Revolution of Retail Therapy

The emergence of internet shopping has become a new form of retail therapy for city-dwellers! Having to juggle between school and work, i feel that the e-shopping has brought great convenience in my life, well, simply because its UBIQUITOUS! i can even shop at 12am when most offline shops would be closed for the day.

Also, such shops gain greater exposure. That is, anyone on the globe could be a potential buyer as long as he/she has internet access. The traffic level of these online stores are also generally higher!

Here's a few of my favourite online stores.

Retail shops branching out into online sale.


forever21.com


topshop.com

and of course, blogshopping!













love and bravery is a singapore based blogshop that provides international shipping.



The modparade started out using the livejournal domain and eventually progressed and finally getting a stand-alone domain @ modparade.com. A fine example of how a successful a blogshop can be. modparade even has a store at haji lane!




These online stores are generally easier to manage! firstly, getting a livejournal or blogger domain is free, on the other hand, the offline counterparts have to pay a hefty rental fee. In addition, the seller can design and customise the blogshop for free or at a minimal price, yet, doing up a proper retail shop can be costly.

However, i feel that such online shops lack interactivity. after all, the rate of responding to an email to much slower and personal than face to face. this is one of the main reasons that keep me away from shopping online.

introduction to my blog and the internet relay chat

Just had the first week of school and the first 2 classes of abel choy's introduction to internet.
it got me thinking about how internet has come about and my reliance on this service and today's technology.

By the time i was 11, i began using the mIRC. Unlike phone or mail services, mIRC was one of the first few free of charge chat services available on the internet. It provides a forum for exchanging opinions and information. There were different lines/ channels for different people of interests. Hence, many people actually got to expand their social circle, make new friends, find their other half (But we should be cautious while doing so!).

For example, i knew my seniors through my school channel even before secondary school began for me. It was informative for me, as my schoolmates-to-be shared with me what secondary school would be like.

This is how mIRC looks like back in the early 2000s.



nicknames with a @ infront are referred to as bots. They are in charged of the channel and set the rules of it. They are free to kick or ban any visitor. normal members can request to be a bot from the bots themselves.
and now with the new and more user-friendly interface



One of the other impressive thing about the mIRC is that we are able to share files online.
mIRC allows downloading of documents and software. I used to go to channel #mp3files and we could just randomly share files. It is illegal and the service was banned later. Also, i used to transfer files and pictures via mIRC because MSN was yet to be common and email has little storage space.

mIRC is entertaining and was one of the most advanced services during the early 2000s. However, it is also unsafe because everybody and anybody could be chatting with you. It was also known that mIRC was a platform for spreading virus. In all, use everything moderately and rationally. With other internet chat services like MSN and skype, i wonder if mIRC was able to keep up with the times. Maybe i should try downloading and trying out the service again.