Week 4 EOC: Avon

Avon is still used to the way things used to be and because of that and not using the proper social media tools on their website as well as the fact that many more women are bringing in most of the household income compared to men nowadays, most of their customers and possible employees are not at home looking at their products as well as making them known to other potential customers.

Avon was built on theconcept of selling cosmetics door-to-door and recruiting new sales reps intothe multi-level marketing venture. That model worked exceedingly well becauseof the convenience of being able to buy from the comfort of home. But the Internethas made access to cosmetics easy — particularly elite brands like NARS andLaura Mercier, which are sold through LVMH’s (PINK:LVMUY) cosmetics unit,Sephora.

Another problem is the employees they do have that try to sell their products online only get credit if the customer who is purchasing these products identifies them on the website, so there is an inaccurate count on how much the employees may or may not be in terms of sales

“The company's sales representatives still findthemselves left to their own devices when it comes to the Internet. Localrepresentatives get credit for an online sale only if shoppers use a drop-downmenu to identify them. Some sign up for social-media classes, others seek outonline tutorials and many discuss tactics on message boards”

Another thing is when I went to the Avon site and looked at their website I did notice that they have the social media tools on their website, however they are poorly positioned.  By having them at the bottom of the webpage, the user must scroll down to the bottom to see that the company even uses these tools, a simple fix would be to place at the top in between the logo and the search functions where the user will see them almost immediately, also another helpful tip is when the user looks at their menu have a drop down so you can save them a click or even have the icon change color when the mouse hovers over it, this lets the user know exactly where they are and are less likely to become lost 

Avon

Week 3 EOC: Spotify

Spotify is an account that you can sign up for so that you can get access to streaming music to your own personal computer.  When you do sign up, you will gain access to about 15 million different songs that you can listen to anytime that you choose.

This is important due to the fact that it is a cloud music service, Spotify is able to give users access to their playlists from anywhere and also offline. Even if you’re stuck in the subway and there’s no wifi, you can access your Spotify account, so long as you still have battery on your device.

Many record companies are going to feel that their business is going to vastly threatened by spotify due to the fact that this can basically negate the reason to even buy tangible CDs, which could put them out of business or at minimum have a serious impact on the amount of income the company can possibly generate

Some industry watchers see Spotify's offering as the end of the music download business. But Daniel Ek — the company's Swedish-born, 28-year-old founder and CEO — feels differently.

The business started with a few people discussing ideas of how to make something that would cater to people when it came to an htpc machine, they even discussed the issues that came with Napster and the problems it had

What I did find that was rather surprising was the fact they had the soundtracks to the newest movies out on the top lists and based on what I've seen in the music industry which isn't much that the soundtracks unless it's a pop song that everyone likes they tend to end up on the back end of the spectrum.  But I did find a spot where you could listen to the soundtrack for the new movie "Hunger Games"


http://www.spotify.com/us/

Week 2 EOC: Privacy

Privacy is a status wherein an individual can work on his/her information in seclusion, resulting in a selective revelation of one's identity and information. Privacy can mean anonymity in case a person wants to remain unidentified. Privacy can also be related to the security aspect of an individual or information. The definitions of privacy can differ across individuals and cultures. The invasion of privacy can be avoided by the issue of privacy laws.

However, when it comes to privacy on the internet, I think there is very little or quite a bit depending on the person and how they conduct themselves.  You can preach privacy as much as you want, but in all honesty it is up to the person and how much they choose to use.  There are some people out there who are just very open, others are very private, and you have some that just ignorant and/or stupid when it comes to privacy.

Internet privacy is now a hot-button issue; the flurry of media reports about HTTP cookies has raised public concerns that consumers' online activities are being monitored . In mid-May, Vice President Al Gore announced a White House initiative aimed at helping to improve online privacy protections. And in June, the Federal Trade Commission reported the results of its March privacy "sweep," in which the agency visited more than 1,400 commercial Web sites in search of clearly displayed privacy policies. The FTC reported that while 85% of the sites it had visited collect personal information from consumers, only 14% had posted any privacy-related notices, and only 2% had posted comprehensive privacy policies.

