The new starbucks app is truly a remarkable new addition to the extensive capabilities smartphone mobile devices now offer us. The idea personally sounds great, as I always love finding yet another way to use my phone for everything.
The survey is right, people tend to never forget their phone, while forgetting ones wallet or form of payment happens every so often. According to Reporter News (http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/jan/22/smart-call-clears-lines/) customers sought a faster way to pay, while Starbucks employees still insist that getting your coffee will always take the same amount of time it takes to make it.
While users of this app so far tend to be the regulars, there is a huge area for such a tool's expansion within a market craving apps to accomplish and fulfill their day-to-day functions. Starbucks seems to be yet another retailer catching on to this trend, as airlines already have boarding passes that are scannable right from your mobile device.
The possibilities are limitless, and I beleive we are (luckily) only at the beginning of this app trendy. We have so much coming our way in the future, and such retailers who do manage to take a leap of faith towards embracing technology are admirable.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Chinese Internet Revolution
China's current massive and extensively growing online presence will soon enough change the face of the Internet, and most notably, in my opinion, our access to information, products, and services. The Chinese have nearly mastered how to create and reproduce virtually any and every product.
With more and more Chinese turnign to the Internet, the Western world's access to such a window of knowledge has been untouched and unexplored thus far. The Chinese can provide us with potentially the ultimate Internet browsing experience, the ability to provide us with exactly what we are shopping for, at a wholesaler's price, to the way to make almost anything.
The breadth of knowledge on the Internet has not yet fully included the Chinese presence, and the effect will surely be felt throughout the upcoming decade. The numbers are truly enormous, and will continue to grow, and I believe, will come to dominate the Internet browsing experience, as we have yet to feel the effects of such Chinese market dominance.
As stated in http://www.biztechreport.com/story/934-china-biggest-global-internet-presence, "this tremendous growth in online users presents big opportunities for marketing, which could soon evolve into the largest online market on the planet." Well said.
With more and more Chinese turnign to the Internet, the Western world's access to such a window of knowledge has been untouched and unexplored thus far. The Chinese can provide us with potentially the ultimate Internet browsing experience, the ability to provide us with exactly what we are shopping for, at a wholesaler's price, to the way to make almost anything.
The breadth of knowledge on the Internet has not yet fully included the Chinese presence, and the effect will surely be felt throughout the upcoming decade. The numbers are truly enormous, and will continue to grow, and I believe, will come to dominate the Internet browsing experience, as we have yet to feel the effects of such Chinese market dominance.
As stated in http://www.biztechreport.com/story/934-china-biggest-global-internet-presence, "this tremendous growth in online users presents big opportunities for marketing, which could soon evolve into the largest online market on the planet." Well said.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
"Just Download It"
Can anybody remember the last time they bought a mainstream artist's CD? "Why, when you can just download it for free" has become the mentality of the millions of users who download pirated music on a daily basis. Online music piracy (not to mention piracy across other media genres as well) has, quite frankly, become the norm. Still many steps behind, how will legislative actions realistically ever keep up with the rapidly developing technology. By the time one peer to peer network is deemed illegal, many others have been created before the legislation outlawing the first could even be passed.
Let's face it. Technology moves faster than legislation. Will there ever be a way to stop music piracy? Probably not, and limiting it has become quite the task, especially from country to country where laws regarding the matter highly fluctuate in leniency. I don't believe there will ever be a way to curtail the current downloading frenzy, and the true solution lies not in how to curtail music piracy, but in ways for these media and music giants to shift profits and goals and adjust them to the current pace and track of technology. They must look to other profitable forms and rely no longer primarily on record sales.
The music industry must start learning to think ahead of the present, as opposed to legislation which will always be several steps behind. Instead of playing the bad cop, the only real successful way to curtail the pace of technology is to move with it. Similar to what itunes did, if people are going to download music, find a way to make money in them doing so. The music industry has irreversably changed, and legislation must not seek to impossibly reverse the changes, but to work with them and move with them, thus adapting their profit making techniques to the current pace of tech users. Shakira, for example, usually provides her new single for a free download within the first several days of its release, a strategy which can be read about here http://www.theinsider.com/news/2498061_Download_Shakira_s_Beastly_New_Single_For_Free.
The music industry is going to have to prove indefinitely flexible in order to survive the future.
