New features are good or bad...

New features of social networking sites and search engines have “enhanced” our social lives and or searching capabilities. The one feature I will be talking about is the face recognition from Google and Facebook. Face recognition is similar to a digital camera feature. For example, when my digital camera takes a picture, a square appears in my face, the family members, and or friends I have added to the settings. Now, someone can take a picture of you and obtain more information about you. Using a picture of your face, information can be found over the internet. For example, let’s say you have a blog like this one and your blog has a picture of your face in your profile. Later, someone takes a picture of you with their smart phone using their Google application. This application will connect your face to your blog or any other site that contains a picture of your face.  Facebook is trying to launch an application based on this same idea. I think this new feature is just creepy. Sometimes Facebook is creepy as it is. People you don’t know send you friend requests, people from high school you never spoke to want to be your friend, and or people you don’t talk to at work want to be your friend, well you get the idea. Now imagine if someone can take a picture of you and find you on Facebook.

People might say that this could be a violation of privacy. However, when you open an account with Google or Facebook you always agree to terms and conditions that are always subject to change. In other words, if Facebook officially releases something like this in a smart phone app you always have the option to delete your account. Remember, no one is forcing you to use this social network or search engine.

That’s the Truth,

Mauricio

Sources:
http://www.webpronews.com/google-face-recognition-app-in-development-2011-03

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/16/5660488-facebooks-facial-recognition-knows-who-your-friends-are-

Groupon it’s great and unique! ?

I actually did not know what Groupon was until recently. I am an eBay member. As a member, every week I receive deals from eBay letting me know I can use a discount in a lot of things or discounts on fees, the usual. This week I got an email from eBay saying Groupon was selling a $15 dollar coupon for $7 dollars. Thanks to Groupon, I bought a $20 dollar Blu-ray movie (with shipping) for $12 dollars. I know that $8 dollars is not that much but savings it’s always good.

After getting my $8 dollar discount, I decided to check what else Groupon has. I was impressed with all the discounts they have. I found discounts anything from hotels to racing car lessons. After seeing these discounts I wonder how does Groupon work and how could the company giving the discount afford to do this? Simple, Groupon will get a group of people to get a discount in one place. The company can afford to do it because they are getting a bigger volume of sales at one period of time.

I was thinking… I know a lot of people from work, from Facebook, and from school so why don’t I do the same as Groupon? I can contact a company and let them know that my friends and the friends of my friends would be going to their business in the same week. Also, I thought I could probably get some type of compensation from that company… you know just because I just brought over 100 people to their business.

After reading this article in the New York Times I guess I was not the only one that thought of this. There are a lot of Groupon copycats; copycats that are themed if you are gay, African-American, a business owner, and Jewish. There are probably more out there but that's all I could find.

The only difference between these sites and Groupon is the amount of members they have. Groupon has 60 million subscribers and the others… don’t. The only copycat that can compete with Groupon is LivingSocial with 10 million. In addition, it was reported that Groupon declined a $6 billion dollar buyout from Google. Also, LivingSocial had an investment from Amazon for $175 million.

I guess I was late on my idea. However, I would like to see how long this Groupon fever continues and how long it would last… Not long, Give another year or two until Facebook comes out with their own and it would take over the market.

That's the Truth,

Mauricio

Sources:
http://www.groupon.com/deals/ebay/?affiliate_id=EBAYDEAL&utm_source=EBAY&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=EMAILWAVE2

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/business/smallbusiness/10sbiz.html?_r=2&scp=5&sq=groupon&st=cse

http://www.businessinsider.com/livingsocial-interview-2011-2#ixzz1GudPnaQe

MySpace it’s still so cool, man.

People at work have the “whatever happened to MySpace” conversation every now and then. I think I have the answer, using common sense. To tell the truth MySpace is pretty cool. You can customize your profile, you can add pictures, you can add videos, you can have friends comment on your page, and more. MySpace was so cool that even right from the start you will have Tom, the co-founder of MySpace, as a friend. Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, didn’t do that. If you had or still have a MySpace page you understand how cool it was.

