Week 4 EOC: There's An App for That

With apps numbering in the hundreds of thousands, it’s easy to see there’s an app for just about everything you could imagine. In fact Apple’s own slogan for the app store “There’s an app for that,” (Apple). “Having recently hit the 15 billion download milestone, a new analysis has found that downloads from Apple's iOS App Store will increase 61 percent.” (Apple Insider). That was in July, however according to Appolicious “ App Store downloads dropped to 3.8 million for the month from 4.06 million in August” The biggest problem with some of the apps is that since anyone can make them, there’s a lot of apps floating around that are pretty unsatisfactory; particularly the apps for popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Many of their non-native counter parts, such as MyPad or Hootsuite are in fact better alternatives and make better use of the smartphone or tablet technology than the actual brand app. But one app I think is missing from the app store that could really make a lot of people happy would be a silence app. It’s a simple enough idea that utilizes headphones for blissful silence. The closest thing on the app store right now is Strange Rain. It’s an app that uses the sounds of rain and a bit of music if you like, to calm you. It’s a great app, but it would be nice to have more options. Maybe the sound of wind, or the beach. Or the option for an app that could block out all sound altogether, giving you absolute silence for concentration, because some days you just want to think. Without the kids yelling, the dog barking or people’s lawnmowers going off. You need total quiet, or at least something like it. Maybe you enjoy sounds of a vacuum, or the shower running. Some sort of comforting white noise that can block out every other sound in your life, while helping you relax. Now that’s an app worth its weight in gold. 

Week 3 EOC: Making Money For Good

Making money is fine, but using your money for good is probably the most important thing you could do with your company. And while a lot of companies donate to charities, there are some companies that work almost exclusively as charities.

1. (Product) Red-- RED is the company working to deliver an AIDS free generation by 2015. By partnering with some of the biggest companies in the country along with governement groups, it ensures that a percentage of every dolar you spend with your favorite stores (Apple, Gap, and Converse to name a few) will go to the Global Fund to Eliminate AIDS in Africa and 70 other countries.
2. Ethos Water Fund--Nearly a million people across the world don't have clean drinking water. Ethos Water Fund (by Starbucks) hopes to change all that. Giving 5 cents of every bottle of Ethos water you purchase, to the Ethos Water Fund. And while that may not seem like a lot, since it's inception it's raised more than $6 million dollars helping more than 420,000 people around the world.
3. Autism Speaks--Autism Speaks is a chairty who's goal is to help change the future for children and families effected by Autism. Through funding new medical research technologies and raising public awareness about Autism. So far they have special coprerate relationships with (Toys R Us, Chevrolet, Build-A-Bear Workshop and Home Depot to name a few).

All of these companies/charities are working hard to help those in need and change the way we look at charity and giving. Whether it's clean water, helping stop the spread of HIV/AIDs or helping children with Autism, they're working hard to make a difference in the world for the better. I'd like to see more well known companies working with these groups to make a difference.

Week 3: EOC My Demographics

As a generation Y or Millenial my deomographics suggest, "these children of the baby boomers number 83 million... . With total purchasing power of more than $733 billion" (Marketing: An Intro. for Education Management Corp. 10th Edition,73). While in todays terms (what with a deficit reaching in the trillions), $733 billon may not seem like much, it's double what our parents had. Another thing that makes us up is that we were raised on technology. The Millennials were the first generation to grow up in a world filled with computers, cellphones, satellite TV, iPods, and online social networks. A recent study found that 91 percent of Millennials are on the Web, making up 32 percent of all U.S. Internet users. According to another study, 77 percent of Millennials frequent social networking sites and 71 percent use instant messaging. (Marketing: An Intro for Education,74). While most of our parents are now comfortable with these new technologies it's easy to say that the Millenial Generation adapts better. A new phone that does twice what our last one did, for a Millenial is a no branier. I could do it in my sleep, my mother however, (a Gen. X) needed a bit of help learning her iPhone.  “All generations are comfortable with technology, but this is the generation that’s been formed by technology,” says a Yahoo! executive. For them, “it’s not something separate. It’s just something they do.” (Marketing: An Intro. For Education,74). And this fact is very true. How different would my generation be without iTunes? Without Facebook? Without the internet on our phones? It's almost hard to believe that for our parents this wasn't even an option for them. They didn't have these things and somehow they survived. I think if I went a day without my iPhone I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group -Video Games

