Caroline McCarthy has posted a couple articles over the past week about a number of social shopping sites that have raised new rounds of funding. As McCarthy wrote, StyleFeeder raised $2 million and then today ThisNext raised $5 million in a second round of financing from Anthem Venture Partners and Clearstone Venture Partners. This news emphasizes the increasing popularity of social shopping with venture capitalists and rising expectations of a future social shopping boom.

We have previously covered at least two social shopping sites and a search in Google for “social shopping” yields a wide array of competing sites vying for a piece of the pie. I would argue that most of these sites are going to crash and burn because they are missing one key component: sizable communities. A few of the sites, including ThisNext have attracted a relatively large audience but I would argue that they aren’t large enough to compete with the mainstream social networks that will eventually enter the social shopping space.

Facebook has clearly stated their intent to get involved with the social shopping market by providing developers access to their existing payment system: wallet. Once Facebook extends their payment system API to developers we are going to witness a massive spike in social shopping activity. Ultimately Facebook Beacon was the beginning of the site’s push to conquer the social shopping space which unfortunately for Facebook, resulted in a P.R. disaster rather than a technological revolution.

Over the next 12 to 24 months I would expect competition to heat up in this space as Facebook (and eventually MySpace and other social networks) begin to open their platforms and integrate e-commerce features. Do you think social shopping is the next big thing? Do you even know what social shopping is?

Despite early doubts of success, Zecco, the $0 commission trading platform and online investor community is thriving with 17,000 unique visitors every day and 95,000 members registered in the community. As long as your account balance exceeds $2,500, the free trading community gives you 10 free stock trades monthly ($4.50 for each additional) along with a slew of other benefits including low margin rates—for those of you whose middle name is leverage—and no minimum cash balances to open basic account or IRAs.

In addition to providing investors with a free, intuitive and comprehensive trading utility, Zecco gives users access to three crucial resources—namely, a community, quotes and research, and basic educational materials for noobs—to ensure smarter investment decisions. ZeccoShare, the company’s online community, is worth highlighting because it supports the popular business philosophy, “many are smarter than the few,” which seems to be influencing a number of startups in this space. Members of the community can join groups, communicate with fellow investors and debate investment strategies, all the while evaluating the sources of the information they receive from others by viewing their portfolio performances.

Fortunately, I had a chance to ask Tony Leach, ZeccoShare’s Product Manager, a few questions. When asked what type of investor is best suited for Zecco, he said, “Zecco is ideal for the self-directed investor - the kind that researches their own decisions and wants to use new tools like the ZeccoShare community to get an edge on the market.” Zecco lies at the intersection of a brokerage and a community of plentiful resources and thus “sets us apart from the competition.”

Part of Zecco’s plan for the future is to integrate with the broader online community and it appears they are heading in that direction. Zecco has implemented Motley Fool’s CAPS stock recommendation system, which produces ratings for stocks based the ratings of investors that take positions in them. Although the CAPS system has been somewhat controversial, it may for the time being give you a little edge to beat the market.

If you didn’t make the cut for Covestor because you aren’t “proven” and you’re looking for a more dynamic community with more resources than Cake, stop by Zecco and open an account (no minimum).

On Friday, Duncan Riley posted about a new service being provided by the receipt tracking website, Shoeboxed. Following shopping at e-commerce sites across the web, you can share with your friends what you have purchased. The service suggests that “if you got it, flaunt it.” Without the social shopping features, Shoebox provides a highly useful tool for tracking all of your purchases and storing images of the receipts as well as each of the items that you have purchased.

As the website states, “At Shoeboxed, we’re making it socially acceptable to strut your stuff. Show off everything you’ve been buying and browse through other people’s stuff. Then let out your inner Mean Girl and go nuts with our stereotyping feature. Using the mouse is almost as easy as real-life stereotyping!” I don’t know about you but I have been dying to let out my inner mean girl. From that statement you can tell what demographic they are targeting.

Personally, I would love to be able to track all my receipts but I’m not sure that I have the time to scan every receipt. Maybe this is a tool that would be more useful for those with personal assistants. Would you use shoeboxed?