Let's face it. Technology moves faster than legislation. Will there ever be a way to stop music piracy? Probably not, and limiting it has become quite the task, especially from country to country where laws regarding the matter highly fluctuate in leniency. I don't believe there will ever be a way to curtail the current downloading frenzy, and the true solution lies not in how to curtail music piracy, but in ways for these media and music giants to shift profits and goals and adjust them to the current pace and track of technology. They must look to other profitable forms and rely no longer primarily on record sales.
The music industry must start learning to think ahead of the present, as opposed to legislation which will always be several steps behind. Instead of playing the bad cop, the only real successful way to curtail the pace of technology is to move with it. Similar to what itunes did, if people are going to download music, find a way to make money in them doing so. The music industry has irreversably changed, and legislation must not seek to impossibly reverse the changes, but to work with them and move with them, thus adapting their profit making techniques to the current pace of tech users. Shakira, for example, usually provides her new single for a free download within the first several days of its release, a strategy which can be read about here http://www.theinsider.com/news/2498061_Download_Shakira_s_Beastly_New_Single_For_Free.
The music industry is going to have to prove indefinitely flexible in order to survive the future.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
groupON
Groupon, like all great ideas, manages to fill a void you become so accustomed to using, that you wonder how you ever lived without it. I for one have been an avid Groupon user since its launch. Having bought several Groupons myself, from restaurants, to spas, and even to the dentist, it has become a guilty pleasure. As with many great ideas, the first to enter the market usually manages to capture a strong and loyal base. While numerous competitors have popped up and tried to jump on Groupon's caboose, I firmly believe Groupon has maintained its customer base. I am subscribed to each of their competitors daily deals, and receive about 5-6 emails aside Groupon's daily email. While the idea is the same, the execution is not, and the consistency is not. Groupon never fails, while their competitors will sometimes have the same deal up for days, or not manage to attract the quality of deals Groupon has managed to attain. Groupon's tactics have also been remarkable, as they consistently send out Groupon bucks, between $5 and $10 to be used towards your future Groupon purchases, thus keeping you hooked on finding your next discounted fix and coming back to the site over and over again. Just take a look at Facebook, what did we do without it? While the concept has been replicated by a plethora of other websites, we simply don't care, our loyalty, our attention, and our credibility is all spent on Facebook. Why? Because Facebook is what we knew first, it introduced us to the concept, we loved it....why leave it for a copycat. Copycats may work across numerous other industries, such as retail, but when it comes to innovate web-executed ideas, the first to pop up is usually what sticks. A similar concept can be observed with Apple. How many versions of an mp3 player came out since Apple released its ipod, yet Apple came up with it, they innovated it, they maintained it and remained committed to it and improving quality of features for its users--why leave it for a copycat? With innovation comes trust. We trust Apple. Similar to Groupon, they came up with an innovation, stuck to it, developed it, and have remained committed to their fanbase. Livingsocial.com, gottahalfit.com, and dailydeal.com, are all great websites, they all do the same thing, yet they lack that "cool" factor that the first in the market always manage to attain. They lack Groupon's "cool" feature. It became an accomplishment for Groupon to turn using coupons into something trendy. Quite the feat.
As Sam Diaz states in his article http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/groupons-11-million-gap-day-a-business-winner-or-loser/38259, Groupon is not only great for users such as myself, it is an immensely valuable tool for businesses, from small businesses, to those such as the Gap, Nordstrom Rack, and American Apparel who have all turned to Groupon. While you may wonder why such large retailers would need to use Groupon to promote sales, Groupon's effects expand well beyond the sales arena. Groupon, because of its cool factor, gets you talking. It brings companies word of mouth (I must have mentioned last week's Nordstrom Rack deal to at least 10 of my friends), it gets you to spend money on things you otherwise would not have bought, didnt need, or just wouldnt have splurged to treat yourself with (such as massages for $39 instead of $109), its great advertising, great brand exposure, great company exposure, and its immediate cash to the business, unlike gift cards where the values are not redeemed until the customer has spent the gift card.
As you can see, I love this website. It's great, it's fun, it's addictive, it's creative, it's trendy, it's smart, and the idea is so great, yet so simple that you wish you would have thought of it, or at some point wonder how you didn't....just another quality of what truly is a great idea!
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