Is Facebook good or bad for you?

I frequent Facebook regularly on a daily basis. When I don't log on, I feel as anxious as if my routine of online activities is not completed. I feel that I will miss to see a new posted comment, a new tagged picture of me, etc. In a way, my life is somewhat controlled by Facebook these day. I can't wait to get on my home page to read what my friends are up to and to see if they are telling each other something that I should know. Facebook creates this whole anxiety of controlling your popularity virtually in hoping it would translate the same to reality.

In my own knowledge, Facebook is an online social network that helps connect users together. The reason I join Facebook is to keep in touch with my friends. However, looking at the politics behind this effective network through "With friends like these..." opens me to many surprises. According to Tom Hodgkinson, the philosophy behind the creater of Facebook brings harmful risks of capitalism. From the perspective of an international marketing major, I think it is purely genius.

This type of online social networking is the exact effective tool for marketers. It helps to control consumer database and provide better information about consumers' needs and wants. In my mentioned experience, Facebook is so addictive. It definitely has the "stickiness factor" ("The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcom Gladwell) that every politicians/marketers try to create in their message. This is not an easy task if we have taken a marketing course. Consumers are hard to predict and their behavior makes an important factor in sales and the like. By obtaining consumer information, we can control how consumers perceive the brand or go as far as change the brand's image.

As discussed in the article, Facebook has some serious harmful ideas through invasive capitalism. In one of my previous posts, I have also contemplate the worthiness of joining Facebook. I think I have stopped my doubts. I think Facebook opens a new way to look at politics and the best way to become "popular". The lesseson learned is that we should never underestimate the virtual world as it does have its power. Furthermore, there is always an "opt in" option. Facebook addicts can not blame the network for their loyal behavior because it is after all their own choices.

Unlike myspace with its way of meeting complete strangers, Facebook has a way to link its users together more effectively and therefore, it becomes more "sticky". I think it is the best way to test human experience. Therefore, we can make good use out of this idea of networking.

Online marketing should become interactive, but what way?

As a shopper, I sometimes find myself wanting to buy a product but still debating whether its plus outweigh its minuses. In that situation, an outside opinion from a friend is often needed.

The idea of social interaction for retailing can be an effective way to address the needs and wants of customers. According to the article "Social retailing-the Future of Retail Online", companies might need consider building a virtual environment for online shoppers as this will help increase their business growth. I do not think that will easy be the case.

In a real shopping environment, shoppers are at the store and able to judge the product effectively. Therefore, they tend to rely more on an outside opinion and are then persuaded to make the purchase. In my opinion, I will not be persuaded to make the purchase unless the opinion comes from someone with reliable expertise. In a virtual environment, companies will have to establish mutual trust between customers in order for the persuading process to happen. In another hand, the social interaction can potentially backfire the companies as the online "word of mouth" ruins the product reputation.

In the article "Conversational Marketing: Can we talk?", social interaction makes more sense because companies themselves can control and select the expertise given to customers through their own channels. For example, I shop online frequently and I appreciate the help of an online sale assistant when evaluating a product. I also find informative business blogs to be very helpful as it is more convenient to keep track of new merchandise that I might want on my "wish list". I think this marketing mechanism is certainly more effective and will be adopted by many companies in the future.

Regardless of how companies making online marketing more interactive, they will have to find a way to inform their customers. Their target should be the young and tech-savvy demographics because these are key to help online mechanism educational

A shocking but not so shocking comment

Reading news on the internet has been my one of my long-time habit. I enjoy getting information from many different sources under a mouse click. It shocks me to learn that the newly awarded Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing thinks otherwise. She concluded the internet seduced a generation and people "know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other" from computer. In my opinion, the internet is the most convenient way for updating your knowledge. Born in the communist environment, I appreciate greatly the educational aspect of the internet. After the Vietnam war, there is a huge resistance of Westernism. Before we reach our current level of information tolerance, I used to rely solely on the internet. Because of online knowledge, I learned so much about other parts of the world. Therefore, I could not comprehend at first the cause of Ms. Lessing's outrageously ignorant comment. As a Nobel award winner, she sounded very disconnected from reality. The Internet has certainly changed how people see the world in the last few decades. It might be not as important in her time but no one can deny its impact. I think her comment is a defense mechanism of older generation not being able to keep up with today technology. And this is nothing new. Therefore, it is a shocking but not so shocking comment.

Will artificial intelligence exceed the human mind?

When I read the article "Artificial Intelligence, with helps from human mind", I am not so surprised that the human mind still is the efficient agent that does most of today work. After all, computer is just additional help to complete programmed tasks. The article discussed the existent online employment where human mind is still the only way despite nowadays computer's ability. How sufficient the job is done, however, is still a question of debate.

