October 31, 2006
re: YouTube
I must admit that I had not actually taken a look at YouTube until last week, when someone made me watch some funny looking kid do the most ridiculous robot dance move ever (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y06xLNHsznA). Until now, I only heard people mention it casually, but I have become sucked into random hilarious videos as well. The makers of YouTube have made it very easy to search for funny videos by ratings and user. It is reminiscent of eBaum’s world, but on a much larger, “Facebook” type level. Its popularity has boomed and it is easy to see why it is being sold to Google,
Unless you are a true purist or grass roots-type, this transaction is another example of a big corporation or company taking advantage of its limitless funds to buy out opportunities or competition. From the perspective of the three individuals that created this site, they will make a sizeable profit for maintaining a popular website with a user-friendly interface. They will come away with half of a billion dollars each. I feel that these big internet buyouts are simply shortening the lifespan of the novelty of these websites.
Posted by dww6 at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sears
Recently Sears merged the websites for its three big divisions: Sears, K-Mart and Lands' End. This was done in order to make holiday shopping easier, and as a reslut attract more consumers. The three divisions' sites were merged into www.readysetholiday.com which will be online through January 12. In keeping with the holiday theme, there is a sections called "kids zone" where kids can make personalized e-cards that can be used at holiday wish lists.
I think this was a good move on Sears' part. I think it will create more purchases because it is combining three markets and will allow them to do a lot of cross-promotion. Also, when consumers sign on, they will see a lot more products that will appeal to them and hopefully result in more purchases. I do, however, find the "kids zone" aspect somewhat sickening, not from a business standpoint (because I know revenue for companies that sell toys relies heavily on kids begging their parents/family for certain products). From a personal standpoint however, its upsetting to see the "spirit of Christmas" become even more commercialized. As early as October, retailers are already gearing up and encouraging kids to be greedy and selfish.
Posted by meb40 at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Re: Facebook
MARC, I FINALLY GOT BLOG@CASE.EDU TO WORK SO WE DON’T NEED TO CORRESPOND VIA E-MAIL.
I use Facebook a lot when it was first released, and was also caught up in the social network explosion. At first, it just seemed like a new way for shy students to flirt with one another and for people to keep in touch with one another. However, over the course of spring semester 2006, I would definitely note that more people were using for other networking purposes and not just for students to keep in touch anymore. For example, I worked as a “street team” representative for New Era Hat Company, and our manager required that all the reps utilize both MySpace and Facebook in order to advertise events as well as network with other individuals.
In terms of the actual sale of Facebook, I feel that this is like the handfuls of websites that are bought out for millions and in this case billions. I personally respect the makers who created their websites, and I feel that it simply comes down to whether or not to compromise one’s values. Personally, I would take the money because websites have become the new way to make quick money and new niche for entrepreneurs who take advantage of opportunities at the appropriate times.
Posted by dww6 at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google Purchases YouTube
Much like facebook, YouTube is another popular site amongst college students. YouTube.com was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in 2005. It's a site with videos full irreverant, yet hilarious home-made videos. Almost every college student receives e-mails with links to youtube videos with guys getting hit in the face with footballs or skaters falling down. It also hosts music videos, tv shows, and several other types of video clips. One appeal the site has is that it is easy to search for videos, view the favorite videos of other members with similar tastes, comments on videos, rate videos, easily upload your own home-made movies, shortage of clutter from ads, and it's large library of videos.
Recently, Youtube was bought by google. I can see why google made the purchase because google video is terrible. They barely have any videos and searching is difficult. However, I'm worried that the recent purchase by google will result in more ads in youtube. Some sources claim that now commercials will actually be played before you can watch the actual clip you are trying to view and more heavily censor the site. It seems like all the reasons youtube became popular are being undone by google, which is ironic because google bought youtube because it was popular.
Posted by meb40 at 10:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Yahoo To Purchase Facebook?
