Week 6 - Wrap-up

I would like to start off by saying, thank you for this class. This has been one of the most exciting and interesting classes I have taken through Kelley, if not the best. There has been a lot of work, but it has been so enjoyable and full of learning that how could you not enjoy it?!

Overall, it was a great final week and really wrapped up the course. We discussed the future of the web. The crazy ideas that could be possible in 10 years, or maybe even 2 years. This week really made me think about how you can truly advertise and gain a customer base in the dynamic web we live with ... or as we saw with some of the World of Warcraft gamers, live in. I had no technical issues except a few sound issues with the Charlie Rose episode with Google's CEO, but it was definitely understandable. I am still very impressed with this class and I applaud Frank and Gil for making this class very organic and enjoyable for all. Thank you.

Signing off from the 6 week course,

-Alex

Week 6 - Charlie Rose and Google CEO, Eric Schmidt

That video was very impacting. It is fascinating to hear these type of people speak about the future of the internet and technology. It gives me so much hope for things to come. I enjoyed this video and it was almost a culmination of everything, or at least many things, we discussed and learned in this course. That makes it very important.

I was surprised at some of Eric's comments about reading books and using textbooks. He definitely had ideas and what sounded to be like experiences of what the future of classrooms would be, but he really hit hard on the importance of learning and reading out of textbooks. I guess he didn't specifically say that the books had to be hard-bound and couldn't be online books. However, it seemed as if he still clung to his generation's ideals in some regards, but really embraced what was coming ahead.

There were so many topics covered in the 55 minute video; I was amazed. I think Eric has it right about the privacy issue. The younger generation is more open to sharing. They might regret some specific cases, but on the whole they have benefitted. I loved his vision of the History buff who would walk down the streets of New York in five years and instantly get information about each building without even asking. It might sound creepy, but it would be great if something could know your habits so well that it would present new and better ideas, facts, and even products without a command. Hopefully people won't start marrying their phone or something because it "gets them," but overall the general concept is a useful and interesting one.

There was only one technical difficulty with this video and it was the sound during a few parts. I think it might just be the recording because it was not recorded in the studio and Charlie Rose's mic might have been malfunctioning a little bit. I also don't like how I cannot make the video full screen on my Mac. I am not sure why, but I haven't figured it out on most of the Charlie Rose videos. Either way, it was an excellent video as always.

Week 6 - Second Life Podcast

There are a lot of topics in the course that make you really think or do a double-take. This podcast caught me by surprise a few times. I could not believe that there was someone at Kelley who was so into using Second Life as a productivity tool that they are writing books about it and seen as a leading authority of the uses of Second Life. I truly thought Second Life was just another gaming application that was similar to The Sims, but more replication of yourself in a virtual world. I think the point was brought up that many users of Second Life are using it for the entertainment aspect. Before hearing this podcast, I would have thought that there was no other purpose of Second Life other than entertainment.

What also blew me away was that Second Life wasn't so nerdy as it could be useful for everyone. Well, it still might be pretty nerdy. 12 million people worldwide isn't a huge percentage of the population. It is probably still thought of as nerdy. I am remin

ded about The Office episode where Dwight uses Second Life a lot and then others in the office join to mock him. In the end they get kind of hooked too.

The biggest question that stands out there for me is how does everyone actually interact in a virtual world to conduct business, for example. If everyone starts to gravitate toward using Second Life as this place to have conferences, meetings, social gatherings, etc., then won't there be other companies that want to join in on the action? How do you standardize a virtual environments for those participating in Second Life to interact with the people who are logged on through a different virtual environment? If a new company creates a better Second Life, there will be difficulty in truly interacting with anyone anywhere. Take cars for an example. There are many different makes and models of cars, but there are standards that must be met for safety, usability, and maintainability reasons. Anyone who can drive a Honda can also drive a Ford, or a Volkswagen, etc. I am not saying that this isn't possible, but other than Microsoft's almost monopolistic domination of OS software in the 1990s, there are many differences and even complete incompatibility issues with software even today. Second Life would have to expand greatly (have hundreds of millions of users) and set standards for other software / virtual environments to interact simultaneously in order to make the vision expressed in the podcast come to fruition.

