Monthly Archives: February 2012

My First Mac

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My first Big Mac was delicious. My first Macbook is DEEELICIOUS.

Earlier today I acquired my first Apple product since the iPod came out in 2001. I had a not so delicious experience with my previous PC’s. The Acer I recently had crashed after 3 months and one not-so-hard fall from my desktop. Before that my HP’s motherboard went bad unexpectedly after 2 years of use and a replaced battery. So, I wanted to test my luck with the much-acclaimed Macbook Pro.

Now for those that don’t yet know, Mac’s run a completely different operating system than PC’s. Mac OS X vs. Microsoft Windows. So far, here are the differences I am noticing.

Mac’s are much more user friendly and aesthetic, it just takes some time to get use to the different controls. For example, Macs have a Command key that is nowhere to be found on PCs. Macs meanwhile are usually more spendy than their counterpart. Mine cost me approximately 300 Big Macs (I must say it is more than 300x delicious). Another downfall for Macs is that Apple has made the operating system a closed one in that it does not accept a lot of foreign(not made by Apple) software to work with the OS X. Windows meanwhile has an enormous amount of great software to run on it’s system because it is an open operating system.

Many people believe that if there were a computer with Apple’s peerless design and hardware AND with Microsoft’s unrivaled software cache. There is a way to run Windows on a Macbook and it is called Boot Camp. This is one way to get around having to choose between Mac or PC.

Throughout the course of this blog I will return to this topic and let you know how my Mac is running and compare it to PC experiences.

Tweet of the day:

CNN Breaking News ‏ @cnnbrk

“The Artist” wins the Oscar for best picture on.cnn.com/zFeWi9

The Corporate Battle for New Media Continues

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In my last blog post I introduced the current and future battle of mobile computing. The rate at which Facebook and Google come out with new ideas and applications for the virtual community is astonishing. Google has made another move against Facebook. Google’s +1 button is the answer to Facebook’s Like button. It is supposed to act as a “public stamp of approval” for any and everything that Google shows you on its site according to Google Labs. And not just that, external websites are now able to include a +1 button on their own site that allows viewers to recommend a story, ad, or whatever to everyone else. Here is a video introducing Google’s new move into social media.

And a day after the button was understood by tech junkies; somebody cracked the code and found a way to put +1 on external websites. Google hadn’t made this public yet, but they did as soon as people figured it out. It just goes to show you how quickly the public expects these new advancements in social media. In a similar fashion, internet users found holes in the New York Times innovative paywall last year and breached it within the first week of use.

Advertising money is how these two websites generate revenue. Google stepped into the social networking scene with Google Buzz in early 2010 because Facebook was taking away tons of advertisers. To date, Google has had very little success with their making their business more social. But with the launch of Google Plus in July and the +1 button in March, Google made strides in 2011 to topple Facebook and take hold of some of their users.

The reason we are seeing advertisers turn more to Facebook with the placement of their ads is because new ad platforms see quality over quantity in the form of expression is greater than impression. Facebook allows advertisers to target their audience with the use of keywords and the user’s demographics. Google has been using the impression model of advertising. Where more clicks equals more money. While Google has more unique visitors according to a Nielsen Company study, Facebook users spend 5 times as long on the site.

Marketing Charts

So there you have it. The battle rages on…on the web. The Google v. Facebook, search engine v. social network skirmish seems to be the most interesting as of now. I believe these fights between digital media companies can only mean good things for the public consumer. We get more variety of newer technologies at a rapid pace.

Random thought of the day:

A lot of people tend to confuse bad decisions with bad luck.

Microsoft vs Apple vs Google vs Facebook

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Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook … does that even make sense??? I mean, Apple and Microsoft make operating systems for computers right? Google is a search engine. And Facebook is a social networking site. So how are they competing? Well those things may have been what these COMPANIES were mainly known for but I think that is all about to change.

As of right now the main battle going on between Apple and Google is the mobile computing duopoly they have on smartphones and their operating systems. Apple has done well to stay ahead of the curve and invent new consumer electronics such as the Macbook, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. The iPhone was really the first widely accepted and used smartphone on the scene. But then Google came out with its own operating system for mobile devices called Android OS to compete with iOS for the iPhone. It’s really a battle between a closed, limited system (Apple) versus an open, choice based system (Google).

