I’m usually curious enough to click on the links she offers and yesterday I found myself at her new site.  What I was surprised and delighted by was the ease at which she engaged the user in a multitude of interactions.  As a first time visitor to the site you are invited to “Get The Zoe Report” by simply giving your email address and zip code.  The call to action is straight forward and simple.

Next you are taken to a thank you page where they segment your gender, age and preferences with an option to add a category they haven’t listed.  I think this page starts to build the relationship with the user.  You are asked about what is important to you and given the chance to elaborate, in a way it sets the tone for the pages that follow.

Next you are asked to engage with Rachel Zoe via social network.  “Have an idea for the Zoe Report? Send your suggestions to Rachel through Twitter!”  Underneath the headline there is a text box set up to instantly @reply to Rachel on Twitter.

Finally they encourage more social interaction in the final thank you page with a call out to share on Facebook.

Each of these steps is voluntary with a link to “skip this” and with a full top and bottom nav bar to navigate away from the information gathering pages at any time.

Once you are done you are greeted with a thank you email with information on what you have opted into, a suggestion to add the newsletter email address to your address book, share on facebook and the option to unsubscribe.  The copy that surrounds all of these options make them a little more special.  For example “The Zoe Report will never go out of style, but if at anytime you wish to stop receiving it, you can unsubscribe.”

I think this is a great example of a website taking the extra step to engage their users and get them excited about visiting the site while collecting valuable information for their email campaign.  Well done Rachel Zoe!

Check it out for yourself »

Comment below and tell me what you think of the process.

“(Reuters) – Social networking company Facebook recently held acquisition talks with Twitter, the micro-blogging company, the Financial Times said.

The negotiations, put a valuation of as much as $500 million on Twitter, which has become one of Silicon Valley‘s most closely watched start-ups, the paper said.”

Read the rest of the article here >>

If Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social community sites add professional collaboration tools like personalized calendars, spreadsheets, whiteboards into the mix, business people and businesses as a whole will standardize their entire internal communication operations (document sharing, chat, IM, blog, email threaded discussions) on these collaboration communities for increased productivity, mobility and trackability. A leader in the new frontier of Web 2.0.0.8 Collaboration Software is Portland’s own Jive Software and their blazing hot new product called Clearspace.

Read more about this MSN article on Facebook (the first paragraph is below):
Microsoft Corp beat out Google Inc on Wednesday in a battle to invest in socializing Web site Facebook, agreeing to pay $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in the Web phenomenon. Microsoft also clinched exclusive rights to sell ads on Facebook outside of the United States as part of the investment that valued Facebook at $15 billion — on par with the market capitalizations of retailer Gap Inc and hotel chain Marriott International Inc.

For this reason, there are many types of Social Media:

B2C: MySpace, Facebook, Gaia, Freindster, Second Life
B2B: LinkedIn, Jigsaw
Search: Digg, Delicious, Wink, Technorati
Shopping: Wists, ThisNext, Woot
Expert Communities: Blogs, Wikis
Mapping: Geosearch
Video: YouTube, TurnHere
Images: flickr