Social shopping service Nuji launches photo tagging and virtual stores

Nuji, the startup we recently described as “Instagram meets Instapaper for social shopping”, has just rolled out a big update to its service, with an improved iPhone app and website.

The service allows users to share a wide range of items that appeal to them with others online, picking out interesting goods from online stores using a browser bookmarklet or from brick-and-mortar shops using the iPhone app’s barcode scanning. Users can follow others whose taste they appreciate, creating a community around tastemaking.

Now London-based Nuji has rolled out a photo tagging feature for the iPhone app that allows users to share items they find in their daily lives, even if they don’t have barcodes. To help other users find the item if they’re interested, all photo tagged items must have a description and details of where the product can be bought manually added, something that’s automatic when using the barcode option.

Meanwhile, the Nuji website has become a little more organised with the introduction of virtual stores. These pages automatically aggregate all the items users have shared from the same online or offline store. So, imagine that two users tag items from Urban Outfitters. A Nuji Urban Outfitters store page, using the same ultra-minimalist style as the rest of the website, is automatically created on Nuji.com to display all the items from that store shared by users.

Nuji’s Dean Fankhauser says that in less that a month since launch, the service has already aggregated data from over a thousand stores, potentially meaning that there could be one that many Nuji stores as the service rolls out.

It’s easy to see how these store pages could become a source of income for Nuji in the future. The startup is targeting a ‘hipster’ market with a focus on well designed, high-end goods. There’s obvious potential for Nuji to become a hub for niche retailers that also target this markets.

Nuji’s updated iPhone app and website are available to try now.