Amazon is looking to harness the potential money-making opportunities in social networks, by launching two new applications for Facebook users.

Amazon Giver allows users to view other users' Amazon "wish lists", and click through to buy items. It also generates recommendations for individual users based on their Facebook profile page interests and likes.

The Amazon Grapevine application, meanwhile, updates users' friends if they write a product review on Amazon or update their own wish lists.

Industry experts said the move shows the increasing maturity of Web 2.0 and the trend towards personalisation in e-commerce.

"This is a key milestone in the evolution of personalisation because it shows major retailers actively trying to harness the profile data held by social networks," argued Richard Hughes, director of e-commerce software vendor BroadVision. "We are witnessing an 'inversion of control' driven by social networking momentum."