etsy is a revolutionary on-line store where individual makers can sell their goods. unlike existing shopping portals etsy relies on novel means of promoting individual sellers and motivating a social network. for example, there is a ‘buy local’ button that shows you only designers within your neighborhood, a ‘time machine’ that reveals what is being bought in real time and a ‘connections’ function that uses dynamic visualizations to help you browse through associated products with serendipity (above). hopefully these kinds of options will be adopted by the big boys soon.