Thanksgiving and black Friday kicked off the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. Customers spent $913 million online, which is up a whole 10 percent since last year. Retailers are having to be much more aggressive this year since the economy is down even more, which makes better savings and a lot of companies offering free shipping over a certain amount of money. People have spent more time looking for discounts this year and more than three million people visited coupon sites on Friday, up 17 percent from a year ago. Although it is looking good for consumers this year compared to last year, it is still hard to tell whether it is going to stick or fall like it did the year before.

I think it is too early to tell whether it's going to be a good shopping season or not. Yes it is up since last year but it could fall way down again as well. I know many Americans don't have the money to be spending on a big Christmas, but maybe with the savings and discounts so many are offering this year it won't be so bad.

PayPal is trying to start a new way for consumers to shop. You will no longer need cash, a check card, or even a wallet. PayPal is trying to get cell phone company's to invest in their new way to shop. You only need your cell phone. On your cell phone is all your account information. You can literally scan a product on your phone and it can even tell you if you can buy it cheaper online, if not, buy it there using your phone. The problem many are running into is shoppers find it just as convenient to pull out a piece of plastic and swipe it through a machine, without all the pricey gadgets a cell phone company would make you buy to use the product, although PayPal says its service makes the checkout process more convenient and secure for both shoppers and merchants.

I don't think I'll be buying into this product. It sounds like it would get very expensive and doesn't sound all that more convenient. Although it maybe safer to use this product, I'll take my chances.

Burberry is now expanding their company online. Although online shopping was considered more for bargain hunting, Burberry has decided to start using it. Sales have been down a good 8% since the recession, and this is a new way Burberry is going to deal with it. The company's best selling item is their trench coat, a 95 year old fashion icon. Ms. Ahrendts, who now runs the company bought her first trench coat at the age of twenty one, right out of college. It represented the beginning of her career with Burberry. Burberry is giving others a chance to tell their story about their first "trench coat." Giving others this chance to tell their story, they are hoping to expand a new generation of shoppers.

I think the Internet is a perfect way to reach new customers, especially those in different countries. It brings their customers together, and with an 8% decline in sales, anything is worth a shot.

Educational Video Games Mix Cool With Purpose

Although educational video games have been around for awhile, they haven’t been very popular. A number of kids now have educational video games as part of their in school curriculum as well as after school programs.
Today’s educational games are now online and social and allowing kids to interact and achieve common goals. Newest educational video games are allowing children to set up their own virtual world. They can build their character and what they wear as they solve problems as they would in the real world.
For many start up games they’re having the problem of marketing the product, especially to time pressed and resource-poor teachers. Because the main focus of teachers is making sure their students are passing these standardized tests, many games now have tests and questions that a student would find on one of these tests.
Companies are trying their best to make sure that these educational video games feel like real video games, and not homework. Hopefully kids will want to play them at home as well.

I personally would have loved to of had these games when I was in school. I don’t know if I would have actually gone home and played them but in school I would have. What kid wouldn’t like to play a video game to help study instead of pulling out a book and studying?

Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers

Companies of all sizes monitor their customers to see what they like and dislike. This is how Twitter has come up with most of their features. Although there is a lot of people who aren't on Twitter, many would know that they call their posts "tweets". This is the consumers idea, not the company's. Many times when users get together, you never know what they are going to come up with. These ideas usually generate from users while the companies wait on the sidelines to see if the ideas have any mass appeal. Twitter maybe one of the biggest companies to rely on consumer generated features.
Many times a company is started for one thing but leads into another. Flickr was started as a feature on an online game site, before long the game site was shut down and Flickr became the new site. Evan Williams, Twitter’s chief executive stated “You get a bunch of users interacting and it’s hard to predict what they’re going to do,” he said. “We say, ‘Why are people using this and how could we make that better?’ ”

I thought this article was really interesting. I had always thought that companies came up with all these different kind of features and ideas. I was really surprised to find out that the consumers were the ones usually coming up with them. It makes sense though. Wouldn't the consumers who use the product almost every day know the product best. Also, they would know what would be popular and what other users like too. It's smart on the company's part.