And now enters the heavyweight into the smartphone fight. Microsoft’s Windows Phone has been released and is starting to get play from new phone users that have a history using Microsoft software. Microsoft has long been known as the leader in operating systems with Windows being a steady winner. Back in the late 80’s and 90’s Apple tried to use their own software with their own hardware against IBM and Microsoft and other companies that used a more open form of computing.

Gizmodo.com

Nowadays it’s a fight for a chunk of the social media and mobile computing market. The Nielsen Company released data on who is winning the U.S. smartphone battle. The following graphic illustrates that it depends if you look by operating system Android holds a slight lead but it shows Apple and Blackberry as companies make their own devices so are they winning?

The Nielsen Company

Enter Mark Zuckerberg and his fresh company, Facebook. Android phones have started to incorporate more seamless apps and experiences with Facebook on their phones but Google and Facebook are competing. So we may not be far off from a Facebook operating system. Either that or a merger of sorts between Apple and Facebook are possibilities. John Dvorak, a writer for Wall Street Journal, writes:

Let’s assume that Facebook does not want to develop a new phone OS from scratch. This leaves open the possibility that Apple Inc.  could do a specially branded iPhone that is Facebook-centric. It could be a blue model, for example, and have the Facebook brand burned into the body. This is not a stretch for Apple, since it has done special versions of the iPod in the past.

This all leads to some very interesting situations in the mobile computing market and beyond. The post-PC era is dawning on us and these four tech giants are competing for the right to change the way we use technology to communicate. Beyond smartphones and tablets the options are limitless for these digital leaders.

Tweet of the day:

Red Bull @redbull

Lost time will never be found again.

White Collar Social Media

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Going shopping? Want to virtually try on some clothes to see what they look like? Target came out with an app called Merona My Look Maker last summer and plenty of other clothing lines have done the same or similar things. Target also has a Facebook, Twitter and even a Foursquare site.

Social media is well known nowadays for its potential influence on businesses and the way they market to their customers. I can’t think of any current business that doesn’t use social media in some form, and for good reason. (That is unless your target customers are 95 years old, but even then…) There are so many people on social networking sites it is a great opportunity to get your company involved with some free publicity and advertise your brand. But there is a right way of doing it and a wrong way. Below is an example of how viral good word can spread about a new business. It’s actually an ad for ConstantContact, an email marketing solutions company.

By choosing the right information to put out on the public sites, businesses may get just what they want. Say for example a business needs more employees so they use social media to recruit new employees. On the wrong end of using social media you could annoy and lose customers. By not being consistent with keeping up the site or being too prolific of a poster you could potentially scare off consumers.

Calvin Klein has barely used social media in our new digital age and that’s part of the reason they have fallen from the top of the clothing market since the 1990s. But within the last year they have  launched one of the best planned multi-platform “digital campaigns” of recent history. They’ve revamped their website to allow for more interactivity. They created new apps for the iPhone, Android and Symbian markets. (I downloaded it and so far it looks really cool)

Calvin Klein Digital Campaign

Social Media Today, a blog done by social media experts, gives 7 new trends for 2012 that will change and shape business strategy. Number one on their list is:

1. TV goes social.

We’ve started to see the first forays, but internet and TV will become far more interlinked in the coming months. Multiple screens will converge, and your social activities become part of the TV experience. Keep an eye out for Apple – the noises about them producing a television set will probably signal a reinvention of the entire concept.

The other trends for businesses to take advantage of are: having an essential and effective social media strategy, dishing out special deals to social media users and buying into social commerce to generate serious volume of sales.

In closing, I leave you with some new thoughts on how a business should apply social media for a profit.

Random thought of the day:

I wonder how many people have had a crush on me at one point or another and I’ve just never found out about it? Oh well, Happy Valentine’s Day.

