According to Verne Kopytoff, eBay premiered a new feature today that is the equivalent of a social network within the largest web based auction provider. There was tons of discussion at the Graphing Social Patterns conference about the concept of social shopping.

Jason Calacanis was highly critical, suggesting that the theory of social shopping has always been around but nobody has been able to successfully execute such a service. From the sound of it, this new social network may be eBay’s attempt to enter the social shopping space. Amazon will surely launch a competing feature in the coming months. I have also spoken with individuals that plan on launching their own social shopping offerings on the Facebook platform.

While social shopping has been simply a theory up until now, I am confident that we are going to start seeing a number of social shopping services launch in the coming months.