Nothing is free

In one of my marketing classes I learned a very technical term tantaafm ( their ain't no thing as a free meal). With every gimmick that says free they are really looking to take as much of your money away as possible. If you look at something simple like free samples of cereal or food, their goal is for you to try it, love it and become a long time purchaser of their product. The amount of money companies spend on giving these "free" things away are minute compared to the amount of money they actually make with this marketing ploy.

Even if you are strong and can say no, you still give up your time. Think about these time share deals, where they offer 3 free nights somewhere if you go to their presentations. The presentations take hours and a lot of your vacation time. And I heard that they are very hard to pass up on. So you could end up spending more money that you would have, if you just payed for a vacation.

Their is nothing wrong with this marketing ploy, it is not deceitful or misleading, it is just a smart way for companies to get their products out their, and tempt people to come back for more.

This image was obtained from: zazzle.com

The Cloud

Cloud computing allows you to get information that you have stored in the cloud and where you can access the Internet. I honestly don't know what I would do without the cloud, since I never use my Microsoft outlook on my desktop, it is more convenient to check my email as I go on the GMail site. Their are debated that we have always had the cloud and this is just a new marketing ploy.

This could be true, I mean anything that you can access online is in the cloud. The different applications like email, file storage, banking and one of my new personal favorites mint.com. Applications like this have been around for long, especially email and I feel like I have only been hearing this term recently. For example the windows commercial which has only recently come around.

My group and I had to present information on the cloud and made a short video on how the cloud is better for businesses. The cloud allows companies to only pay for what they use and not have to buy all this expensive unnecessary software.

The problems people have with the cloud is losing control and privacy. Since all your information is on a third party server, if the server gets shut down for some reason so do you. Also privacy can be an issue since someone can hack into the database and get everybody information they have posted on that server.

This image was obtained from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRjbhLYx6Bg

video games are an art

I do not play video games, but I do think that it is an art. I know that it is created on a computer, but it still takes time and effort, and requires creating something. Most if not all of the time the creators do have to sketch their idea before they create it. Some people think that art is only something that is made with paint, brushes, or canvases. While discussing this topic in class people where describing war scenes on certain games or sound scenes on certain games as art. Now I had no idea what they were talking about, but I do agree with them on the general concept.

In this article Robert Ebert explains why he thinks video games can never be art and one of the major criticisms of his argument was that he never really wanted to play the one video game he played, so he was forced to play it. So while he is playing this game he is just playing it with a closed mind.

Now I don't think that he doesn't think video games are art is because he has never really played video games, because I personally do not play video games but still think that it is an art. I think that he just believes that art cannot be created in the form of a video game, art is made with a brush, canvas and paint. Therefore no matter how many video games he is forced to play, unless he finally finds one that is made in the form of what he thinks art is, he will never believe video games are art.

I think art adjusts to different time periods. For example rock paintings were art when their was no paper. And now digital art is considered art as our technology gets better and better. Art is any kind of creation that the creator considers art and it is up to the viewer to interpret it, and decide if they like it. If the viewer does not like the piece of art it does not throw it out of the art category it just makes the artist explain more and maybe teach the viewer something new.



This image was obtained from: walyou.com



Website design

Web site design is very important if you are trying to get traffic to your web page. People are not interested in trying to figure out how to get to a certain page, if they cant find it through the first couple times of clicks, they will leave with frustration and go to another page.

The web templates and graphics that the website has are also important. The website should not be gaudy and especially not have music playing that is not easy to turn off like this one. I went to this site and had to get out of it after five minutes because I could not stand listening to the music anymore, and I did not get the chance to look over the whole menu.

After learning about all the things that a website should not have I was a little disappointed. The main thing about a website is keep it simple, and that is so hard for me. I love colors and graphics and I would totally put music on my page, because it would be good music to listen too. I would put pictures in every free space of my page if it were up to me, and they would probably not be related to the website they would just be pretty.

So I guess the perfect web design would be a one tone color, and preferably something boring like white or black, not have too many pictures and have a very friendly user interface.

this image was obtained from: goatkarma.com

The IPad is awesome

This article by Cory Doctorow was one of my assigned readings in class, and the summary of this article is pretty much that Apple is not a network but a cult. They only allow their programs and applications on their macs, iPhone and ipads, and this is really bad for our society because it limits information being put out their, and does not allow for open source software.

