Amazon Spark had been a fairly bland service, if truth be told. Unlike on Instagram, where people follow their friend, interests, brands like they like, and people they find engaging or inspiring, Spark was focused on the shopping and the sale. While it tried to mock the Instagram aesthetic at times with fashion inspiration images or highly posed travel photos, it lacked Instagram\u2019s broader appeal. Your friends weren\u2019t there and there weren\u2019t any Instagram Stories, for example. Everything felt too transactional.<\/p>\n
Amazon declined to comment on the apparent shutdown of Spark, but the service is gone from the website and app.<\/p>\n
The URL amazon.com\/spark<\/a>, meanwhile, redirects to the new #FoundItOnAmazon<\/a> site \u2014 a site which also greatly resembles another Amazon product discovery tool, Interesting Finds.<\/p>\n Interesting Finds has been around since 2016<\/a>, offering consumers a way to browse an almost Pinterest-like board of products across a number of categories. It features curated \u201cshops\u201d focused on niche themes, like a \u201cDaily Carry\u201d shop for toteable items, a \u201cMid Century\u201d shop filled with furniture and d\u00e9cor, a shop for \u201cStar Wars\u201d fans, one for someone who loves the color pink, and so on. Interesting Finds later added a layer of personalization<\/a> with the introduction of a My Mix shop filled with recommendations tailored to your interactions and likes.<\/p>\n The Interesting Finds site had a modern, clean look-and-feel that made it a more pleasurable way to browse Amazon\u2019s products. Products photos appeared on white backgrounds while the clutter of a traditional product detail page was removed.<\/p>\n We understand from people familiar with the products that Interesting Finds is not shutting down as Spark has. But the new #FoundItOnAmazon site will take inspiration from what worked with Interesting Finds and Spark to turn it into a new shopping discovery tool.<\/p>\n Interesting Finds covers a wide range of categories, but #FoundItOnAmazon will focus more directly on fashion and home d\u00e9cor. Similar to Interesting Finds, you can heart to favorites items and revisit them later.<\/p>\n The #FoundItOnAmazon site is very new and isn\u2019t currently appearing for all Amazon customers at this time. If you have it, the amazon.com\/spark URL will take you there.<\/p>\n Though Amazon won\u2019t talk about why its Instagram experiment is ending, it\u2019s not too hard to make some guesses. Beyond its lack of originality and transactional nature, Instagram itself has grown into a far more formidable competitor since Spark first launched.<\/p>\n Last fall, Instagram fully embraced its shoppable nature with the introduction of shopping features across its app<\/a> that let people more easily discover products from Instagram photos. It also added a new shopping channel and in March, Instagram launched its own in-app checkout option<\/a> to turn product inspiration into actual conversions.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wordpressdynamos.com\/timesofnewscdn\/blog\/0cbc1_Screen-Shot-2019-06-14-at-8.05.48-PM.png?resize=640%2C468&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n