Facebook is a popular site for college students. It's similar to myspace, but caters exclusively to college students. I personally appreciate the site because it allows you to keep in touch with friends from around the globe fairly easily. The site was created by, and is managed by Mark Zuckerberg.
Recently (through facebook) I was invited to join the facebook group "Don't Sell Facebook to Yahoo! (Official Petition)." The group was started because the owner of Facebook is in talks with Yahoo! to sell the site for $1 billion.
Most members of the group, and the entire site in general feel that "...Facebook is about more than just making money off ads. And if Yahoo! gets their hands on FB, then there's nothing stopping them from turning this into another MySpace."
For further information, check out these articles:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5367120.stm
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-09-21T082359Z_01_N21275291_RTRIDST_0_TECH-FACEBOOK-YAHOO-DC.XML&archived=False
http://tinyurl.com/jgdpe
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/21/technology/yahoo_facebook2.reut/index.htm?postversion=2006092111
Posted by meb40 at 06:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 30, 2006
eBay
I know eBay’s been around for a long time now, but I thought that this blog was a perfect opportunity for me to express some concerns and comments. This Summer, I was ripped off for $300 on a phone because the guy never sent me the phone. I called both PayPal and eBay customer service, and it seemed like the their dispute resolution was working to my side. Unfortunately, there was ONE sentence at the end of the listing that said, “up for bid is one Nextel i870 phone picture” instead of “picture phone.” I was a little stunned that the guy got away with this, and it was a clear example of how one can get caught up and still ripped off despite the numerous precautions that eBay provides.
In recent months however, I have gotten pretty eBay saavy despite my bad experience. It’s always important to look over the listing (so you don’t do something as stupid as I did), and to check the precautions that the seller provides, because it can differ from seller to seller. Also, I believe that eBay has more room for improvement and will probably experience even more growth, especially since they own rent.com and have launched a handful of new commercials all over TV (like the one where the woman loses a ring and it ends up in a fish that another couple is eating.) There are other sites such as iOffer, eCrater, and Overstock.com, but eBay seems to be the safest and easiest to use. It is also very obvious and easy to see the business aspect of eBay in their partnership and easy connection to PayPal. I suppose I am blogging about eBay to point out how they are the epitome of internet success.
Posted by dww6 at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2006
Fantasy Sports
With the football season heating up and the NBA underway, this is a perfect time to address fantasy sports, where friends can join a league and draft players from different teams onto their respective “fantasy” team and play each other throughout the week with the winner being determined by the best combined statistics of his/her team. Yahoo! and ESPN offer great fantasy sites with visually appealing interfaces and user-friendly options. Just like any other novelty or popular internet activity, corporations are capitalizing with numerous ads and Yahoo continues to make even more money by offering pre-draft kits, which allow users to pay for hard-to-find or obscure news about players prior to drafting, which may give them an upper hand over other players who are too lazy to look up information and news. According to BusinessWeek, “More than 15 million U.S. adults play fantasy sports.” Also, fantasy sports generate $1 billion to $2 billion a year on publication subscriptions, entrance fees, mail-order draft kits, and other paraphernalia. It is only a matter of time before the market gets saturated or some huge company buys out fantasy sports so they can flood users with even more ads and spam.
Posted by dww6 at 12:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 25, 2006
Ratemyprofessor.com
While I was studying for midterms and typing papers in Nord, one of my friends sat next to me and told me to read what he posted on a site called "Ratemyprofessor.com" which is a review site, founded in May 1999 by John Swapceinski, that allows college students to assign ratings to professors of American, Canadian, British, Irish, New Zealand, and Australian institutions. It's almost like the course evaluations we receive at the end of each semester that go into the online rankings for the registrar. However, the professor ratings on ratemyprofessor.com are a lot more detailed, and sometimes more profane.
