Ushering in the Lunar New Year with…

Wipeout 2097!

Quite possibly the best designed Playstation game in history? With graphic design by The Designers Republic and adrenaline-pumping soundtrack featuring Future Sound of London, Fluke, Chemical Brothers, Underworld and Prodigy, it’s a visual and aural feast even in today’s HD, surround-sound video game world. Sure, the graphics look pixelated and the colours unshaded today (I’m talking about the Playstation 1 version), but in no other game have I experienced the same adrenaline rush and thumb-ache from speeding through hairpin race tracks and harassing opponents with mines and missiles. I actually think it’s better than later versions of the Wipeout line.

Polygons? Textures? Shading? Bah… Clever Psygnosis, for figuring out what really matters in a racing game – good design, great soundtrack, and lots of speed.

A Shop with E-Commerce Features in Under 5 Minutes

We’re happy to announce the release of a new set of features on Shoplette to help shop owners set up a shop with e-commerce features in under 5 minutes.

With Shoplette’s new Shopping Cart Service, you can easily and quickly open a shop on Shoplette with e-commerce features and a custom payment or ready-made Paypal payment system for just USD 15 per month.

The features

You’ll get a full-featured shopping cart and buy buttons for the items you post for sale so that Shoplette users and visitors can easily order items from your shop directly on Shoplette, as well as simple inventory control and order management features.

You can choose to hook up your shop with a ready-made Paypal payment system so that customers can buy from you using their Paypal account or credit card, or you can choose to make your own payment arrangements with your customers via email once you receive their orders from us.

Why we did it

With this new service, we’d like to make it easy for independent shop owners to own an e-commerce activated shop and sell online without the expense of building a new online shop. We’ve intentionally kept the features simple so that independent shop owners don’t overpay for stuff they don’t need.

Try it out!

So if you’d like to set up an e-commerce activated shop that’s plugged into a community of shoppers, please check out our new service here. Just fill in your details, click “Sign up for Shopping Cart Service” and we’ll set you up right away!

And if you do decide to try it out, please let us know what you think!

Sony’s Beautiful 8″ Notebook

This is by far the most beautiful mini notebook I’ve seen to date. Sony’s done an incredible design job with it’s new P series notebooks that fit in your pocket.

It’s a tough call between the P series at SGD 1,299 and the Asus Eee PC 901 at SGD 628, or even the Eee PC 900 at SGD 488 (latest prices on 12 Jan 09) if you don’t mind the non-atom processor.

Here’s my take:

If you’re after style, specs and super-portability, I think the P series wins it, so get ready to hand over SGD 1.3k and stuff a tiny notebook into the back pocket of your jeans.

if you’re on a budget and looking for a netbook to travel with, that you’ll be less afraid to bump around, bring to dodgier parts of the world, possibly drop and maybe even lose while travelling, then the Eee PC will burn a smaller hole in your pocket for your carelessness, and it might actually mean you’ll bring it around more and get more use out of it.

But the Sony is so much more beautiful, and we’re just going to end up buying that, aren’t we?…

Are these the new crocs?

Trendspotting on Shoplette – Lofu shoes: The new Crocs?

Lofu Sophie shoes in red from Starthreesixty, Paragon, Singapore

Lofu Sophie shoes – made of Crocs-like cellulose foam material, but way trendier! These are the women’s versions, and they have men’s versions too. You can check them out here.

Shoplette in the News

We got some coverage in Digital Life, the IT supplement of The Straits Times, on 7 January 2009. Here’s a quick extract from the article:

Sharing best buys

Now you can show the whole world the bargain you unearthed – and see if everyone agrees

By Chan Chi-Loong, ST Digital Life, 7 January 2009

SHOPPING is a very social thing as people ‘just love to tell others what they have bought, especially if it is a bargain,’ says Shannon Low Shen-Li, 32.
Armed with this observation, he and good friend Loon Kok Keong, 32, set up www.shoplette.com in May last year to do just that – tell people about great shopping bargains.

The duo quit safe, well-paying jobs – Shannon was in business development and Kok Keong was an IT engineer – to pursue the dream of starting up their own tech venture

‘Think of Shoplette as Twitter for shopping,’ Shannon says. Twitter is a popular mobile blogging tool where people send text messages to give updates on their life.

Similarly, Shoplette uses mobile phones to create content for a shopping social media network.

Say, you spot the latest Prada bag at a fire sale in an upmarket boutique in Kowloon, Hong Kong. You whip out your mobile phone, snap a picture, write a quick description and send text and image to Shoplette, where they are uploaded straight away.

Immediately, friends with a Shoplette account will be notified of what you just bought.

Furthermore, any Shoplette member can track your purchases and even vote on whether the buy is a terrific bargain or not. The more highly rated your purchase, the more visible it is on Shoplette’s main site.

This is a good approximation of the word-of-mouth effect, according to Shannon.

The fact that Shoplette is easy to use is another plus.

Besides user-submitted content, business owners can also set up a virtual shop on Shoplette. Basic accounts are free (for now) but featured sites which appear in a prominent position on the website are charged an affordable fee of US$10 (S$14.50) a month.
…

You can read the full article here.

Shoplette Reloaded!

We’ve been pretty quiet on the development front for a while, largely because we’ve been working on a revamp of Shoplette’s user interface and Shop-related features over the past month. We’re now happy to announce the relaunch of Shoplette with a spanking new interface that’s more fun and easier to use.

The new interface features an easy-to-use “Show me” navigation widget in the right-hand column that brings you to all our shopping feeds, as well as related shopping information when you’re looking at shopping locations and items. The new gallery also simplifies everything and lets you focus on what you’re really interested in – what other people bought and where they bought it.

Special thanks to our friends Andy Croll at Deepcalm and Stuart Wason at Headspace for their invaluable help and advice in our revamp.

We’ll also be releasing a new set of shop-related features very soon, so look out for it!

In the meantime, please explore our new look!

Talk to us: What do you think of our new look?

Muji Labo Long-sleeved Top

Trendspotting on Shoplette: Muji Labo Long-sleeved Top

Muji Labo brown long-sleeved top – Labo is a new line of clothing by Muji, experimenting with new materials, cuts and details. It feels really nice! from Muji, Paragon, Singapore

Muji Labo is a new clothing line by Muji, experimenting with new fabrics, cuts and details. Check them out at Muji stores today!

Incredibly Stylish

Hats off to Paul Christopher of Plussixfive for spotting this incredibly stylish camera case for the Canon G Series, designed by Japanese designer Mihara Yasuhiro. How often do you come across a camera case you’d be happy to carry around, with or without the camera?