Another example of better discovery tool online is jinni.com .it uses semantic search to categorize movies and tv content. It really does a great job in discovering new movies.
And regarding the small shops and discovery: The web is flooded with sites telling us about interesting products. do you really feel a lack of interesting stuff to purchase?
I have mostly sufficient ideas for stuff to buy, but I am also probably living in my own filter bubble. I don't even know many web sites to visit - basically I only visit Hacker News, some German news mag I'd like to quit, and a friend's forum.
How do you stumble across a small online toy shop with a choice selection?
I did a few search for stuff like "interesting online toy store" , "fun toys" "best toy blog" etc, doing a bit google search , a bit blog search and following a few links and got those:
http://www.drtoy.com/ - seems more geared towards adults , helping them choose best toys for children.
It isn't harder than discovering interesting programming tools, for example , which is to say, pretty easy. But it's a lot of text.I wonder if there's something a lot more visual , video based for the children.
Thanks - I must admit I did not actually do that search myself before. It is getting harder to trust online, too - top results are likely to be SEOed, Reviews are fake and so on (not the sites you picked, but in general).
I would probably be able to pick something from the sites you found, but a real shop would still be more fun for now. Especially with the toys, it would for example be nice to check the kind of sounds they make. We just got two toys for Christmas that are unbearable...
And regarding the small shops and discovery: The web is flooded with sites telling us about interesting products. do you really feel a lack of interesting stuff to purchase?