just any level of involvement of another human being in a user’s purchase decision

The problem, as Taylor explained, is that the rise of e-commerce and social media has lowered the cost of entry for new competitors.