Face-to-Face Socializing Starts With a Mobile Post

Foursquare, a new socializing network that lets friends see where their other friends are hanging out at, just might be the next Facebook/ Twitter. Foursquare users get notifications on their phones about where their friends are. That way you can drop by and say hello if you are nearby. Foursquare is also somewhat of a gaming site. It gives away titles or badges to those who visit certain bars, restaurants, and coffee shops a lot. Like the person who goes to Pete's bar the most becomes the mayor of that bar, and may get a special deal. Also, someone who visits Starbucks everyday four to five straight days might get their 6th day coffee free. All kinds of deals and offers are made through this site. It gives small business owners a chance to get their name out there to the locals. Right now Foursquare has about 60,000 users, which doesn't compare to Twitter and Facebook, who have millions, but is growing very fast. Who knows, it might just be the next big thing.

I think Foursquare sounds pretty cool. I'm still not quite sure exactly how it works yet, but might have to become a member to actually really figure it out. Foursquare isn't offered in every state, but I do have a feeling that it will soon. I think it's a cool idea to be able to see where your friends are so you could drop in and say hey, but you also have to think... wouldn't they have called you if they wanted you to come? Also, I wouldn't think that many people would want random friends joining them on their date or family outing etc. I'm sure there is a way to be able to turn it off or make it to where others can't find you, but then what would be the point of being on that thing? I don't know about the whole thing, but do have a feeling people will start to catch on.

When the Icing on the Cake Spells Disaster

Ms. Yates, a 31 year old woman who runs a specialty painting company with her husband in Orlando, Fl has become some what famous for her blog where she posts and talks about pictures of "baking train wrecks." Ms. Yates receives about 50 to 60 cake wreck pictures a day but chooses one to post every morning. By last fall Ms. Yates had received over 100,000 viewers a day. The blog consists of pictures of cakes that were supposed to be one thing and turned out horribly wrong, as well as silly misspelled words. One cake had "Happy 3th Birthday, Evan" written across it, while another stated “Contralulation’s Ronan.” Other times things just get miss communicated over the phone, such as this one:
Best Wishes Suzanne
Under Neat that
We will Miss you
Ms. Yates had stated that she gets quite a bit of hate mail from viewers that have found their cakes posted on her blog. She said that she's not out to get anyone but just to make light out of silly situations that happen in everyday life.

I thought this article was so funny. The things people mess up on in every day life are over looked but when you put it on a cake, it becomes much more obvious. The article gives so many more mix ups and funny stories that I didn't post about, but her blog sounds hilarious. I have seen some really ugly cakes before and I too always think to myself what were they thinking? Ms. Yates has also been able to make her story into books, and has very much made a name for herself. It's funny how something so silly such as this can make someone so much money and get people so interested.

President Obama warns children to stay safe on facebook. 30% of employers check facebook before hiring someone. Posting pictures of partying may come back to haunt you down the road. The article states 5 easy ways to stay safe and to protect yourself not only from down the road when you need a real job but also possible predators. Make friend lists, check to see who can see what on your facebook, who can see your address and phone number, change who can find your facebook on via search, Stop Sharing Personal Info with Unknown Applications.

This article should probably be one that everyone should read. Especially students in college who will be graduating soon and looking for a job out in the real world. This article makes you think about what your posting and actually who is looking at it.

Disney Tries to Pull the Storybook Ritual Onto the Web

Disney is introducing a new line of story books online for kids. For $79.95 a year, you can order these books for children of the ages from 3 to 12. The books are organized by the reading level of the child, the books are read aloud with each word highlighted at the bottom. The child can click on any word they can't say and the word is pronounced louder. Not all of the series is geared towards children learning to read, but also to kids who already can. Disney Publishing has stated that this may be one of their industry defining moments, though rivals may disagree.


