Week 13: Clear Social Media

Methods of Social Media Advertising


The rise and popularity of the internet has shown a growth in internet advertising as well. What started out as occasional advertising on websites and pop-ups that can be annoying have transformed into a more efficient and a more profitable way of attracting customers. Two behemoths in internet advertising are Google and Facebook have paved the way in the evolution of internet advertising and have used two methods of collecting revenue for themselves. 


The Hunt

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When using Google, people are on a specific fact-finding mission to search for something they want which can be for information purposes, looking for a product, looking for something for a business and Google's business model is based around targeting what customers are looking for and advertising similar products that companies have paid Google to advertise. Google uses the search history to advertise in other areas of the web. Web 2.0 has allowed Google to advertise in multiple areas and not just specifically on a Google Search.


The Hike

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Facebook employs this in their business model. Rather than aiming at the people that are concentrated on seeking out information, they target the people that are exploring their site for longer periods of time. Facebook mostly uses banner ads that charge companies by what is called CPM (Cost per thousand impressions). They place ads in various areas of the website and hope the placement leads to more interest. 


Below is a video of the new innovations in the advertising field that facebook is developing to target the right audience more efficiently

Week 12 Clear: Telecommunications and the Internet

IPv4 and IPv6
One concept I thought was very interesting in the lesson section was about the Internet Protocol Version 4. It is one of the most widely used versions on the internet today. As we have grown as a society, the number of connections to the internet have grown too (exponentially). This has led to a massive amount of different IP addresses for each device. The rise of mobile devices and other devices connected to the internet has led to an exhaustion of internet addresses. This was an unforeseen consequence because the people who created the original IPv4 were unaware of the amount of connections that would be needed in the future.

Brajeshwar Oinam

A resolution to this problem has come in the form of what is known as Internet Protocol Version 6. This has taken the previous limit of a little over 4 trillion unique addresses and has increased it to 340 undecillion internet connections (3.4×10^38). This limit should take us far into the future before having to come up with a different structure to the internet protocol.

Internet of Things
On the same note, when it was discussed that many items are being connected to the internet that were not previously, I got a little curious on the developments of modern technology in that field. Some of the newly connected items to the internet include a home's oven, thermostat, garage door, alarm system, electricity in the household, cars, everything electronic you can think of is being included in the internet connection. I reviewed a video that came from another section in this class called "The Internet of Things".


Below is a detailed explanation of IPv6

Week 11 Clear: Skills Track Access

This week we learned the generals of Microsoft Access. It's a great program for business use, but as far as personal use...it is a program that I haven't used very much. The videos discussed this week went over tables, queries, forms and reports. I will discuss each of them briefly below.

Tables

Tables in access are used to store the information in its most basic form. The table wizard can take information that was from an external source and sort it for you automatically by asking just a few questions about how you want the information sorted. Once everything's on the table it is there to be modified and formatted anyway you choose.

Brad Amidon

Queries

These basically are ways to get details on the information in a database. For example, if you wanted to know the seasonal sales for female shoppers in December, you could create a query to give you those detailed results back (if you had the information). 

Brad Amidon

Reports

Reports are used to create information from a source, whether it be from a table or query, and turn it into something that is printable and that can be easily understood by people who need to make decisions.

Forms

They make is simple to enter information so that it can be done quickly and easily without having to waste as much time moving from cell to cell. It also helps prevent wrongly entered items because there is not as much confusion. Microsoft Access gives you the ability to design very nice forms or just very simple ones.

Brad Amidon

Clear Week 10: The Data Asset

Database Management


This week's chapters have been talking about Data and how it's used and stored within a company. Data has increasingly become more important and accessible to companies which has led to more money being spent in data management. After reading chapter 11 in the Gallagher text, I got a general idea of how database management works. 

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SQL
I learned about SQL which stands for Structured Query Language. It is the most general language when talking about database management. This language lies at the very core of database management programs such as Access, filemaker pro, and even used in the open source by Oracle's MySQL.

MySQL
This is an open source database management software that has been a very popular choice among businesses and web developers because of it's free nature. Its one of the letters in the LAMP software stack (the M) and all of the programs are based on MySQL

Wikimedia Commons

What is MySQL

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clear Web Services

Client-Server Applications

This week I read in the Gallagher book about web services. These services started out as a novelty but really started catching on when larger companies were investing into the technology. It basically uses various machines to access a remote server to do a variety of different tasks. In modern applications, customers can go online to purchase items, the customer will see a very simplistic version of what is actually going on (for good reason) but when they decide on something and place the order, the customer is sending a request to the remote server to place an order. It can use the logic that a cash register would use to communicate that information to the accountants at that company as well as the credit card company the money is coming from. Compared to older times, less human interaction in these financial and logistical affairs leads to less errors, less required labor, and more cost savings for the company. It also give the company multiple ways to access their target consumers.