At the moment technology is changing very quickly, so that it is difficult for rules and procedures to be established and enforced, as change is the only constant. Perhaps the greatest cause for concern is the unknown. Surfers do not know when and if they are being tracked, who collects that information, how it is done, and for what purposes.

Week 2 BOC: Instagram

Facebook has purchased Instagram for the price of 1 billion dollars in order to use the most popular photo sharing app on their website.  This is so that people who will have more reason to use Facebook or continue to use it even more giving the company a chance to generate more revenue for itself.  “Instagram is a free photosharing application that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filterand share it on a variety of social networking services.” The company has more than 30 million registered users and is less than two years old and has minimal revenues.  The reason why they want to keep Instagram unchanged is so that no gives the opinion that Facebook is trying to change it benefit them or confuses their existing customers on what they already know about Instagram.  The social network is acquiring a software company that lets people apply filters to photos they snap with their mobile devices and share them with friends and strangers.“Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg emphasized thatthey would not change Instagram in a significant way. “  Instagram's fans, brand recognition and its potential are difficult to put a price tag on. Yet Facebook has — and can afford it. The company is preparing for an initial public offering of stock that could value it at as much as $100 billion in a few weeks. What's $1 billion? A drop in the bucket, really.  “Getting Instagram is a big win for Facebook as it works toharness people's growing obsession with their mobile devices and sharing everymoment of their life. The company's own mobile application is not as easy touse as Instagram, and sharing photos can be downright clunky. Facebook's way,noted Pachter, has always been to buy technology if it's better than what itcan build on its own.”

Week 1 BOC: Sponsored Tags

I found something today that was very interesting about HTML 6, and that was the fact of sponsored tags.  The idea itself is not that bad at all it may even be beneficial to a lot of applications.  But this idea is great it gives the buyer another tool to make the HTML pages more exciting and a better experience for the user, therefore making them more profit and more people will view their webpage.  By giving web designers a tool like this, it will also help them earn a better income.  Therefore, making not only the user happy about how the webpage was designed but also making the web designers job much easier to their employer, which again is helpful on both sides in making things easier for them.  However, when I did read more about this I did notice that a lot people were under the impression of the idea of sponsored tags was a waste of time and effort, but that was only from what few people responded on the page, and not necessarily everyone’s opinion.  The problems though is that when someone sponsors a tag or anything else it tends to belong to the person that is sponsoring it and therefore legality issues come into play.  Seeing this now unless it is handled very carefully can backfire on a lot of people and/or companies just trying to make their way in the world today.  Now they have stated that there are different sponsorship tiers available at different prices, this is most likely so that the buyer may customize it to their needs.  Thus allowing more flexibility and creativity to the buyer and will most likely help with copyright issues. 

“A company or individual may purchase a sponsored tag up until the close of the HTML6 spec process. The deadline for submissions is April 2nd, 2013.”

http://thinkvitamin.com/code/html-xhtml/whats-new-in-html6/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+vitaminmasterfeed+%28Think+Vitamin%29

Week 1 EOC: My Voice

As a web designer, I am currently working on designing and building websites and/or improving ones that are already built in order to make them a better user experience to the customer. I have always been fascinated about the computers and how they work. My interest started when I was a young kid growing up and have always wanted to learn more about them. I am a very much an aggressive person when it comes to doing my work.  I don’t believe in doing work that is not your best and that you can walk away happy with it, based on my experience with jobs I have done before in the past if there is something that you yourself are not pleased with generally speaking someone else isn’t going to be pleased with it either.  I learned this mostly from my experience working as an electrician in the construction industry, and during that time I found out that if you intended to get the job done quickly that type of attitude was almost a necessity.  During my time working as an electrician I learned quite a bit about there’s not many different ways you can approach the task and get the same result, and I also found out that there are some people that you may work for that are very particular about how the work must be performed and some who are not.  Most people would describe me as very persuasive when it comes to getting things that I think would be best for that particular situation.