240911 Fourth

This week, the class focused the topic on E-commerce. In layman term, it's 'Doing business on the Internet'.

Doing business on the Internet was never a foreign thing to me.

In 2007, I started out a small business online in Blogger selling my handmade accessories. It was hard to advertise as there weren't much tools to use.

The only thing that I can announce the launch of my shop was using tagboard ( a little message box at the side of the blog ).

It was hard at first, trying to get people to know my products and to accept payment for them ( there wasn't iBanking at that time ). So transactions were all done via meet-ups and ATM transfers.

D: I got scammed for a few times when handling via meet up as I made my product but the person chose to MIA.

On the other hand, I was a frequent customer online too. Bought stuffs from girls all over Singapore.

I could still remember one time that I got cheated of $50 in a participated pre-order. In the end after much threatened from the various victims, the owner succumbed and return us all our cash as we have her bank account number. (Seriously, stupid or what)

But now, things are different! There's iBanking, Paypal and the 'shopping cart' method easily available in html for all blogshops.

There are not much Blogshops around anymore. Instead, everyone is moving on to the dotcom domains and to the much sophisticated 'Online Shop' interface.

One of the online shops that I frequent often is MODPARADE.COM

It is one of the successful blogshop-to-online shop in Singapore. I followed them when they are at modparade.livejournal till now where they even own a retail shop at Haji Lane.

Like what we've learnt in class. In the online store, there's no rental fee, perhaps the monthly domain subscription, but that's a fraction of their total profit. And their products are cheap, about $26 onwards.

Invoices, delivery order are all recorded via emailing. And you'll get the item within days.

But on the other hand, their retail shop products are much more expensive. Ranging from $50 to $89.... a bit risky no? Unless you have the cash to spare, it is worth it as it always 'fashion over comfort'. In the case, the comfort of your wallet. haha.

I've visited places like EBAY, YAHOO AUCTIONS, GMARKET and ETSY as well. It is using a multi box interface ( I don't know the actual name for it) but it's different from the shopping cart experience.

You could be a seller as well. Just set up an account and you are ready to go. As a customer, all you need is to search for what you want under the category and purchase through the user!

This is the interface of gmarket korea. Singapore's version is exactly the same in English (:

Despite the disadvantages like delivery time and products QC and all. I'll still support online shops as most of them provides quirky and interesting things all the time :)

How about you? Do you online shop often?

P.S. Our group is doing E-Biz: Marketing as well! ;D

15092011 Third

So this week, we are being fed with information about Social Networking Sites. How do they work, etc.

It is quite amazing. How we evolved from MIRC to Friendster and to the oh-so-overused Facebook.

Yes, don't judge me, why can't I use MIRC huh?! I was an avid fan of it even if it needs me to suffer with my 56k Dial-Up Connection back in my primary school days. I love the simplicity of #HASHTAGS that leads you into the 'room' to interact with people. Ah... Life was so simple then.

Okay, so I was given a task to search for a 'New' social networking web. And after some fidgeting on Google, I found this Asianave.com

It denied my access initially as they claimed that their web layout doesn't go well with my browser. =\ awkward much. But I still use Google Chrome to view it anyway.

So it's interface was.... meh~ and the color scheme wasn't appealing to me at all. It looked like some virused con site that will lead me to sacrifice my email & get to know all those weirdo desperados or whatever kind of cyber people on it.

As the description on Wiki goes like, oh, it is popular in Asia. I meant like DUH, of course that it is supposed to be popular in Asia because it is named ASIANAVENUE.

I didn't want to sign up for it as it looked kinda 'spooky'.

But it is funny on how they describe their own 'space'. And they even focused on 3 types of areas, which is your own online space, probability of finding your another half and enlarge your social network. HAHA.

This looked more pathetic than the current - passe Friendster. I seriously don't think there is any usefulness because the segregated and isolate the Asians? It is a global village out there in this 21st Century.

Speaking of Friendster, do you guys know how does it look like now? I believed it is being taken over by Google or so and transformed it into a gaming web. And yes, I still remember my password and all because I totally stopped using it in 2008. I hate how all my testimonials, photos and customized profile page were all gone. What a big refresh.

I managed to find a screen shot of the Old Friendster Interface. Everything was clean and color-themed according to the person's decision. Too bad Facebook came along and minimalized everything.

Next up, MYSPACE.COM.

Yes, probably I'm one of the few among my friends in Singapore that has an Myspace account. I was bored during one of my poly days and created this account. Was quite shocked at the transformation now as it used to be similar like Friendster, everyone can customized their profile page and the whole theme was majorly blue.

