Article

Shopping & Web 2.0

Written by Smita Sharma

Topic: SoftwarePublished February 22, 2008
No ratings yet788 viewsSign in to rate
Make Shopping Chores More Manageable & More FUN! Take the magic word 'Shopping' and you would see different expressions floating all around you. Anxiety, Smiles & Giggles, Panic, Excitement, Confusion, Extra terrestrial Imaginations, Hallucinations and much more!!! Such is the addiction of Shopping. Be it your friends, your spouse, your children, your mom, your colleague or even your boss. Shopping gives people a kick, never felt and never associated with any other activity. While some would dig into their deep desires and go bizarre over their never ending wish lists, a few others would get caught up trying to prioritize what they need right now. And still others, would loose sight of their shopping budget and go extravagant with their purchases. The other few would end up trying to balance their shopping act, by trying to make wise & calculated purchases. nna) The Background: What if you could plan out your shopping, the next time you go out on a shopping spree? There are a number of solutions in the form of desktop applications or web applications that add the comfort of planned shopping, through web. After trying out all such applications, software and gizmos, we realize there is still more that needs to be done. With this vision and the underlying needs in consideration, we did extensive research and tried to shape up a web application that makes shopping more manageable and even more fun. At Infodoro.com, we recently launched this web application, the "ShoppingList", still in its beta version. This Shopping List lets you create and manage all your shopping lists online. You can create multiple shopping lists, add items to them and assign preferred stores and relevant categories. You can also mark which of the items are most needed and if you have coupons for any. Moreover the filters help you pull out more specific shopping lists, with items that are "Most Needed Only" or Items assigned to the same category or available at a specific store. The good news is that, they are accessible round the globe and over the web! That means, you can print them, e-mail to someone or access over your e-mail, just in case you missed it back home or in that drawer at your work place. Obviously, this is not the first shopping list application on the web but we do believe it is one of the best. This application is an example of how Internet software should be, easy to use, unobtrusive, and continuously operating without long waits, to break the users thought process. nnb) The Biggest Shopping Mistakes, You tend to commit! A shopping experience, more often than not, is a frustrating one. You are overwhelmed at the store and either buy too much or too little, either forget an item or two to pick up from the store, or forget to use a coupon when it could have saved you a few dollars. C) Shopping List: The INFODORO 'Solution' Shopping List at the Infodoro.com website is a web application that aims to make the chore of shopping more manageable and even a little bit of fun! 1- Build and organize your shopping informationnThe application lets you plan for shopping while letting you organize and filter items on your list in different ways. You can create a list of items in a list and organize them by stores and categories. You can also add details like quantity needed, if you have a coupon for any item and a note for each item. Then to plan a shopping trip, the application lets you filter your shopping lists by needed items, categories, and stores. You can create multiple lists based on, for example, types of items (Groceries), an event you might be planning (a baby shower) or a gift list (Christmas). 2- The Desktop ExperiencenUsing sophisticated Web 2.0 technologies, Infodoro has built the application to feel like a desktop application. There are no “Save” buttons that one is used to clicking on many web applications and then having to wait for the response from the web server. You just enter your data and it automatically gets saved on their servers. You will feel like the application is running locally on your computer rather than it being a web application in the browser. Moreover, being a web-based application, you get all the benefits of universal availability from any computer. There is no need to install in on your computer, you automatically get the latest version, your data is secure and safe against disk crashes, and it is free to use. You have better access to all your shopping information from anywhere just by logging in to infodoro.com with your userid and password.nn---------------------------------------------------------------- For more details on this web application, visit us at http://www.infodoro.com. Try and check out our applications 'FiveWords' & 'ShoppingList'. For your convenience, we have created a demo account and populated it with some data to get you started. However, you are welcome to create your own account at www.infodoro.com and select n'Shopping List' from the applications listed. The details of your account are: URL: http://www.infodoro.comnUsername: infodoro_shoppingnPassword: shoppingisfunnn*Please refer to the online help if necessary. Feel free to nsend a message to smita@infodoro.com, if you would like to receive more information & subsequent updates about this application.

Article author

About the Author

An Online marketer with approximately 3 years of professional experience in the area of online marketing, web analytics, eLearning, online tutoring, online paid surveys, market research, business analysis, competitor mapping and public relations with pre-dominatly web 2.0 start ups.

I have been an active blogger and poster in various online forums spanning from general debates and discussions to affiliate marketing, promotions, product designs, web and offline promotions and branding over the web et cetra. My career interests involve entrepreneurship assignments, project management, resource management, market research and analysis related freelancing projects.