EOC Week 6: 9 Apps

Look on anybodies smart phone these days and your bound to find a couple similar apps. Facebook, Amazon, and Angrybirds are just a couple of the very popular cross platform applications that most people are carrying around these days. But there are a few to my particular taste that everyone should have that maybe doesn't exist on there phone right now. Mint is a online bank managing app that automatically streams your balance to your phone without having to log in and out of your banks website. It even creates a budget based on income and balance of your account. Anybody who is a movie freak like me and loves to have the flexibility of watching shows anytime anyplace needs the Netflix app. Dvd players in cars and other other equipment that was seen as luxury items now are a joke when compared to what a phone can do. Pulsenews is another great app that you can customize to your informational interests. No more flipping through articles! For dumb apps how about the social networking imitation apps. How many twitter and facebook apps can you seriously make? Are you that unhappy with the actual sites free app?

EOC Week 5: Best and Worst SuperBowl Commerical

This years Superbowl was flooded with ads and new movie trailers for the upcoming summer as usual. This years advertisements weren't all that they were cracked up to be for me. A lot of the spots were ads campaigns that have been going on for a while now that at this point really just bore me to death. The baby one about insurance or whatever is it," shows how much I care" was cute the first couple times around but now its really just boring. Everybody was expecting Kim Kardashian and I'm sure plenty of people will announce that it was one of the best ads simply because well....Kim Kardashian was in it. For me one of my favorites was the ad for Doritos. A office workers announces after he coworker has finished a bag of Doritos that he has left out the best part. Confused the worker looks over at his friend only to have his fingers licked of all the Dorito chip residue. When I saw it I was cracking up. Because its something that people do, they may not talk about licking there fingers after eating chips or little things like that when it comes to products but its all the little idiosyncrasies that have the viewer/consumer connect with the ads. As for worst I have to think of Godaddy.com. Don't get me wrong I think they are great for purchasing domain names and other internet products but whoever is in charge of there marketing department seriously needs to get the boot. I mean come on Danica Patrick, Jillian Michaels, and now Joan Rivers! Are you kidding me. Who are you trying to market to? None of these women have any sort of sex appeal at all if there trying to win that game. Maybe they should have a talk with Kim over at Sketchers if they want to play that game.

Week 4- Business to Busniess Vs. Consumer Marketing

The consumer market is a ever changing one and the factors that go into how it works evolve just as much. Though they change, the basis of any market pretty much stays the same. Some of the major factors include things like demand or how much they want the product. Competition- how many products are out like it and what sets it apart from the rest. When a person thinks about buying something there are a lot of things that go through there head. Things like research, need, want, and availability.Products often fall in and out of circulation because of there need. Often people will buy product only for it to fall out of style or need in a few months. This often happens a lot with electronics. On the flip side when it comes to business consuming the game is a little different. Unlike consumers business is out to gain profit and be ahead of the game in there buying where as consumers are more purchasers of leisure. Business customers are fewer then consumer but there power is larger in size. Less purchasing but more revenue. The demand also fluctuates based on things like location and price changes as well. In the end "If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful."

Week 3 EOC: Making money for good

When it comes to doing good for the world, as a business RED is one of the top around. RED is a organization that partners with many large retailers around the world and takes a portion of what they sell and gives it to the red organization which in return pools the money into the aids fund and spreads the money across the world for aids research and medication. Companies that participate in this range from Apple, Converse, and Nike, all the way to Starbucks. Each company has a different product or portion that they give to the organization.  For example Gap gives 50% of their proceeds of Gap Red products to the organization and in return that money is given in full back to the aids research. Then you have other companies that just give a flat rate back on products. Starbucks gives back one dollar for each RED product that they offer. More and more organizations are starting to pop up that are similar to this and its something that growing population are interested in. A person may not be so quick to open there wallet to a charitable organization but they might feel a bit more comfortable to go to a retailer and purchase something that is in return given off as a charitable donation. It’s a win win situation for all sides. The RED organization says that since its beginning in “2006 they have globally raised over 160 million dollars”. Promotional partners have also teamed up with RED to get the word out about their services. Cable networks like HBO and MTV have taken part in spreading the word. Even internet based sites like Hulu and and Facebook are getting in on the action giving RED a very strong boost among the community.

Week 3 EOC- My Demographic

Being born in 1990, my generation falls into that of the Millennials. Being described with “fluency and comfort with digital technology”, I have no other option then to agree with that statement.  I can remember from an early age getting on toy computers and other digital gadgets aimed at children, it was just a part of my upbringing. The video game systems along with a handful of other things were just around growing up. But over the last 20 years of my life things have definitely evolved since the early days. I can remember the days of using a cell phone strictly for phone calls because well… that’s all it could do. The days of buying a ringtone for 2 bucks so you could have your favorite song ring when somebody would call you are over. Now somebody can just load up a snippet of a song into their smart phone and viola you have your favorite song as a ringtone. Early 2000 when I wanted to go on the internet I had a horrible thing called dial up which most poor souls had to endure through AOL. God that was painful, sitting around for minutes at a time just so you could get on the web. Who could forget that wonderful sound of the connection too. But as years pass technology gets faster, smaller, and cheaper and it has become a integral part of the society that the young future lives with today. The digital age has changed the game for everything, let me say that again. THE DIGITAL AGE HAS CHANGED THE GAME FOR EVERYTHING. Everything is in the process of being and will be coming straight from a computer, displayed from a screen. Technology single handedly has and will define the generation today and those to come.

Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

Growing up with videogames, over the years I have seen a vast change in the marketplace and the way that platforms and games are released. The days of running down to your local game shop to pick up your favorite copy of Sonic the Hedgehog are over. With the analog wonders that went bye bye so did the videogame platforms. It’s 2011 and the digital age is and has been upon us. Traditional forms of media have always come from a hard copy played in some type of playback device. But with the many revelations of modern technology, more and more bang is packed into one device.  The new Nintendo 3DS is set to be released in the next few weeks and has been developed in means to "use this technology to add creative new experiences to their games." The game now goes further then what you buy at first. With downloadable content and a slew of other interactive upgrades, games are now having a longer shelf life than ever. You won’t hear too often “I beat the game now what”. With competitive pricing from games from apps stores and other mobile devices the platform gaming system has taken a hard hit. I think from this you will see more and more developers working towards games on devices like ipads and iphones. Honestly when you think about how large platforms are only released every 8 years or so the conventions behind a gaming system like that seem outdated compared to the rapid release of mobile interactive devices. Portability is king with new products coming out like the nex-gen psp that will “rival those of the ps3”! Times are changing with the power of today’s handheld and portable gear. "A lot has changed since the Xbox 360 debuted in November 2005".

Sources Cited

http:///news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10365624-1.html?tag=featuredStory

http://news.cnet.com/2300-17938_105-10006354-7.html?tag=mncol

http://ds.ign.com/articles/114/1144775p1.html

EOC Week 1- Great Customer Service

For most of my electronics purchases I always find myself at Best Buy, just always have. Great stuff, just not always the best prices. That was until I discovered the little feature in the Amazon app for my iphone that lets you scan bar codes and gives you the amazon price. Lucky for me Best Buy price matches and I've never payed full price since. Best Buy gear but with the Wal-mart motto of "save prices,live better". ;)