Chictini

Chictini is a fashion-focused trendspotting site that is a hybrid of a social network and a social-shopping bookmarking site. The site's name is a mixture of two common words used in the fashion industry ("chic" and "martini"). Originally developed as a social marketplace site in 2006, the site later developed into a full-fledged shopping-bookmarking site and later adding on social networking capabilities. The site gained heavy notoriety in 2007 after its official beta launch which included a controversial partnership with the MP3 search engine Seeqpod, and became one of the first social networks to completely build the application into their user profiles. The site has also gained attention because of the various personalities that have signed up as members on the site, including famous musicians, magazine editors, reality stars, and socialites such as Lydia Hearst. Most recently as of late, the site's forums have been a major stirring pot for a number of industry rumors, including the departures of key fashion editors and designers from their respected posts. The site's admins found the rumor swirl so great and over-diverting attention away from the rest of the site that they wiped all history of the forums clean in November 2008.

The site's main focus has been on providing attention to up-and-coming fashion personalities and designers "on the cusp of breaking in."

Strangely enough, the NY-based site has garnered a large following in Germany and New Zealand despite little efforts of marketing in those areas. Significant membership numbers in Chictini have also come from Canada, France, the Philippines, China (mainly Hong Kong), Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, Indonesia, The United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Italy, India, and of course the United States.

In 2008, the site was nominated as a finalist by the popular tech blog Mashable for the Best Fashion site of 2008.