In the article, computer users pay for guidance from other computer users to the correct information/website. Their use of "crowd sourcing" sometime results in delay and incorrect information through the experience described by the author. Why do these jobs exist even though computers have become better at info sourcing than human? I think it proves that humans still believe in work done by themselves rather than by machines. As humans, we require the quality of "customer service" when a job is needed to get done. Although technology is becoming more and more advanced, there are certain tasks that computers will never exceed humans because they can not perform a decision making with emotional involvement.

Is joining a virtual world worthy?

I read about virtual world the other day and I think its an awesome way for social networking. I have not tried out any of the systems myself but I am curious about joining "Second life". In the stressful reality world, I sometime have problem meeting other people. In a virtual world, I would be able to meet "fresh" people that are not in my circle or people I probably would never talk to in real life. Therefore, it could be a new way for me to entertain myself and socialize. Sounds awesome! However, I wonder if such an interesting world is time worthy. Online meeting can be very time-consuming and probably will not leave any actual friendships. Unlike social networking websites such as Myspace, virtual world systems let me create my own avatar and control the way I am perceived. As interesting as it sounds, I might not want to actually meet these "friends" in real life because we might not connect as well as we are online. Therefore, participating in a virtual world might just waste my time and internet bill. Another worry of mine is the potential privacy nightmare that an online system might face. Although these virtual worlds claim to be private, there still might be ways to track down users such as through their IP address. Therefore, a virtual world can leave room for stalkers or criminal acts. I think company needs to figure out a way to improve this problem and prove me that they are worthy. Otherwise, virtual world might just not worth to join

Thin Issue pt 2

Obesity is not the only weight issue that caught my notice. A handful of my favorite fashion magazines such as Teen Vogue, Allure, and Cosmopolitan recently have talked about the opposite issue of obesity: young women suffering from anorexia and bulimia. To emphasize the importance of these problems, they discussed about a Brazilian model who died because of anorexia, a problem she had developed while trying to get work. Moreover, an association of Spanish designers has recently decided to start measuring models’ body mass index and to stop using underweight models. It was a warning not only for models but also for average people in the United States.

Those warnings worried me because, initially, I was just concerned about my weight to be accepted by people and fit into nice clothes. I constantly checked my body in the mirror, and stepped on the scale. I wanted to make sure that I was not having any serious health issues because I have to take care of myself while I am living alone in the United States. When I was completely sure that I was healthy, I asked myself: “Is it still acceptable to be normal and thin?” Society has a conflicting view of what the healthy body should be. They consider people with extra body fat unhealthy but do not appreciate stick-thin people either. In the end, I am still stuck in between, and I do not want to be on either extreme.

When I decided to do something about my weight, not only I felt mentally exhausted but scared because I felt forced to become something which was not who I am. Where is the beauty of my individuality? If I changed accordingly, I would become a part of the next army of clones. But would it satisfy me? That is when I realized I was betraying a fundamental part of my DNA.

Our lifestyle is what makes us look beautiful and feel healthy, not what we see and hear in the media. When I look at the French, they eat almost the same food we do, only theirs is fresher and consumed in smaller quantities. Therefore, they live healthy lives with fewer issues. Because obesity and anorexia come from an unhealthy lifestyle, we need to take care of ourselves properly. We need to embrace what nature gives us: a healthy body and an active mind. I am committed myself to being normal and thin…in a big way.

Is Facebook a new useful tool for business? (part 1)

Yesterday I read two articles talking about Facebook potentials in business management and advertisement. It is quite interesting to see how a student-friendly social network can be used in different aspects of the business world. Because I am a business major, I hopefully will be able to apply these benefits in my work in the future.

In the article "Real world social network vs. facebook social network" , Clive Thompson claimed that Facebook social network is more effective than real life social network. He explained that Facebook will help eliminating the "weak link" (a person who does most of the work but is not repsonsible for it) in a real life social network. I agree with his point because I have experienced this benefit by using Facebook. Because Facebook is able to expose the general activities in your circle of friends (mini-feed), shows which friend is connected (online facebook chat) and introduce users to "people you may know", the social network is great at linking you to the person that has information in your company. Therefore, data mining becomes easier and the company network is tightened effectively. Although Thomspon warned us about the dilemma of losing data and privacy, I do no think companies will face too much problem with the way social networks like Facebook work. Facebook has ben introducing more ways of protecting its customer privacy by providing feature for limited profile or only connecting people with similar network, interests and workload. Now users can work on their own page and choose who they want to be exposed to and can still find the "friend" that they might need. I think these features will work the same in a company network.

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