Week 6 - Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites

So here is another article that makes you question how companies are even making any money on the internet other than selling the tangible and intangible items. This article is old (end of 2008), but I have a feeling that Facebook still has the same issues. Advertisers want to be where the people are so that the people can see their product and want to buy it. People can very easily ignore the ads, especially on Facebook. The only advertisements I have seen on Facebook that are Facebook sponsored are the banner ads on the side. There is so much information on a single Facebook page, and users know where the important information is, so people can easily block out the ads.

I thought it was humorous when the NY Times article brought up the example how an 11-month Fan page campaign P&G was doing with Tide on Facebook generated only 18 submissions. It might have had many "fans" join for a contest or something, but there were only 16 (minus the P&G submissions) or even 15, or 14 (minus The Onion's submissions) for the actual campaign. I have definitely become a fan of a particular company or brand on Facebook just because of a drawing or a free give-away. It is effortless, but if I never remember to remove my fan status I continue to get emails from that company for future promotions, etc. Maybe the Facebook presence does work after all. In that scenario, the company theoretically didn't have to pay Facebook any advertising dollars to run that promotion. It sounds like the online advertising in social networking sites might be a highly debated topic in Marketing department for years to come.

Week 6 - Why Advertising is Failing on the Internet

This article brings full circle the online business model readings we had in the previous week. Maybe this author is right and advertising will eventually fail. I don't think that was his main point, but I do agree that advertising is less effective on the internet than in other media. We discussed the online ad games (Orbitz's "Sink the Putt", etc.). Those are catchy ways to have someone interact with an advertisement, but I think it gets old after awhile and people ignore it.

With so much content out there on the internet, people are going to keep surfing the net to find the information they need, and they will avoid the ads as much as possible. The author makes a valid argument of when you go grab a snack while watching TV. It is always during the commercials unless you really don't care too much about what is on the TV at that moment. I think the most annoying ads out there are the ones that consume most of the webpage and start playing sound on your computer. No one wants that. If I wanted to watch an ad, I would have visited YouTube and found something clever, not annoying. Those ads will drive people away because it frustrates them and they most likely can find the same information or product on a different site.

Advertising might be failing on the Internet, but at some point I think we will have to pay more for enjoying the stuff we do on the web. Nothing (or not much) in life is free and it will probably catch up to us. Maybe companies will realize they don't have a great Internet business model and leave the net, until people start paying. That seems unlikely to me, but that would be an extreme case. I really see advertising sticking around on the Internet in the future, but I think we all will, if we haven't already, block the majority of it out of our consciousness.

Week 6 - Promotion within your community

This read felt a little longer than other articles and excerpts. It covered very good topics for traditional marketers or those new to the internet. I think after taking this class, much of the knowledge gained gives us answers to all these issues with promotion in an online community. The topics the author discussed were "no brainers" to someone who has taken this class. That shows how well we have learned in this subject and how engaging the material is leading up to this final week. I don't have much to say about the content other than I feel confident in my understanding and abilities in this area.

Week 6 - Advertising in Video Games

That was a fun video about advertising in video games. I could really relate as I have played many video games in my time, and even more than I realized that had ads or even were ads. The Orbitz advertisements that are also games are very simple, but addicting. I didn't even remember the ad "Sink the Putt." That brought back a lot of memories. I played that game until I got a score of 4 out of 3 holes. I could never get a hole-in-one on that one hole with the hotel after getting two holes-in-one.

Anyway, this podcast made me realize how much advertising is out there in games. The most obvious advertising to me is in the sports and racing games. I think you see football, baseball, extreme sports, racing, etc. all with advertising plastered everywhere. It is not that farfetched to see it replicated in those types of games. In fact, at this point it would be weird not to see those ads. At the end of the video I think it asked the right questions about if the ads were relevant to the users and not so distracting to take away from the game play. That is how great advertising should always be. It is almost the subconscious messages that direct your customers and not just annoying them with your ads.

Twenty-three and a half hours the average 20-29 year old who plays World of Warcraft plays the game in a week?! That really is ridiculous! There is so much else to do in your week than take an entire day to just play one video game, especially at that age. I guess that is why there are complete economies in the virtual world because people can spend so much time away from the real world. It is sad, but I am sure those same people could find something strange I spend 24 hours per week with my time.