There are a lot of criticisms on how the site is managed. Among these are the fact that one person can post multiple ratings and heavily skew a professor's rating. Also, there is response bias. Most raters only use the site because they feel strongly one way or another. Because of that, professors are usually only ranked very highly or very lowly.
Posted by meb40 at 11:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2006
Ask Jeeves
Usually when I search for something on the internet I use google or wikipedia (for specific things). I rarely use lycos or yahoo (which used to be very popular). Even more rarely do I use Ask Jeeves, a company which only had 15 minutes of fame. I consider Ask Jeeves the Lou Bega (one-hit-wonder that sang Mambo No. 5) of internet search engines. However, for one reason or another (boredom) I recently used the "fifth-string" search engine and was surprised to see that the familiar butler mascot was missing and the site had been re-named Ask.com
In order to get to the bottom of this mystery I decided to conduct an internet search for an explanation. Ironically, I didn't use Ask.com, I used Wikipedia. Wikipedia explained that Jeeves (the butler mascot as well as the word) were removed due to user confusion on what the butler actually does. I think that's a dumb reason to remove a mascot, no matter how ill-conceived and lame he may be. Those giant-headed Pep Boys mascots don't have any real function. Neither does the Jolly Green giant or that hot Godaddy.com girl. The removal of Jeeves was a sad in the history of Mascots. I will now refuse to (and encourage all readers to do the same) use Ask. com, a site where mascots are lost and forgotten for arbitrary reasons.
Posted by meb40 at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 17, 2006
My Second Life
I did not even notice this until I checked the recent technology news on cnn.com, but there is this online game called “My Second Life”, where anyone who can get on the internet can create an avatar who has a profession, possibly children, and can chat with other avatars or people also playing the game. It’s like taking the Sims to a whole new level because now there are real-live people out there that are also interacting with you.
When I first tried it, the game was very slow obviously due to the lag, but I could swim underwater, go to the mall, talk to someone in a matter of minutes. It seems that people who are unhappy with their lives or desire a “what if” scenario can live out a happier life. As of today, October 17th, the game has hit a population of 1 million members, proving the game’s success. Although this game has proven to be popular, I do not believe that it will reach Facebookesque heights in popularity. It has grown from 170,000 users in April 2006, and has feature articles in BusinessWeek, and now that it has reached the 1 million mark, “My Second Life” has gotten the New York Times’ attention, so who knows?
Posted by dww6 at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Re:On-Line Gambling
On-Line Gambling, particularly amongst college students has definitely reached new heights in recent years. Like Marc, I also have numerous friends that play Texas Hold ‘em, which is what all some of the news is geared towards. I think this is both good and bad in some respects. For example, Bush’s new law is probably going to make a lot of college students go to class since there is no incentive to skip class to make money playing poker. I also have a couple of friends who have lost hundreds in betting on football games, but they were rooting for the Steelers, so maybe they deserved to lose money. On the other hand, a lot of sites are losing money, and a really good friend of mine graduated from Case as an engineer, but retired at the ripe old age of 23 to play poker on-line and in casinos for the rest of his life. He was making $5,000-30,000 a month playing poker, but I think he is probably going to do some honest work now as an engineer.
Posted by dww6 at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2006
Online Gambling
On Oct. 13, President Bush signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. This will prohibit U.S. banks and credit card companies from handling Internet gambling transactions. Because of these new regulations, there will be increased difficulty exchanging money through online gambling websites.
I have personally never used an online gambling site, but several of my friends and relatives play online poker. One of my friends actually made over $1,000 in one semester during our freshman year. The act may hurt a lot of online poker sites. Online poker sites have been very successful in recent years with the popularity of The World Poker Tour on ESPN. In fact, since I've been in college I've always seen at least three of my classmates playing online poker during class, in every class I've had. However, it appears that the act is affecting sports-betting sites more. Sites like PartyGaming, The bwin Group, Cassava Enterprises, and Sportingbet have already shut down
Posted by meb40 at 11:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack