EOC Week 4: Avon

Avon Cosmetics has been a well known brand among women for many years. It wouldn't even be a shocker if men are familiar with the products for various acne needs. Although the brand has had a very well branded name, profits have fallen 75% over the last 10 years. Avon has failed to adapt with technology and the changing times. While most companies have chugged along nicely with the changes, Avon has tried to keep the same business model it has for the last 70 years. Door to door cosmetic sales women seems to be what they want. Problem is, our market is basically like a ADHD student. We want things now and cheap. Although ordering online takes time, the cheaper price still seems to grab the attention of the consumers.

Avon even rejected a buyout offer worth about $10 billion from fragrance maker Coty Inc. Not only did the buyout come out to about ten billion dollars, but it was above the closing market price in the stock market. When the offer was made, the closing stock price was at nineteen dollar and thirty six cents. The ten billion dollar offer for twenty percent of the stock was priced out at twenty two dollars and ninety five cents. Avon over the last few years has been struggling to make a profit. Sales have consistently gone down over the last few years. While Avon has stuck to its guns and tried to be the same company it was 60 years ago, it’s time to evolve and get with the technology program. Avon has been a house hold name in American homes for decades. They have and still do provide superior products and services. The irony of this whole situation is the same business model that made them a power house is the same business model that killing them. Hopefully the new CEO will bring Avon back to life!

EOC Week 3: Spotify

What is it: Pandora has been on the rise in the last couple of  years. While not only streaming music for free, it will change artists in the same genre after every song to open your options. While this is a great program, it lacks one major thing. The ability to play a specific song by who you want and when you want. Spotify picks up where Pandora left off. Spotify also gives you the ability to make play lists to share with other users over the internet. Spotify gives you three options. You can either use it for free with ads, pay 4.99 a month for a ad free service or pay 9.99 a month for a ad free service and have the ability to listen to CD's before release and store music for use while offline. Online streaming music service Spotify has excellent audio, easy playlist formation, Facebook integration, and over 15 million tracks, but it is creates a massive drain on mobile devices and occasionally refused to play my WMA tracks.

Impact on the market: While it seems like such a service would impact the industry in a negative way, its actually making the music industry money. Much like YouTube, it gives the content away for free. While being played for it, it adds advertisement into the mix. Spotify also gives the option of purchasing music for you your own personal collection as well. Its almost the same model of giving away free samples at a grocery store. A very smart move on Spotify's part was teaming up with Facebook. Its a endless stream of free advertisement. As long as you have users using the software, it spams the Facebook to say what you are listening to. A app for the Ipad is also in the works.

Weird Find: While the internet is full of weird things, the one I found was Weird Al was still making music. He release a album in 2011 with of course various parodies. While the CD was released in 2011, hes now pushing a DVD of the tour that ensued after the album was released last year. No matter how old you get, you are never to old to enjoy some Weird Al.

EOC Week 2: Piracy

The internet is a magically place. Over the years, the trends differ from one thing to another. What’s popular one day is out the next.  Various components have changed over the years with internet service providers to just plain browsers. The internet has evolved so quickly over the years; quite frankly it’s hard to keep up. And with that said, it’s also part of the problem. The internet connects you to millions of people all over the world. Let me say that again, and really think about it. The internet connects you to millions of people every day. While that can be an amazing thing, it’s also a very scary thing. You privacy is attacked on different levels every day. The websites you visit, the internet service provider you use and the government are all interested in what you do on the internet.

It’s no secret Uncle Sam has been watching its civilians (No, I do not have a tin foil hat) for a while now. After 9/11 the government has been in full blown invasion of privacy mode. SOPA and PIPA were very proof of the government trying to watch “the man”. Bills like SOPA are popping up all the time now allowing the government to such down web sites, monitor your activity and basically run the internet. The scary part is, that’s only a third of the battle. Web sites that you go every day also try to collect your information. Then they put a price tag on it. Facebook is one of those sites that everyone loves but ignores the terms of service. Google has similar terms of service that gives them the rights to all uploaded materials onto their servers. Priveazy is a free website that tries to help people dodge the website bullets. Even your own ISP tries to collect your information and track your usage for the government and also personal interest. Some extremist are every attempting tofund their own ISP to be completely privacy free. So, what website are you going to visit next?

