CHINA'S FAST INTERNET GROWTH AND THE LEGISLATIVES

Having seen and read china’s daily report, it was believed that internet users in china rose more than 50% than the whole US population and it was sanctioned by the CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Centre).  China has since seen a rapid expansion of internet popularity since 1994 when it was connected to the internet and became one of the biggest online population said Wang Chen, Head of china’s state council information office on 30th December 2010 at a press conference. I know that china’s internet dominance is really a fast growing one in our world today because there so many Chinese people surfing the internet via mobile phones and use of other gadgets, this is so because surfing the web through mobile phone jumped from 29.6% over 2009 to 303million.
This rapid increase in the rate at which the internet is being used in china will lead to an increase in the growth of their culture, technology, business, resources and help share this with the rest of the world, which has also been noticed with the Indian community with the boom in their movies, technology and medical sector.  This large internet use will also make business more efficient for china and will make them a force to reckon with in the world at present. All this is not to say it will be easy, but will be faced with certain challenges.
There has been a massive expansion in the use of the internet through mobile devices and this seems to have become a bother to the government because they have less control of the way news and information is disseminated. The government is looking for ways to control this information by following the procedures taken by countries like India and Indonesia, whereby they have cracked down on the use of smartphones to surf the internet. Since tencent is the shining example of the success of Chinese internet operations. In trying, to curb to the situation of dominance of the surfing of the internet by the Chinese population, enemies may be made along the line like Tencent services which powers communication through text among handsets.
There is also the case of people’s privacy on the internet due to the large influx of internet users not only through mobile devices, but also through other media. China though having expanded a lot in the use of the internet needs to invest more in internet security before they become victims of international hacking activities.

Article http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-will-chinas-online-presence.html

Starbuck's New Payment Method (Mobile Payment)

Having, read the article on the "Mobile payment debuts nationally at starbucks” which was posted on starbucks newsroom on the 19th January 2011 about the launch of mobile payment using the starbucks card mobile application. I agree that customers would have a quicker and better access to payment after any purchase made in starbucks by using blackberry smartphones, i pad, I phone and other IOS devices. Today, starbucks just made life easier and convenient for people and also at the same time increased their chances to get more customers and make more profit as well. It was noticed that in 2010, customers loaded more than 1.5 million on starbucks card which was an increase by 21% over in 2009. Hence, this makes it a lot better for customers so they won’t have to carry around their credit or debit cards, and all they need is their mobile phones to make a payment. It is definitely an advantage having this method but, there is also the insecurity about mobile phones and actually having card or bank details on mobile phones. It may seem like a faster way of payment but doesn’t make getting your coffee which is the major reason why people got to Starbucks any faster.



For instance, if there are like 50 customers on the line trying to get their phones scanned so that they can get their coffee ready, they will get the payments made quickly but there is a preparation time or period in which the coffee will be made to get the right quality of coffee that makes Starbucks so popular . A change in this preparation time may affect the quality of the coffee being made and this will affect the inflow of customers into Starbucks. If this payment using the mobile phone is a faster way of paying for your coffee, does it mean that the coffees will be produced and handed over to customers just as fast as payments are being made, and if it is as fast, does it mean that the quality of coffee remains the same or is different by a minimal or wide margin due to the decreased waiting time? I also believe the credit or debit card is still a fast and reliable enough method of payment for coffee in any shop.

Article: http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=490

http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2011/01/pay-by-smartphone-at-starbucks-mobile.html

THE EFFECT OF THE EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY ON MUSIC INDUSTRY (PIRACY)

Technology enhance piracy, in those days when where it was just tape recorder in producing and selling this music and the issue of piracy was at a low level, if u try to pirate that type of recorder player, the new pirated copy producesWhite Noise and therefore causing it to be very unpleasant to listen to, and technology has brought about cd player which made piracy on the cd more because its stored in a binary beat which is makes it easy to record , duplicate as well as pirate, and thereby most people are not interested in the buying original cd, wen they can as well duplicate or burn the cd,