Now I agree, Apple is a cult but not in a bad way, I think they are just looking for ways to keep their customers spending money with them ( which is the goal of all companies). They are innovative and their marketing strategies are genius, but as consumers we may feel a little cheated. You can only use applications Apple provides and you have to pay for all of them.

Their is a way to get around this, all you need to do is break in to your iPhone, ipad or mac, and you can download any software you want and lots of it is free. But with this comes with consequences, if that piece of technology does get a virus you have lost any kind of warranty you had with apple and their is a chance that equipment is destroyed.

I feel after reading this article that Doctorow is just complaining like an old man about how things were different back in his day, and now its all a ploy to make money and things are not going to be good if this keeps going. But lets be honest all companies are looking for a new way to make money and if apple is smart enough to market their products to where the public buys them knowing they are going to be spending a ton more money on applications only assigned to them by Apple I say good job!

I personally do want an Ipad, but not for downloading or writing any software which Doctorow explains cant be done on the Ipad and how terrible this is.  I want it for the reason that it is very portable and can use it where ever I go just to read a book, study or play a game. I think everyone knows that the Ipad has not taken over the laptop, it does not have nearly the same capabilities(yet). I do recommend waiting for a few months though before purchasing the Ipad, because Apple is known to bring out better versions of their products within a few months.

This image was obtained from: http://www.treehugger.com/ipad-gizmodo.jpg

Does the search engine matter?

The search bar on the Internet has become a necessity of our everyday lives. I wanted to see how long I could go without using a search engine, I broke down in thirty minutes without me really realizing it. I needed to go onto a website but couldn't really remember the sites name, but it was a pretty popular brand and thought it would be under the name of the brand. I typed it in, and it was incorrect and a bunch of alternative sites I could have meant popped up. I looked through them to find the site( which I did) and got the the site from their. About ten minutes went by and I realized that I had used a search engine to get to the web page and was very disappointed with myself.

Search engines have made everything fast and convenient. Just think about it, if you are discussing something and are not sure on a certain fact what do you say " lets google it". But how do you know which search engine to use. There are so many with google being the most popular. Does it really matter which search engine to use? Do all search engines bring up the same stuff? Or are the top sites the sites that pay to be on the top?

I think all search engines do a good job showing which sites are ads. After a search you can see which search results are ads with a blue box around them. Now the sites that show up after the ads are determined different ways with all the different search engines. For example Google has this really long confusing algorithmic equation they use, which pretty much boils down to the sites with the most clicks. So the top search results will be the sites that the most people have visited.

Now this site shows which search engines to use for different subject matter. For example it would be better to use the search engine infomine to look up scholarly information. This site is pretty interesting I have always just googled any information I need, but looking at this I could save lots of time looking through articles that are not useful to me if I just use a different search engine.

This image was retrieved from:

qwickstep.com

Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is the principle that everything on the Internet has no restrictions by Internet providers or the government. Our society is a money making society that is looking for the next best thing to make money on. So far the Internet has been pretty free.

Could you imagine the basic package would be major news sites like New York Times and Dallas Morning News the next package would be FOX and HBO and then the premium package would be all the other sites on the web like blogs.

I don't think this is unfair, I mean we pay for everything already, we just aren't use to paying for the different Internet levels. This would at first be a huge problem but people would have to agree with it if they want to keep their Internet. I think views on smaller sites like personal blogs would be a lot less since most people wouldn't pay for the premium package, and it would probably be very inconvenient if you do just have the basic package. I could imagine reading an article on a major news site and being redirected to another site for more information and not being able to access it because I am not paying for the Internet service level.

People could boycott this and instead of paying for the Internet packages people would go back to reading newspapers, searching for information in a library, and watching television at the times the shows are actually shown. I don't think this would last because the Internet has made everything to convenient and as you are on your second day at the public library still flipping through the same book to get the sum of the information, you would remember the times when you could just google it and have sources for a research paper in a few hours.

This image was obtained from http://www.tristanx.com/net-neutrality-coconuts-and-you/