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