old school!

By seth godin  at  1:00 am

Paul you sound like another old fashioned geek that just wants to knock anything cos you didnt do it first.

I am a women that loves shopping online or physically at the MALL. i can only raise my hat to these guys for having the balls to do something that helps those people who are fed up of the same all junk you see all over the net. yes its the search engines and shopping portals, they are everywhere and they all look the same and they are just so confusing. there are thousands of them.

When was the last time you typed “shirts” in google and got millions of results, then get bounced from pillar to post. OK i type the store i want or just go there. My profession is as an online research analyst and occasional blogger. The majority do not know what store they want when in front of the internet. 70% of all traffic comes via search engines. MYMALL to me is a desirable 3d search angine and for people like me it is really appealing.

I think this portal is designed to be used by the 24million broadband users in the UK. 60% of whom dont buy online as they find the internet CONFUSING.

Anyway i believe there is going to be elements of mymall that are soon to be implemented. i took the liberty of contacting the company who say there is going to be a number of features added to MYMALL to make it more user friendly. I was told a discount engine, cashback scheme and even an artificially intelligent avatar that will act as your very owen personal shopper.

I have been following MYMALL since they first introduced themselves in ADTECH last year. 

by the way. as for the flash it works fine on my PC.

By Sofia Panagi  at  1:06 pm

Hi all,

I just had a little e-mail chat with Leon and he suggested I get involved with a comment. 

Full disclosure: I work at onlinefire, which is the online agency who launched MyMall online in the UK and abroad. 

Just a couple thoughts from the tech PR side of things:
Even though the site is public, it is still going through a lot of changes.  Through the outreach we’ve done, we’ve seen quite a bit of positive coverage and quite a bit constructive. Rest assured, all of it is being taken into consideration, particularly Paul and Michele’s concerns about the heavy use of Flash.  That is one of the many changes that are to come as the site continues to develop.

In terms of what the site has to offer the consumer, I think we run into similar issues: The site has to constantly evolve. However, I think it’s important to remember that MyMall is not necessarily geared toward seasoned online shoppers who ‘get’ how it works or social media experts (who obviously have been the most vocal critics of the site) – it’s for the people who when they go to search engines have a hard time coming up with the keywords that will get them the results they want.  It is geared toward people who want to find everything in one place, hence the store directory feature.  Although the actual ‘virtual shopping’ aspect may be in some people’s opinions a bit gimmicky, when it comes down to it, there really are no other online malls that boast the quality of graphics or as many stores in one place that MyMall has as you’re wandering the virtual corridors.

That said, just like with any business, MyMall wants to expand to the widest consumer base possible, and comments like these are incredibly helpful for us to do just that. 

If anyone has any questions, I’m more than happy to help.

Melanie
melanie.seasons@onlinefire.co.uk
Twitter: @mseasons
+44 0207927 7538

By Melanie Seasons  at  4:35 pm

Some interesting points here!

Firstly flash isnt a bad technology, it just needs to know its place.. ie interactive content or media streaming. Google claim to be able to SEO flash but i have yet to see any proof. This therefore means flash has to be considered along with methods which enable spidering and linking minus the dreaded ‘deeplinking’ (who the hell invented that??)

Secondly when you consider the purpose of this website it isnt a failure but it needs drastic improvement. The idea is that it is a portal and simply that. All the other stuff is ‘in the pipeline’ so who knows. What i do know is there is a neiche market for this kind of site. Most people dont use the net a lot for shopping. They are often confused by different sites and pricing etc. (We a web proffesionals only see things in a bias ‘web’ point of view) One great example is trying to search for schuh’s store? unless you can strangely rememeber the spelling lol. this site serves as an all-in-one portal. You go there to look for a new pair of shoes and you get a selection of all the top known brands and high street stores. You will be able to find the shop you want and then many of the others you didnt even think you wanted.

And then the bad. Well, having said that, this site is bad. It needs a lot of work til it can start to get major click throughs. The user experience isnt polished enough and the effect is sometime repetative. Either way, most people wont see it as ‘flash’ they will see it as something new they havnt seen before. VR isnt good or dynamic enough yet so this may be the best online VR we might achieve for a few years yet!

One last thing, the design of the interface is sweet isnt it : )

By Si  at  10:44 pm