BOC Week 2: Instagram

Facebook has been around for some time now. It went form a single college register system to all over the world. What started as a drunken rant turned into one of the most revolutionary websites of our time. It changed not only various forms of communication, but business models and advertisements forever as we know it today. While Facebook did all these amazing things, it completely lacked in one department, photo galleries. This is something every social website has to have. The problem is, they are all pretty much the same boring thing. Instagram was formed about a year ago. Just a bunch of college students got together and decided to make a website built around quality photos.  They added filters and various other elements into web scripts to change people’s images on the fly. Facebook took notes of this and eventually buying out the company. Not only did they buy it, but they bought it for one billion dollars.

While the dust is still settling from this purchase, it has to make you wonder. Things like was it really worth one billion dollars? What will this do to Facebook photos in the long run? One of the topics that makes a broad statement is if Instagram will still its popularity will so many people accessing it now. What was more of a hidden gem on the internet is now well known to the entire world. And with so many using the same filters, features and other options, how different can one make the photos? The other dilemma is if Instagram will keep the same website alive or will it be taken down and just a feature on Facebook. Things like this could very well impact the Instagram community and changed account information forever. Only time will tell when this bubble bursts.

EOC Week 1: Internet Meme

 The Internet is full of funny images and YouTube videos.  A new trend that originated from Reddit, is internet meme’s. They use a generic image with simple tag lines. While new images and joke are added pretty regularly, a select few seem to stick around for long periods of time. College freshman and college senior are a very popular ones on Reddit. Facebook has recently started joining in on the fun with Zoidberg and condescending Willy Wonka. QuickMeMe is one of many sites that operate as a “Generator” they host all the images and present a user interfaces that allow you to pick an image while adding in your captions. Quickmeme also keeps a collection of meme that are generating a lot of traffic. While Reddit really started to make this into a fad, various sites are picking up on the jokes. Memes can be seen on sites like 9gag, facebook, reddit, 4chan and Something Awful. Meme’s also present of option of generating revenue for business. The arrow to the knee meme started from a video game. It was the most popular meme for a few weeks. 3 weeks of free publicity for a already successful game. “A very good, low-cost way of driving large volumes of traffic to your Web is by using a technique known as memetic marketing. In this article, we look at how Web Business Engineering was used to create this technique.” That is quoted from Nick Flor who did a decent article talking about marketing with memes. This kind of advertisement also has a negative aspect where the product might be the joke. A long running joke with meme is the “Scumbag Hat”. Various jokes have come from it targeting Google’s Chrome, Youtube and other big name companies. Meme’s must only be around for a fad, but it’s an entertaining one.

EOC Week 1: My Voice

I am a freelance web designer by day, motorcycle enthusiast by night. Motorcycles are not only an adventure to ride, but beautiful pieces of artwork. I believe you learn more about yourself riding 500 pounds of metal with almost no protection than almost anything else. My work tends to stick to a darker approach than most designers. Artwork should like to incorporate grunge with a mix of metal finishes. I like to push the limits both in my work and in my life. Living in Chicago for the first 23 years of my life has given me most of my personality. I’m exploring and living in different places every other month to learn about new cultures and life styles. Seeing how other people think and feel is far more important than any class room lesson. While various events in my life have shaped the way I am on a darker side, but I’m still a warm and caring person with the people I call family and friends. I am not, nor will I ever be a one trick pony. While we are only given one chance to make something of ourselves in the short life we have. Spending it caring about what other people think or do isn't something I follow. I am my own trendsetter. I tend to let my work speak for itself.