TechCrunch: RetailMeNot Adds Social Network, where Duncan Riley interviewed Guy King from RetailMeNot.com, talked about turning ReviewMeNot.com into a social network of Shopping Community, and how a 3-employees Melbourne-based start up with no VC funding generated $10 million sales and seven figure profit a year.

Impressive.

Just let you know a little secret — my bargains website has also generated an eight figure turn over over the last 12 months, except you have to do it in the currency of Indonesian Rupiah. Now, where is that TechCrunch report again? Wanna do an interview? :)

However the focus should be on RetailMeNot’s latest shopping community, which I think is a great idea!

Coupon website that offers quick search doesn’t stick. My guess is that each visit to RMN will generate fewer than 3 page views — people found what they are looking for and continued shopping, and they don’t stick around checking out what are the latest deals. At the same time, social network/community websites really stick like poo on a blanket. People check out each other’s profiles, leave messages, search long-lost friends and kill zombies. Well, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea. Not only it builds connections and communications between your members, it is also great for impression based revenue — especially when RetailMeNot is already having so many visitors. That would be an alternative to their affiliation-based revenue.

Deal websites offering social network is not a new concept though. OzBargain is based on Drupal which makes building a social network trivial. Many Pligg-based social bookmark sites can also be some-how categorised as social networks. Another way of building a social network is by leverage an existing social network — for example Facebook, where you get all your social network functionality for free, and you just need to focus on bringing the deals onto the plate.

All the best with the launch!