How Celebrities Affect Online Trends

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Anything that a celebrity does seems to be out in the public’s eye. Their personal business is our entertainment. Nothing is private. And with the introduction of new social media, they are the main source for topics of conversation. Bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers alike, talk about celebs and their offline lives as well as what the celebs post online. This is much like the tabloids such as the National Enquirer and People Magazine. Where celebrities go, fans follow. I like to call this the Ashton Kutcher Effect, as do a lot of people. When someone famous starts using a web site, their fans start using it too. This is just like when celebrities wore something it became trendy but now it has passed on to the digital, technological age.  Douglas MacMillan explains:

“Twitter co-founder Biz Stone credits high-profile users like actor Ashton Kutcher and basketball pro Shaquille O’Neal for bringing attention to the site of 140-character messages but says the company doesn’t reserve any “special resources” for them. “Sometimes celebrities who love Twitter stop by and say hello,” Stone says. “It’s usually just a quiet tour and a lunchtime chat but it’s really fun for us.””

And Twitter isn’t the only social networking site that has used celebrities to up their status. Grammy winning R&B singer John Legend and comedian actor Aziz Ansari each have Tumblr sites that brought a ton of people to that certain social networking site.

Foursquare, the site that lets you “follow” people around, kind of creepy and I call it stalkerish, was made famous by celebrities like DJ Pauly D from the MTV show Jersey Shore. The reason I say it is like stalking is because foursquare users check in at different locations and it posts wherever they are online for anyone to see and creep on them. On the other hand, President Obama uses foursquare to leaves tips from the places he visits.

President Obama's Foursquare account checked in at Arlington FD

The reason these celebrities endorse these social media sites is because there’s money to be made. In fact, there is A LOT of money in endorsements and digital advertising.

 ““We are pioneering the celebrity endorsement market in digital media, tapping the $50 billion spend on endorsements worldwide as well as the $35 billion spent in digital advertising,” comments Ad.ly CE Arnie Gullov-Sing to Online Media Daily.”

And the reason this works? A lot of people like keeping up with the Joneses’. This is like that, only digital. People will join a certain social network site to feel more like the celebrities everyone idolizes. But on the upside of things, celebrities are benefitting off of these new technologies as they should be. It makes us as the consumer feel as if we don’t need the middle man to write about the celebrities’ everyday lives anymore. They can just tweet it to us themselves!

Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account

Tweet of the day:

The Voice @NBCTheVoice

YeahSureYouBetcha @GwenSebastian is a North Dakota girl through and through! Her life motto? Don’t settle. Meet Gwen: bit.ly/wKx2Yd

Impact of Social Web on Current Events

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Social media is a relatively new technology that our society is using. It is being used as a real-time information distributor and consumer. Gone are the days of waiting for the Sunday newspaper. Shoot, we don’t even need to refresh the internet page we’re on anymore; think about how Twitter and Facebook notify us of new posts.

This new social web is affecting our view and take on current events. For example, the State of the Union address was last week. The president mentioned that the U.S. is “a nation of Google and Facebook”. Which goes to show that this generation is going to be known for the spread of social media tools. Mashable.com has some good information on this story.

State of the Union 2012

State of the Union 2012

Sticking to a political theme, today actress Roseanne Barr confirmed that she will be running as the Green Party’s presidential candidate this fall. She is a former Emmy Award winner for her sitcom “Roseanne” in the early ‘90s. Roseanne announced her digital campaign through her Twitter account. This created quite the buzz on Twitter and other social media sites with witty responses to her announcement. The top tweet says “Roseanne is running for president. She promises a hideous knitted blanket on every couch and more family dinners that end in cackling.”

Back in the entertainment business, Madonna is getting ready for her big Super Bowl halftime show. But in the meantime she had to endure a criticism from Elton John’s husband David Furnish about winning the Golden Globe last month. Furnish apologized to Madonna via Facebook. Social media has made apologizing, breaking up, and other things that used to had to of been done face to face is making it easier – and less sincere.

Using Facebook may have been the quickest way to get the apology over with, Roseanne might have gotten word of her campaign out quicker through Twitter, and analyzing the State of the Union speech may have been seen by more people being put up right after the speech, but sometimes the social web can be too much. What I’m taking out of all of this is that in order to stay relevant you must be in real-time nowadays. Immediacy has taken over our culture. We all need to take a step back from the social media every now and again to realize it, and also for some peace of mind.

Random thought of the day:

I force my dog to watch animal abuse commercials just to show him how good he has it.