Twitter (09-17-2009)

I have as yet to ascribe to the idea of social networking so this was a first for me. I also doubt I will be following anybody much less be followed but here is what I came up with.

Thou Shall Nots:
Impersonate, use violent language, copyright infringe, have serial accounts, spam other "tweeple" send tweets greater than 140 characters, post pornographic material, voice your opinions (twitter is about what you're doing not what you think), have ads designed to generate revenue on their micro blogging site, perform illegal activities, follow over 2,000 people.

Business uses:
Real time Customer Support:
Twitter can be used as a notification agent to address customer concerns and problems.

Promotion & Marketing Strategies:
Twitter can help a company generate buzz, collect statistics, provide coupons, e.t.c. Collecting customer feedback is also a twitter feature that business can implement.

Twitter helps companies be 'more human' through interaction of the customer/client.

Notification Agent:
Enables companies to disseminate information quickly and provide updates to customers faster. Updates and product launch information can also be posted much faster.

Companies can monitor what customers are saying about them, which enables them to react quickly to situations.

Some tools I found that business use include tweekdeck, tweetie, twellow, and tweety.

Opera Browser

Age: 15 years & Counting

What it is: Web browser & Internet suite.

Market share: 2.4% according to W3C.

However, has stronger market share among mobile devices and is being utilized in games such as Nintendo DS & the Wii.

Cost: Free for PCs and Mobile phones. Not free for Enterprise use.

Surprise fact: Opera integrated Bit Torrent in their browser.

THE MOLLY HOLZSCHLAG VISIT

Interesting lady to say the least. Now I get why she is called a web evangelist. Very passionate about what she believes in. Dare I say tenacious too? I believe so. A "bit" too winded on the Microsoft angle but so would anyone with an agenda. I have yet to read on the IE support issues as per her claims, but recent articles on the internet show that Google & Digg will stop supporting IE6. A quick glance at source code from various websites includes the meta tag for IE8 so there may be some merit to her claims. Did not quite get what she does for the Opera people and did not leave the room knowing anything more than I had previously about the browser. Being a creature of habit, Firefox/IE it is for me. All in all, a good presentation....and oh...she is Definetely a name dropper!

Food for thought: America, like many other nations is a capitalistic society. With all the hype being generated about web standards and all, my question is - who stands to make money in all of this? Hmmmmm......

Samosa Anyone? (The Wikipedia Edit)

Being a self proclaimed foodie, I searched for a food I loved and one where the wiki police were not making constant patrols. I searched for Samboosas a.k.a samosas. There were a couple of changes that I felt the article lacked and amazingly making changes was pretty easy. I did not have to create an account or log in and the changes appeared instantly. Ofcourse, there is the usual disclaimer that changes can be removed.... but for the most part, a very fluid process. If you like trying out new foods, I promise you this one will not disappoint - trick is to get it from the right place where it's done right!

09-10-2009 (Chuck Hudson Drop In)

And the caffeine came crushing down.....after a long night of HTML coding and operating on a few hours sleep, Colombian cafe kept me going for most of the class but then came the crash and man was it fast and hard...i.e. until Chuck Hudson walked in.

Very interesting topic and his delivery of "you can do it if you put your mind to it" presentation was really good. I got to learn that apps can be developed on other phones - Crackberries & Nokia's. I also love the cautionary tales of Apple Inc's adoption of applications - just cause you can build an app don't mean it will go live. Last but not least, two words that really WoWeD! me Augmented Reality. Really cool stuff.

Dr. Piercy's list of popular languages out there was also a great jump off point for anyone thinking of learning a new language.

09-08-2009 ("Six" Forces Porter Model)

Porter's 5 Forces Analysis was interesting to learn.  The validity of the sixth model makes sense and should be mentioned.  Also, the websites Dr. Piercy shared in class along with the Mozilla add-ons were an added bonus. Brad's in class example further demonstrated just how valuable the tools are. 

I do have to agree with the prof's view on the Blue Ocean Strategy.  I read and analyzed it for a marketing class in days past (o.k. years past) and the consensus was that book was more about differentiation through innovation as opposed to the way to gain competitive strategy.

Long weekend...Starting on the h/w today....what can I say, I love working under pressure....