Announcing: Our "Put Something Extra Under the Tree Gift Card Giveaway!"

In celebration of our launch and in the spirit of the season, we're pleased to announce the first of many contests: The virtualEshopping.com "Put Something Extra Under the Tree Gift Card Giveaway!

On December, 23, 2009, we will give a $US500. Visa Gift Card to a lucky registered shopper among all those who earn 500 or more eBucks on the virtualEshopping.com site. No purchase required. Registration on the site is required.

Here is the summary of how eBucks are earned on the site as seen on the Contest link on the profile page of a registered user:

Here are the Contest Details.

So if you haven't registered, do so asap and win that $500 Gift Card!

As always, we welcome your feedback here or at support@virtualeshopping.com.

-virtualEMark

Special Events in the Mall

Come join us for live special events in our main atrium. We're starting out with presentations on our jumbotrons on topics of interest to shoppers - fashion tips, wedding planning, sports and outdoors, technology.

Experts will share their expertise and will be present in persona form live on stage to take your questions and chat with those attending the event.



We plan to book bands for concerts, celebrities, and other events. There's no limit to what we can do!

Do you have an area of expertise that you'd like to share with our audience? Do you have an informative youtube video that could be the basis for a live event?

Are you a performer who likes to share your talents? Contact us with all ideas here or at support@virtualeshopping.com.

-virtualEmark

Persona Pic's On Profile Pages

We're rolling out the new enhancements on virtualEshopping.com. Our new social networking features are fun and exciting to see come to fruition. Not just your run of the mill site, we're bringing forward our 3D mall elements to our 2D profile pages.

That means instead of a photo for your profile page, you have a snapshot of your persona that you created in the mall:

Every time you change your persona in the mall, it will update on your profile page and in all your friends lists with you in it. So you can change your look as you wish. Much better than in real life, huh? People do post old pictures of themselves on Facebook, etc., but where else can totally change the way you look on demand? ;)

With your friends list, all your friends' profile pic's are persona snapshots too.

Pretty fun, huh? Let us know what you think - either here or at support@virtualEshopping.com.

-virtualEmark

Launch and New Personas!

Hi all,

Yesterday was the day of our our second launch (sounds like a "second coming," doesn't it ;) and we're truly excited about our new offerings. I'll have more to announce in the coming days but today I'd like to highlight our new persona offerings, created by Daniel Brown and Michael Price, implemented by programmer Brad Gianulis.

When you register as a shopper, you load the free mall software and enter the mall. Clicking on the persona editor button on the left column gives you the ability to create your persona for the mall, which also updates on your 2D profile page.

The persona editor allows you to customize your persona from 12 persona styles, allowing you to change the color of the shirt, pants, hair and skin.

After you give yourself a screen name in the mall, you're ready to go. Save your persona selection and click the return to mall button.

I'll let the pictures tell it all:

Have fun creating your persona and meeting your friends in the mall.

As always, we want to know what you think. Let us know here or at support@virtualEshopping.com.

- virtualEmark

Shopping Tips!

One of our favorite new features is the Shopping Tips section on the profile page. Not your ordinary chat function, Shopping Tips is a place to get and share some of your best finds.

For example, we just learned of Acer's newly launched 3D laptop last week. Incredibly, they timed their launch with our re-launch of our new and improved virtualEshopping site!

So I posted my note on Shopping Tips below:

Note that you can view the entire list of shopping tips by clicking the "More" link at the bottom and you can screen by friends, singles and all view at the top.

Check it out, add your best shopping tips and check out.

As always, we encourage your suggestions here or email us at support@virtualeshopping.com.

-virtualEmark

How to Add Your Own Favorite Store

We have over 150 stores in our mall but we want to give you the opportunity to share your favorites - whether they are currently in our mall or not. So when you're choosing your favorite stores from our aphabetical directory, if one of your favorites is not among them, we give you a way to customize your list to add out of mall stores.

When you click the select favorite stores link on your profile page, you will see a customize link at the bottom of the directory page.

Note that our upload system only supports .jpg and .png images. Many logo's on web pages are in .gif or .bmp format. So if you can't find a logo in either of our two supported formats, one option is to do a google search for the logo of the store you want. Select the images link on google and type a search for the logo of say, Best Buy. Find a .jpg image of the logo and right click on the image to save it to your desktop.

You may want to change the name from "images.jpg" to bestbuy.jpg so it will be easier for you to see and select later.

Next you'll upload the image from your desktop into the system by clicking the browse button on the upload screen.

If you've done it correctly, you'll see the logo in the upload screen. Then, enter the URL (web address) of the store (ex: http://www.bestbuy.com/) and the name of the store, "Best Buy."

Then you'll see your logo appear in your favorite stores list of logos.

Cool, huh?! You can always change the order of your favorites and remember, only the first seven display on your profile page.

When you select a favorite store that is not in our system, we send them an email with your name (but not your contact information) that tells them you have added them as a favorite and invites them to put a store in our mall. You can see the email that is sent by clicking on the "see what you'll send them" link on the upload screen.

Have fun with this new social shopping tool and as always, let us know what you think at support@virtualEshopping.com.

-virtualEmark

Inviting Friends

Inviting friends to join you in virtualEshopping.com is easy and we give three ways to find and invite your friends to create an account and so they can meet you in the mall.

First, you can find your friends who are already registered with us. Click the invite friends link beneath your friends list on your profile page.

Simply type in their name, city, state, etc., to see if they are already members. If so, invite them and they will appear in your friends list when they accept your invitation.


Secondly, you can invite new friends that you have in your address books of your web-based email accounts. We support the major ones like yahoo, gmail, hotmail, and aol.

Pick your web-based email account, enter your login/pw for that account at right, then a list of your address book friends appears. Select any/all and click invite. You may do multiple web-based email accounts in the same invitation.

You can customize your invitation with a personal message. We always want to offer transparency, so you can preview the email that you will send them with your invitation.

Lastly, we offer you a tool to simply enter the email address of friends you'd like to invite.

So don't let your friends miss out on the fun of virtualEshopping.com! Invite them today so you can share your favorite stores, your "I want it/I got it" stuff, and invite them for a mall date soon.

We want to make your experience in virtualEshopping.com fun and easy. Please send us suggestions at support@virtualEshopping.com or comment below.

- virtualEmark