If it was so cool what happened to MySpace then? Well, your friends happened. The only reason any of us have a social network is because of our friends… maybe because of our family members. Think about it back in the mid- 2000s. Why did you open a MySpace? Simple, you opened a MySpace because your friends did. So when you got older, graduated high school, started college, and had a .edu e-mail, you opened a Facebook profile. You opened a Facebook profile because one of your friends thought it was cool. “People want to go on the internet and check out their friends, so why not build a website that offers that?” Mark Zuckerberg says that in one of the lines of the movie the Social Network... Even though, MySpace already existed.

In 2007 when you didn’t need a .edu email to open a Facebook profile, MySpace started dying very slowly. It seems like MySpace didn’t do anything to try to keep people going back to their site or having people log back into MySpace. The truth is that they did, but probably no one saw it because they were on Facebook. One of the things MySpace did was to do a reality Web show called “Getting Married on MySpace”.

MySpace also failed to go internationally early. For example, I am Colombian and I still have most of my family there plus a lot of childhood friends. I remember asking one of my friends if they had a MySpace profile in Colombia, he had no clue what I was talking about. Facebook serves pretty much all of the world when MySpace might serve international, but not that many people think MySpace is better than Facebook in other countries.

Well let’s just say that Tom thought 1 million dollars was cool and Mark thought 1 billion dollars was cooler.

Now in 2011, the new question is, can

MySpace come back from the death and be popular again? The answer is NO! Simply because I doubt your friends, or you, would think now in 2011 MySpace would be cooler than Facebook. Now, MySpace has tried to be like Facebook so much it lost its coolness and originality. MySpace is now called My_____ (get it My than a Space). Also, MySpace now will allow you to tag your friends and change your status, just like Facebook.

The bottom line is that MySpace is cool, it’s the same as Facebook, but if no one accesses it, who is going to know if MySpace is cool or not? Let’s just say that MySpace is an application for Facebook now, since you can connect to MySpace using your Facebook account. In addition, Facebook it’s so cool that they have their own movie.

That's the truth,

Mauricio

Sources:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Myspacee-is-so-last-year/178242637154

http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/03/news-corp-set-to-unload-myspace/

http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-stats/2010-social-network-analysis-report/

E-marketing is not annoying… Sometimes

As technology progresses every day, so are companies that want to succeed. Everyone knows that the best way to succeed is to make as much profit as possible. Usually, companies either have a marketing department or they hired a marketing firm in order to get into a market they want to target. Hopefully, this would lead to get as many sales from those potential customers. That is pretty easy, right? Well, not really. Marketers would usually use all the ways possible to get customers attention with hope they are interested in their products or services. The usual ways to get a prospect customers attention is using TV advertisement, Radio advertisement, Billboard advertisement, and if you are older than fifty you probably remember the newspaper advertisement. Sometimes, these forms of gathering attention from a customer works or sometimes it does not. Here is the hard part or marketing, when a company does not reach a potential customer or the companies are not reaching enough of them. This is where e-marketing comes to the help, or does it.

This is how e-marketing got started.  The e-mail was created in the early 70s,  leading to the email advertisement creation shortly after in 1978. Now, keep in mind that in the United States and all over the world the Internet didn't become popular untill the mid 90’s.  Almost a decade before the Internet was popular, email advertisement already existed. For those like me who were born in the late 80s and starting using email in the early 2000’s we referred to email advertising to SPAM. I remember when I was around twelve receiving emails on how to better my credit score or a low price weight lost medicine, medicine in which you don’t need to work out and or change your eating habits and still lose 20 lbs. in a week!, I guess you get the point.

