Week 6 EOC: There's an App for That

It toke me awhile to think of something that someone would pay $0.99 when it comes to an app that they can put on their cell phone, and finally I found one.  The idea came from a multi-player online game that I currently play called Final Fantasy XI.  There are a lot of things that one can do on this game but and one of them is something called “Trial of the Magians.”  It is where someone or if so desired a group of people can get together and accomplish the same goal for each of their characters.  The way this works is you would get a certain trial for your character stating for each player to kill a certain number of monsters of a specific type on a certain day of the week in the games calendar or during the corresponding weather.  Since weather can be so random, a lot times it is just easier to plan on accomplishing these objectives on that specific day of the week.  How you can apply this to a mobile device is simple, one needs to make a calendar with the days of the week of the game on it and sync it with the actual calendar of the game, so they are in unison in real time.  Someone could download this app to their phone and see what exact day of the week it is on the game and if they wanted they could search for a specific day and when it would start and end in earth time.  This way someone could plan their day more effectively to accomplish something that they really want on the game without having to log on and wait till the game day needed starts.  There are quite a few people in the world who still enjoy playing this game and if there is something out there that they could use to make it easier for them to get what they want in this game, they would easily spend $0.99 to get it.

Week 6 BOC: Parking Panda

Parking Panda is a website that allows you to find parking anywhere in the United States, whether it is free or paid parking.  As well as how you can rent out a parking space to other people so that you can make money yourself.

Parking Panda is a rapidly growing start up founded during Start up Weekend in Baltimore in April 2011. With three full-time employees and three interns, Parking Panda has grown significantly over the past year thanks to help from some of its investors including Baltimore Angels, Fabrice Grinda, Jose Marin, Neil Kataria, among others.

 To find a parking space, simply enter an address. You can sort by distance and price, and view photos of the spot. You can also see how many others have “liked” or “disliked” a space 

 

The service is especially convenient due to the fact the apps that the service has and how easy it is for their users to take advantage of their services.  Thus allowing a faster way for someone who is on the go to find a very much needed parking spot

Parking Panda users can find available parking spots using the Parking Panda website,either from a web browser or a mobile phone web browser. If searching from a mobile phone, the site will use the user's location to automatically find nearby available parking, or users can enter a location to search. Users can see photos of spaces, and even pay for the spaces directly from their mobile phones.

Also if someone were interested in Parking Panda and how it worked and how the service could benefit them, they could simply go to their website below which contains a video on how everything works.

Parking Panda 

Week 5: What is Mogol?

Mogol is basically a program you can use to personalize your email and make it more attractive to the user, also you can attach it to whatever email program that you are currently using.  It has quite a few nice features that include email forwarding, webmail, two gigabytes of storage, POP/IMAP for Outlook, Mac, Mail, Blackberry, iPhone…. The nicest feature about Mogol is the fact that you can attach it to any existing email account so you don’t have a need to change your email address, which makes it easier for a user to have to let others know what their new email address is etc. There is a tutorial as well so if you don’t understand or are confused on how to do something, you can look it up and figure out how to fix the problem yourself.  From what I’ve read about the Mogol it is owned by Hover and the reviews that I have seen are all very good on their customer service.  The way they have their website set up is very simple, yet appropriate for what they are trying to do in terms of sales, they want you to use their service due to the convenience of it.  To get one it looks like a customer would need to pay a fee starting at $35 per year, which is really not that expensive, approximately $3 a month.  First thing one would do is type in domain name and see if it is available.  Also if one prefers to talk to a human being to figure things and out and can’t find what they are looking for on the website, there is a 1 800 number that you can call to have any questions or concerns.  You can renew your subscription as well, at any time which is convenient for anyone that travels a lot.

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.”