Just about a year and a half ago, Refinery29 launched, curating the best of New York retail into one easy-to-use website and pairing it with sharply penned, of-the-moment editorial. Now a regular CH contributor and friend, Refinery29 is making the coveted finds—those items that define New York as one of the world’s shopping capitols—available online with this week’s launch of Refinery29 Shops. Using the same set of criteria—”inspiring spaces, distinctive products, and proprietors with a distinct voice and a discriminating vision”—that makes the original site such a great resource, Refinery29 Shops hand-picks fashion and housewares from their roster of NYC boutiques. Divided into sections for men, women, kids (coming soon) and objects, the interface is effortlessly navigable and has plenty of info (down to cleaning instructions) and tools to make the experience of discovering the guaranteed good buys enjoyable. From Seize sur Vignt’s gorgeous grey oxfords to Shelly Steffee’s red silk harness-slash-suspenders, Refinery29 Shops provides access to the kind of items you can’t find anywhere else. Designer profiles and “Style Sheets” by fashion insiders (currently Vogue Paris‘ New York editor) make the shopping experience complete—and easier than braving the crowds if you live in NYC or booking a flight if you don’t.

Link to http://www.collhunting.com

Recipes are among the three highest search requests on search engines. Niche communities such as these will become a growing trend online and hopefullly we will see more targetted opportunities for advertisers in this space. First to jump into this promising community landscape are social networking websites, BakeSpace and Food Candy.

To follow will be niche commmunities centered around popular TV shows. The BBC has plans to launch several selective communities targetted at viewers of shows such as Top Gear, Money and Good Food. As sports fans are leading the stampede toward high-definition TV it would not surprise me if these consumers would welcome more interactivity with their HD plasma TV than just watching the Super Bowl.

According to http://www.goodmagazine.com YouTube, apparently not content with threatening TV from the outside, is now thinking about starting a TV channel, on actual TV, and producing shows, not just showing user-created video. They will call it Tube. And, while we’re at it, YouTube has also surpassed MySpace in terms of traffic.