E-marketing has the ability to reach a lot of people, which is why it might make it a little annoying. For example, I am a 6’3, 185lbs. guy with a beautiful girlfriend, catholic, and I have an iPhone with at&t. I’m obliviously skinny, in a relationship, and I know there is no way I can’t get a free iPhone for any reason. So when I receive emails to lose weight, singles from every ethnicity and religions are interested in me, and if I fill a survey I will get a free iPhone, it gets annoying. I am not the only one who thinks these emails are annoying and that is why there are laws against spamming. Laws that would allow you to unsubscribe from these companies that you do not want hear from. There you go, laws will prevent companies from spamming you, problem solved… Not. The internet still is out there and almost every website you visit will have an advertisement. Since the Internet is more accessible you will even get more advertisement in your smart phones, video game systems, and televisions set.  

In contrast, if you are actually looking for a product or service e-marketing can help you find whatever you want. For example, I like going to NBA and NFL games.  The first time I thought I could afford to go to an NBA game I couldn’t afford the prices that Ticket Master was offering, in addition the fees Ticket Master had and still has. Thank god to an advertisement of eBay I saw on ESPN.com that said something like “find everything on eBay.” I looked for the seats that I wanted, and I got really good tickets from a season ticket holder that couldn’t go to that particular game. Now I receive email from eBay and every time I want to go to an NBA or game I’ll get my tickets from there. In addition, if you are interested in a product or service and you get it from a big company they will usually send you offers and discounts so you can make repeat purchases with them. Companies like BestBuy, Macys, East Bay, Footlocker, NBA Store, and NFL Store send me offers and reminders of deals of related things that I have purchased.

That's the truth,

Mauricio

Sources:

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/1408411/A-Conversation-With-The-Inventor-Of-Email.htm

http://www.smallbusinessbranding.com/1167/does-email-marketing-really-work/

http://www.spamlaws.com/spam-laws.html

http://siliconcowboy.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/first-spam-e-mail-sent-32-years-ago-today/

Smart Phones or Credit Cards?

Starbucks released a new mobile app late last year called the “Starbucks card mobile app.” The app allows Starbucks customers to pay using this app. The App works for iPhone and blackberry, soon for the Android market, I’ll show you how it works using an iPhone 3G.

   

   Get a Starbucks Card and put the amount of money that you choose and then type the number in the iPhone app.

I started with $10.00.

Just order up and wait until your drink is ready.

Once you are ready to pay open the app and touch the section that says “$touch to Pay.” A barcode would appear and the cashier will scan that barcode and charge your Starbucks Card. 

After you are done push "Touch When Done"

You will see your balance after your transaction is complete

 

It is a good idea, it is pretty unique, it is pretty simple, and it can be linked to a bank account or PayPal. The reason Starbucks is doing this is due to the convenience of not paying with an actual credit card and or cash. However, I used this app twice with my iPhone 3G and both times the bar code scanner never worked; the cashier had to type my card number manually. It would have been faster, both times, if I used my bank card.
Companies are always trying to trying to have the most convenient methods of payments for their customers; in order to get them in and out as fast as possible.

Remember the old days when credit cards did not exist and you wanted to buy something? For example, let’s say whatever you wanted to buy was worth $18.36, you pay with a 20 dollar bill, the cashier will give you your change back, and off you go on with your life. If you were in a hurry, it was frustrating when the cashier did not have enough change for you.

Now these days, with a credit card, all you need to do is you swipe your card and sometimes you have to sign a receipt or input your zip code. Same with a debit card, you input your PIN and then you go on with your life.

The Starbucks Card app is just a fancier form of a debit card. As far as being faster than a bank card, it is not. Even if the actual scan worked, it would be just as fast as swiping a bank card. You still have to wait while an employee makes your drink. Maybe an update to the app would let you pre order, pay, and then let you pick up your when you arrive.

In contrast, this is really good if you are a Starbucks frequent customer. The more stuff you buy the more rewards you will get. Basically, the usual rewards card compared to any other company.

That’s the Truth,

Mauricio

Sources:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/starbucks-card-mobile/id331379009?mt=8

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-19/tech/starbucks.payment.mashable_1_mobile-payments-new-york-starbucks-paypal?_s=PM:TECH

http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps

http://www.kansascityfed.org/PUBLICAT/EconRev/pdf/3q95hnig.pdf