Technology even so advanced, to the era of hosting music online, video streaming, file sharing and as sure the society are not interested in patronizing the music artist and also the most artist are interested in getting quick fame and getting more fans

Music piracy will continue to pose a challenge in our society. Legislation will find hard to put a complete stop to piracy. if they work against file sharing through You tube, limewire e.t.c can they really go further to stop email file sharing, Cd borrowing or lending to a friend to burn a copy; this I strongly doubt and contend with because emails will then not be a thing of privacy but left to the fate of legislation to run a check of music files that is being shared via emails or keep questioning original music CD owners who they have lent their music CD's too. This I am sure won't yield a fruitful result.

The legislative have try their best all the same to stop piracy by implementing the various laws and apprehending the guilt but still one question need to be asked "Is this really enough to stop piracy? Because as technology is evolving there would also be ways in which people by pass, this laws even if they have been able to apprenhend some guilty ones. Found an interesting thing on the internet which the author, Jeevan Jaisingh, says he has strategies for recording companies to stop piracy.

I also believe that judging by the measures the legislation want to put in place, there wont be "one voice" such that some musicians might see file sharing as quick gain to fame while others might see feel the heat of piracy knocking them down as such the legislation might take a step back to ensure that the fight to end piracy is a worthy one and beneficial to all.

http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-brief/50594-judge-says-penalty-unconstitutional-in-music-piracy-case

Invasion of my Privacy- Pop ups

Online privacy issues has been a very big issue in recent year, due to the introduction of new and developing technology, the fact that as far technology would keep developing frequently, there would also be an issue on the invasion of privacy. Now about online privacy and cookies. The U. S . Federal trade Commission has provided a framework for consumers, businesses, and policymaker.

And my main concern, also as Prof. Miyazaki rightly mentioned in his blog, on the issue of  "How much culture of privacy protection can a firm truly build since one main objective of the firm is to invade privacy in other to facilitate more effective targeting".
I also commend the issue of "Do not track" mechanism, because i have been a victim of invasion of privacy or rather am still a victim, Because the pop ups comes to your screen at an inappropriate time, its intrusive, and really doesn't offer anything new.

The issue has been on for a while, the Solution to the issue is left in the hands of the Policy Makers, In recent year they have been back lashes on consumer protection by the European directives on the U.S Trade Commission and they created a safe harbor polcy for the United State firms to operate in European Union, and which enables the consumers to OPT OUT, similarly to the "Do not track" Mechanism. An their Privacy Law are really different from the united states and this has really brought various clashes and argument. In essence for this solution would always remain with the policy makers and the industry as frank rightly mentioned in his blog.

Key Principles for Protecting Consumers Privacy _ U.S. Federal Trade Com...

VIABLE MARKETING- GROUPON

Groupon has been one viable company that has made the group discounting available to the masses. Groupon has not only helped buyer get great deals but also help the seller/business owner to boost their revenue to an unexpected level.
But Groupon is 2 sides to the coin for me,
Firstly, The fact that i could get good deals for something i really want is interesting and
Second side to the coin is the fact that i open my email and see some unnecessary groupon coupon been bombarded in there, really puts me off.

Not to say that the fact that Groupon's growth have been mersely amazing that the search giant google would want to offer groupon $6billion dollar for the acquistion of the company which was rejected, and i keep thinking is Groupon worth the amount google offered or better, while searching for answer i came across an article which analyzed the decision made by Groupon. Is Groupon a bad deal? The article states that google would overspending if the deal had go through, that there are other far cheaper.

Further articles which analyzed the viability of Groupon investments and possible reasons. Groupon rejects $6 billion offer from Google

Now the question is Why the Groupon reject the offer presented by Google,
All i come up with through research is that
1. Groupon feels that they have a better chance of been an independent company rather than selling, so they want to go public.
2. They also feel they are worth more than what they are getting that in future years they probably be better off without Google.

Finally, my point is that Groupon is a viable company and as far as people always want discount they would always be viable in providing their customers in discount needed.

brain-teasing Marketing