But now, it look similar to Facebook with the status option. Very similar interface to www.playlist.com though.

Do you know about this 'WHOLIVESNEARYOU"?

It is a Singapore-based Online Network I think. I forgotten by username and password!!

Everyone signed in will need to provide information about their current location and you'll get to know who lives near you and add them as friends! It is quite creepy and awkward to find your never-spoken-to-them-before neighbors in it. :|

So many social network sites, yet there are some which are ultra successful and yet some which are being buried down under. Why?

I believe that it is all the doings of the word of mouth. Like for example, in 2006, I didn't know what Facebook is about until my popular senior told me about it and urged me to sign up. Okay, so I did but I neglect it so much because I was more active on Friendster instead.

Soon, virus videos and flash .gif images started to flood Friendster, causing me to force to abort it and 'migrate' to Facebook. Therefore, I think it is not how WOW Facebook is, it is on how the current 'HOT' network site maintains itself to keep its users intact.

Social Networking Webs are certainly good for businesses as they provide information about a particular consumer's habit. However, to me, it is quite irritating to see people tagging me in their products' pictures. Sorry, but this kind of no-effort marketing skills doesn't attract me at all.

I'm a heavy twitter user. But I ignore all marketing links that someone my friends tweeted about. Seriously, I'm not interested.

Perhaps it is based on each individual on how they react to advertisements? I don't trust auto-mated tweets on how awesome this product it. I still prefer reviews and realistic shops.

But as time goes by, I think that slowly, there would be more interesting and interactive media forming as a trend. Who knows that if FB and Twitter might have the same state as Friendster? haha.

oh yah, " Would you please write me a testi? " (A favorite phase amongst Singaporean teens back in the Millenium)

06092011 Second

Today's topic would be about Social Media.

This has been a fairly popular topic among the courses that I've been taking for the past few semesters. Many lecturers used this as a discussion and project topic for us to work on.

What exactly is Social Media? For me, it is like a cyber community center where everyone can interact with anybody.

I've found this interesting picture online, 9gag.com, which practically summarized what Social Media is all about with the popular Social Media Webs. It is funny how we all started with Friendster and ended up on Google+ now. According to Mr Choy, it is just a simple web interface but however, due to it's simplicity, people are addicted on how free and easy-to-use it is.

Long gone the yet famous Friendster and hello to "+1" and "Likes" of Google+ and Facebook.

It is a new thing to know about this word, "PROSUMER" today. Well, we are all under the influenced of the Social Media. We are both the Producers and Consumers of it. Hence, the word Prosumer.

Later on, we moved to the web interface of WEB 1.0 to WEB 2.0. As of now, I know that WEB 3.o is up and going. The famous one that I can name would be HABBO. It is much like a online game/chat/irc web and it involves in avatars instead of a static user profile picture. Teens around the world are using it, including me, but however, I've stopped using it because the instructions are getting more and more complicated and I abhore pixellated stuffs.

This is Habbo! :D

And during March 2010, I've converted myself from PC to MAC. Interface, command keys are all different. But I'm surprised on how easy MAC is! Apart from it's coolios design, it's command and low-virus interference makes me love it so much.

MAC FOR THE WIN!

01092011 First

So, the first day of my Fall Semester 2011 (thanks to Hari Raya Puasa), I had a morning lesson at 830am with the familiar Mr Abel Choy.

It's good to work with the lecturers that taught you before as you will be familiar with his working style. (:

Ahh, Internet. What have I learnt on that morning?

I was brought back in time, where Internet was first started. It was such a complicated work that link up computers together. I could still remember my first encounter with the Internet back in 1999. Where my sister bought a computer, brand: COMPRO ( not even compaq -_-"). It was huge and bulky. My internet service provider was SingNet and I hate when I need to plug in the house fixed line telephone wire in order to connect. And every single incoming call would disrupt the connection. Life was hard then and all I could play on the Net was Neopets. But I'm glad that it is still around! :D

Ah! How familiar this could be.. Netscape Web Browser. Everything seems so classic now.

And there is the Intranet where I used during Primary/Secondary school for my computer lab sessions. Reminiscing on how my teachers love to let us to save unlimited folder/files into the system.

Moving on, IP Addresses... I used to go online and track spammers that talk bad about me on my personal blogs. It is absolutely amazing because I can get to know where they come from, from which server and stuffs. Apparently, our local Police Force are somewhat trained to track down IP Addresses for Cyber Bullying or Slandering or Hacking. Awesome stuffs.

There are loads of stuffs that we can do on the Internet now. Perhaps that is why it is so addictive and I'm happened to be one of the addicts to it.

More about the Internet to the next week!