I think this new line of web based story books is a great idea. It has been done before but not by Disney Publishing. Babysitting through the years, kids have always loved to play on the computer. I think children would thoroughly enjoy learning to read as well as watching/listening to stories online with animated characters. The only thing I wasn't sure about was if it was going to take away from the bedtime stories with children and their parents. The article stated that this wouldn't happen, but I know if I was a kid and had the choice to listen and watch a story online rather then in bed, I would most definitely choose online.

Netflix Awards $1 million Prize

Netflix has awarded their $1 million prize. Netflix, the movie rental company hosted a contest to see whocould come up with a software that could predict what movies customers would like that measures a 10% improvement of what they were already using . The contest was almost a draw between two different groups, a seven-person team of statisticians, machine-learning experts and computer engineers from the United States, Austria, Canada and Israel called BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos and Ensemble, a global alliance with about 30 members. BellKor came up on top and received the $1 million prize. The contest was so successful that Netflix has now decided to do another one.

I was looking on the Internet to find something to blog about this evening and Netflix caught my eye. Earlier this evening my Dad had given me a free 30 day trial for Netflix and I plan on setting it up right when I finish with my blog. I found this article interesting because all the failing video stores around. A Hollywood Video just went out of business down the street as well as Blockbuster going bankrupt. Netflix has become one of the top competitors with Redbox and other one night movie rentals you find around town. I'm interested in seeing how this new system predicts movies for their customers, which I'm assuming will be very accurate. It'll be interesting to see if Netflix will hold out in this economy.

Google Releases News-Reading Service

Google has recently introduced a site to help spark new hope in plunging advertising revenues. Fast Flip is Google's new news site that allows readers to view dozens of ads and articles from dozens of different publishers at one time. Google has for a long time been seen as somewhat of a bully to others in the news industry. Google is now able to be seen as a friend to this new service and will be splitting the revenue with all publishers involved. Google is hoping that this site will give users a quicker way to view news, just like they would in a magazine or newspaper. The Internet is slow to load which many a time turns off readers. Fast Flip is hoping to change the way people view news on the Internet.

We had just discussed flip book in class today and I had found it very interesting so I decided to look more into it. I have always thought the Internet was the most convenient way to get news quick. I have always gone to the Internet for everything and never thought of it as "slow to load" as they had stated in the article, but it makes sense. If you're reading the paper or a magazine, the first thing you're going to do is scan over it, then read whatever catches your eye first. If nothing does, you just flip the page. But why would someone waste their time waiting for the next page to load when most likely they won't find it interesting anyways, and click out of it. I'm very curious to see how this news site will turn out. I think it has a lot of potential and could most definitely become the next big thing.

AOL, Seeking to Revitalize Its Internet Role, Turns to a Candid Ex- Yahoo Executive

Mr. Garlinghouse, a former executive of Yahoo is now taking on the role of expanding and fixing some of AOLs most recent problems. Garlinghouse and new chief executive, Tim Armstrong will be working together to help put AOL back on top with the other top companies, such as Yahoo and Google. AOL was said to have formed multiple problems over the years since merging with Time Warner over a decade ago. Time Warner was also said to have recruited other top executives from Google to help make AOL into its own independent company by the end of the year. AOL was once known for its instant messaging as well as email but that too is now ranked 3rd in the email service in the United States. Although Garlinghouse said that he faces significant challenges with AOL, they were not as large as the challenges he once faced with Yahoo in 2006 and is very confident to turn AOL around.

I found this article interesting because it was just the other day in class where we discussed what email we were using. I remember a kid in the class had their AOL email up in the chime of “you’ve got mail” kept going off. I remember hearing that noise and it taking me back to AOL instant messaging and staying up all night in the 5th and 6th grade talking to my friends, and hoping my parents don’t catch me on the computer that late. Mr. Blade had also asked who was using AOL email and the fact that people haven’t used it in years. I also found it interesting that to even sign up to use this blog site, we had to actually make a Google account. I’m curious to see what will happen during the next decade. I wonder if AOL will still be around or maybe Google will the next company to fall by the wayside.

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