Week 13: Clear - Power of Social Media

Businesses, large and small, can leverage social media channels in many ways.  Although, it is crucial to have a strategy for your business to approach your business's social media channels.  A company must know what their end goal is to effectively select the best social media outlet.  Businesses must leverage social media to focus on engaging with customers, both current and prospective.  Now with social media, businesses are talking with customers, not just at customers.

An example of real-world use of Facebook for a small business is Adrienne Frankenfield Photography.  This business is owned by a high-school friend of mine and is used to share and promote her photography work.  Within the company's posts, the owner/photographer posts tutorials, special prizes, samples of recent photo sessions, and interaction with fans and customers. With Facebook's huge user base, there are endless possibilities of customer reach through their large network.

Reference URL: https://www.facebook.com/AdrienneFrankenfieldPhotography.

Week 4: Clear - Competition Driving Innovation

A prime example of competition driving innovation is the relationship and history between Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder) and Bill Gates (Microsoft co-founder).  This has lead to so many technology improvements and innovations throughout the years of these two companies and entrepreneurs.  Their ideas and value-chain strategy has led to stronger products and more benefits for the  consumer.  For Microsoft, they started out by developing DOS and have since dominated the personal computer, gaming, and enterprise server computing markets. For Apple, they started out by creating very user friendly computers, then later dominated the mobile device market with the Macbook, iPod, iPhone, and most recently, the iPad.  Unfortunately, Steve Jobs is no longer with us.  On October 5 2011, cancer took his life too soon at such an early age.

Apple iTunes was the first of its kind to deliver digital music to the world in a centralized, quick, legal, and efficient manner without having the consumer leave their house to purchase music.  This allowed for iTunes to utilize technology and the internet as a distribution and promotional channel.  Apple collaborated with the recording industry, both musicians and record companies, to deliver music quicker to the consumer than ever before.  This was introduced in a time where music was being shared illegally at a high rate without a mature and centralized digital distribution channel.  Now,  in 2012, iTunes has developed into more than just digital music offering TV shows and movies for rent and purchase, digital books, and most recently iTunes U.  The devices that play all of this content include the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Come to think of it... this blog post is being created on both my iPad and iPhone.  

R.I.P. Steve Jobs 1955-2011

The following URL provides insight into how Apple changed music distribution and promotion. Reference URL: http://ipod.about.com/od/glossary/a/how-apple-changed-music.htm