Pay as you go: Starbucks Starts the Trend

This revolutionary step to paying by phones at stores and retailers is going to be huge. In a time where people can forget their wallets at home but not their smart phones, companies are betting huge that this technology will take off and become the norm in the future. The technology that can make this happen is near field technology, it “is a new, short-range wireless connectivity technology that evolved from a combination of existing contactless identification and interconnection technologies."

Apple is experimenting with the technology and wish to adapt it to the next generation iphone in which the phone will be able to communicate with any Mac device and make it your own. Starbucks tried paying as you go in a small part of the west coast and it was so successful that they implemented it companywide just recently, you can find the article here. With all these innovations, will stores be able to increase sales effectively? Will security issues arise with this new technology that will prevent its popularity from expanding?

As technology gets introduced you have new people hacking it all the time, all it will take is for someone to pass right by you and your smart phone and capture your personal information using this technology which will take identity theft to a whole new level. But with all these issues that can arise, the idea is pretty cool and it’s definitely a step forward in an era of technology innovation. 

Online Music Piracy, a threat to the Music Industry

As technology advances, it becomes increasingly harder to detect illegal downloading of music which is copyrighted online. The industry world wide lose over 12 billion dollars to piracy a year and over 400 million in tax revenue in the United States. Many attempts have been made to reduce this piracy online but it hasn't had the affect that officials and companies want which is to reduce piracy significantly and ultimately eliminate it. The most recent solution which i find could help the industry is a program which acts as a fingerprint and detects illegal music downloading which would help track these illegal acts that are being committed every day. The technology is patent pending and its called DIF - Digital Interactive Fingerprinting for the detection and prevention of online music and video piracy.
Whether this solution works is yet to be seeing but with the rapid technological advances, companies who are hurt by piracy must figure out a way to stay two steps ahead in order to combat these threats that are damaging their bottom line.
As consumers grow more technological savvy, this might seem like an impossible task to accomplish but this is the trade off that the music industry has to conform with in order to stay in business, ultimately, they might be able to reduce internet piracy but its virtually impossible to eliminate it completely. In the meantime, file sharing sites such as Limewire continue to exist. Until next time, i'll be back, i have to go get the latest song of Pitbull, it sounds catchy.

Groupon’s Marketing Prowess

Groupon is a great example of how a company can turn to consumers, offer them a great service and encourage them to spread it around to reach an even bigger audience. This is marketing at its best! Can you imagine selling a product or service and sharing the service becomes very enticing due to the greater cost savings?

Many companies such as Living Social, Crowd Savings, Bloom Spot, Tippr and Scoop St have copied this huge success and raise the question that this particular business could easily be copied. This is a concern that some analyst predict due to the buyout that Google recently announced and Groupon subsequently turned down; read here. 

This service spreads virally and now contaminates over 35 million people! This year alone they are projected to generate over 500 million! Talk about the fastest growing company ever! The business model is simple, offer a product that a company is selling at a deep discount and if enough people buy the product then you receive the discounted price. What does this do? It provides exposure for the companies that are otherwise not known and it brings in customers, and a lot!

Through word of mouth and large amounts of users registered in their website, Groupon has accomplished what few have and many want, successful advertising, with a 98% success rate.

Small Businesses and Social Networking Sites

Small business need to jump in the bandwagon of social network advertising. Too much of their online advertising expenses are going to the wrong channels such as email and standard websites to promote their products. We are coming into an age where social media sites such as Facebook are attracting millions if not hundreds of millions of users and that is where the money is at. In a place where users spend hours and hours of their valuable time to reconnect with friends, what better way to promote and advertise your products in the pages where the majority of customers spend their time?

We are in a world where technology is advancing at a rapid pace and existing technology is being replaced and/or improved at an alarming speed. Small businesses might have very few cash at hand for such lucrative advertising expenses but getting their foot in social networking sites such as Facebook might potentially boost sales and justify the expenses associated with such advertising costs.

Many reasons exist on why such investments are not being done on social sites and I believe one of the main reasons is because of a lack of experience. Facebook, twitter, and other existing social networking sites are relatively new and attract a younger generation. This trend of course is diminishing as older generations are starting to play around and experiencing social networking sites themselves; see the research here.

As these sites get more and more popular, small companies will see the benefit of advertising to different age groups and new spending will come about because of this. Although this is not the case now, the future seems to point to that direction. Until then, expect less than average returns on small businesses that choose to spend their online advertising money in emails and traditional websites to attract business.  

Source:

http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/11/small-business-spend-most-on-websites-not-social-media.html