Asked about how SinglePlatform stood out in the competitive landscape, Goodman points to the network of publishers who distribute its listings (including Foursquare, The New York Times, YP, and UrbanSpoon) and to the richness of the full digital storefront.
Given the success that Facebook and others have had with app install ads, the idea of expanding that concept into a full app storefront with a mix of those ads with actual curated app listings makes some sense.
One big change: After the acquisition, SinglePlatform's basic listings product will become free, while the company continues to charge for the full Digital Storefront product, which allows customers to add things like menus, services, and pricing to their listings.
A new startup called ShopLocket says it's ready to serve people who want to sell things online, but don't need to create a full-blown storefront.
The J.Crew effort is different in that the two have partnered to create a full-fledged storefront with dynamic imagery to improve the experience.
While Himwich says that "no one has yet cracked the nut on Facebook e-commerce," the Facebook integration is a way to dip Quidsi's toes into the social e-commerce waters to see if a full-on storefront makes sense.
Even more important could be how becoming a payments system could turn commerce ads on Facebook into full-fledged storefronts where you can buy and checkout without ever leaving the social network.
The app will also eventually support a full m-commerce storefront where you can buy items featured in any of the monthly boxes.
As Canonical product manager Richard Collins put it in an interview with Engadget, the company is going after a market segment "where users are primarily interested in being able to use a core set of applications" rather than a picking and choosing pre-loaded storefront full of them.
Main Street, once full of empty storefronts with boarded-up windows, is nearing 95percentt occupancy.