With a still plummeting economy no one is safe, even the videogame market. “According to datacompiled by the NPD Group, a global market research company, and released bythe Entertainment Software Association, the computer and video game industrysold 273 million units in 2009 leading to an astounding $10.5 billion inrevenue.”  However during the first quarter of 2011 “Total consumerspending on video game hardware, content, and accessories hit $5.9 billion”  a nearly 4.6 billion dollar drop in less than two years. And it’s not looking good. The once big stars Wii and Xbox 360 have dropped to cash cows leaving PSP as a dog without any kind of hope. Meanwhile the mobile game industry via Apple iPhone and iPad seems to be growing in spite of the economic downturn. With most of the same games as most consoles and much cheaper pricing it seems the App store is the one to beat.

According to Distimo The share of iPhone owners who play iOS games is between 50 and 75%. Nearly 15 million Americans who play games on mobile phones or tablets actively use an iPad, and in the European countries this total is seven million. The iPad is ahead of the PlayStation Portable in terms of the total number of people playing games on a specific device.

And as more games grow for iDevices fewer and fewer people will be wanting to purchase major consoles that do only a limited number of things and purchase instead iDevices, which do twice the work, at a relatively cheaper price with a lot more games and options at half the price. Given time iDevices will more than likely outnumber game stations and the available games therein via the Appstore. Free games alone count for more purchases than paid. Mobile games are the new stars in the market. 

Week 1 EOC: Great Customer Service

Growing up with a server for a mother (waitress to old school readers) I learned early on about what constitutes good customer service and bad customer service. And it’s surprising how poor customer service has gotten. So much so that it almost amazes me when I actually get good customer service. Like the time my mom’s car broke down as we were driving back from my fathers apartment. Her car breaking down wasn’t really news (in fact for a four year old car, it’s had quite a few instances of breaking down) but like any car problem it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Suffice it to say it had been a bad day for me, and this was quickly turning to a bad night. Luckily (being that it was almost midnight) we found a 24 hour tire place somewhere off Flamingo and wrong turn at Albuquerque. We pulled in and she explained the situation and while they didn’t quite specialize in any kind of under the hood troubles, the guys were incredibly helpful.  

So they popped up the hood, and had a look inside in the hopes of giving us some semblance of good news. Unfortunately for us, there wasn’t an easy answer, the car would have to stay the night and we had to find a friend to take us home. The next day my mother came back (they had a mechanic that came in in the morning who could help fix the problem) the problem was fixed and in spite of the fact that they helped us so well, it was a rather small fee for the mechanic, the tire guys didn’t want anything. I think we’ll be going back to them in the future anytime there’s tire trouble.

Week 1 EOC: About Me

As an author I've been working to get published since 2003; having learned  early on things don’t always go according to plan and that the industry is not as easy to break into as success stories would have you believe, I decided I would need to have a plan B. I quickly realized the best option,  which would still allow me to stay close to what I loved was Graphic Design. More specifically advertising.  I would learn the ins and outs of the graphic design industry in the hopes of getting hired by a publishing company, what makes a good book and what makes it sell (a key feature in publishing my own book as well). Then after several years with them,  I would eventually be able to branch out on my own and create my own publishing house. Magical Press, Inc. It’s a big plan and its taken many years to get this far; and while I have no plan on halting my writing career any time soon, it’s always good to know there’s something to fall back on and help me to realize my larger goal of self-employment as a businessperson.  It’s been quite a journey these last 8 years, but I wouldn’t change any of it for a second, and whether it takes 2 years or 10, I don’t intend to give up my goals.