BOC Week 6: Parking Panda

While cities like Las Vegas, weekdays are usually to be opened with parking spots and traffic is light. On the weekend, it’s a completely different story. Cities like Chicago and New York are filled to the brim every day of the week. If you have ever been to a major city, the biggest thing you dread besides traffic is parking. Parking Panda is trying to change all that.  City parking mainly consists of spending fifteen to twenty dollars and then driving around to just find a spot.  Parking Panda is a cell phone application that shows avabile parking spots near your application. “Parking Panda is a win-win for both parking spot owners, who can earn extra cash with very little effort, and those looking for parking, who will likely end up spending far less than they would in a big lot.” “Using the service is simple: Parking spot owners need only sign up for an account, take a photo and create a description of their available spot, then mark down the dates and price. Those looking for a spot can find and pay for one via the Parking Panda website, which also sports a mobile optimized interface. Once a spot is rented, the owner will eventually get a check (minus Parking Panda’s 20 percent commission) in the mail.” How users sell the parking spaces is even easier. “Renting out your own parking spot is a simple process. You can connect to Facebook to import your basic details, then set a price and schedule to announce your spot’s availability. You’ll receive an email when someone has made a booking. Parking Panda will take a 20% cut.” Various competitors is in the works to try and corner the market, but Parking Panda is still in the lead. “But for tourists or urban newcomers, a well-chosen app, like PrimoSpot ($3 on Android and Apple) or ParkDroid (free on Android), offers cheap protection against that blood-draining moment when you can’t find your car and fear it has been towed or stolen. Some of the most promising parking-related apps, like Google’s OpenSpot (free on Android) and TakeMySpot (free on Apple), offer users the greater hope of finding empty parking spots as they materialize. Sadly, they don’t work — at least not yet.”

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.