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More about Web Services

Week 6: Clear- Open Source Software

Open Source Software

Open Source software is defined as "a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification free of charge. Webopedia.


Open Source Software (OSS) was first introduced and made popular to the world by a 21 year old named Linus Torvalds. He developed an operating system name Linux (note the resemblance to his first name).
The development of this and following generations of the Linux OS ushered in a new era of software development. It completely redefined how software was developed, evolving from a company-based development initiative (which was guarded much like trade secrets) to a completely free and publicly collaborative atmosphere.


Many corporations opt to use OSS over proprietary software for many reasons, a few are:


Its Free- the software used in corporations can be very costly and drive up tech costs. A conversion to open source could be very cost effective. Many Fortune 500 companies have reported several millions of dollars in annual savings just by changing from proprietary software. 

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More Secure and Reliable- When you have many people collaboratively working on developing software, it is much more likely that a bug or glitch will be found and fixed. This also goes for security issues and finding backdoors into programs. The more people reading through the code, the more likely they will find a vulnerability that wasn't previously located. 










Video explaining OSS:

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Week 4 Clear: Porter's Five Competitive Forces

Porter's Five Competitive Forces 

Micheal E. Porter is a professor at Harvard University. He is the head of the Institute of Strategy and Competitiveness. He derived what is known as the five competitive forces. It challenges the old strategies once employed by industries, that the only competition is your direct competition. But as Porter shows, there is much more to it. Below is an outline of the five forces that shape the strategy of a corporation.

By Grahams Child [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)] from Wikimedia Commons

Threat of New Entrants

New companies that enter an industry come with a drive to gain market share. Some companies are just starting out in an industry, but others are larger corporations that have the financial leverage to become a big threat to existing companies. The competitors themselves do not necessarily put pressure on costs, prices, and profitability. The actual threat of new entry does though because if there are not big barriers preventing new entrants, the entire approach and strategy must be developed to anticipate future competitors. 

Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Companies in an industry must be able to depend on a supplier (or multiple) in their supply chain, and the leveraging power of these suppliers are critical to the profitability of a company. If a supplier has many clients and is largely depended on for materials, they have more negotiating ability in supply prices and terms. These suppliers will try to maximize their profits and that could have an enormous impact on a company's strategy. 


Another big part is switching costs. Many companies work very closely with their suppliers to obtain an end product that meets the needs of the consumer. It takes an abundance of R&D and other types of investments to derive such products. This makes it more unlikely for a company to change suppliers. 

Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Bargaining Power of Buyers

Large purchasers from suppliers also can hold significant bargaining power over their suppliers. These buyers can demand better quality products and force down the prices of these supplies which can drive up the costs to the supplier. Suppliers are especially at risk from buyers if there is more than one supplier in their industry. If the materials offered by the supplier are relatively common, the switching costs are minimal to the purchaser which can lead to fierce price competition between suppliers of an industry. 


Threat of Substitutes

Substitutes can present a threat to an industry because it can perform the same or similar function by a different means. Substitutes have always been around but sometimes they are not easy to spot or associate with a product. That is because a seemingly unrelated action or product can have a significant impact on a different industry. For example, the increase in internet speeds around the globe with the advent of high speed cable, led to more calls being placed online and less being made using a landline. Phone companies are continuing to suffer less profitability because a price ceiling has capped off the industry.

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Rivalry Among Existing Competitors


This force nearly goes without saying because rivalry among businesses of the same industry has been around for a very long time. Price competition, continuous new products, and advertising all have an effect on the profitability of a company in any industry. The intensity of competition differs in each industry but high intensity has many common factors such as: numerous competitors, high exit barriers, high fixed costs. Examples include the relatively new industry for smartphones. Apple came out with the iphone which has been an amazing success story, but it opened up an entire industry of fierce competitors vying to be a better choice. Companies such as Samsung, Research in Motion, and Nokia have come out with great substitutes that are as powerful if not more powerful than the iphone. Along with the continuous technological improvements on each phones is the price competition among them. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/guileite/with/929553853/

Sources:
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