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