I guess I am free to express opinions on a few selected topics more freely now. This one has been put up without any edits. Read on.
Chris brown sings forever in the background as I chat with a travel freak buddy online. He tells me Philipinnes is a honeymooners paradise.. hmm.. My colleagues are sitting around me.. I am drinking coffee and cribbing about it..Chris browns' forever is groovy.. atleast it makes me less sleepy. I ahve explored through a great many techie online mags in the last few hours and have discovered some very interesting stuff.
Group-on multi million dollar company is predicted to collapse.. owing to its business model.. the fake deep discounts that hurt small businesses more than one time paper ads.A guy called Rocky Agrawal explains in his 3-part series how Groupon is a problem child. Reading through the article I realise it is nothing but another company riding on the Americans way of living-on credits! Readthis to understand exactly what I am trying to say.
Groupon makes it to my blog because I work for a start up that's equally passionate about having a similar feature on its api. I cant give too many details(non-disclosure form), but these few articles featured on tech crunch have got me thinking about the repercussions of dealing with deals. They have helped me surface the question, I had not had until now thought of but was the reason for my confusion.
Seriously, even as a layman, I can understand this much, if the value of something is 1000 bucks and I get it for less than half the price, how does the company make for the loss it deliberately incurs? Hmmm.. Rocky Agrawal has the answers. He words out the most obvious flaw in the business model. Deep discounting is a way to acquire loyal customers is a dangerous notion, repeat customers through procured through groupon deals are definitely not good for a small businesses, the non-transparent revenue model loses local businesses into the oblivion and other such facts are enlightening.
This brings me to a resonating doubt I have had about everything digital. Though i work for an app making company, I fail to fully understand the significance of a lot many things . Check-ins, online sharing to name a few. How or why would the worlds brainiest people build apps to get people compromise with their privacy? Maybe its because I am yet to find an answer to this or I am a conservationist that stops me from being my creative best. I reckon I need to be fully convinced about the product to write about it in a good light or else.. I'd only end up producing work that is m-e-d-i-o-c-r-e.
The next thing that gets my attention is Instagram, a feature packed photo sharing app built for apple platform. It has in less than 8 months a database of 100 millions photographs and 5 millions customers. And that that the profits being split between 4 employees is a stand-up-and-take-notice fact.
Reflecting on the things I have read on techcrunch so far, I have a few notes to add here.
Mobile businesses thrive on millions of customers' first time experience. Back track this a little and I discover.. its not social media or anything like that but a humongous amount of people buying smart phones that social media thrives on. Whether check-in makes sense to you or no, you would still do it because you are made to believe that its the most effective way of telling friends where you at. I mean come on, do we really need to tell the world about what cafes we frequent except a few close friends who can be texted. And wont you head out to a place with friends.. probably check-ins is great for singletons looking to hook-up but other than that people who are well connected through calls and texts, I wonder how much does check-in affect their social life.
Businesses leverage impulsive, non-retain able emotions. Hierarchically, social media comes under smart phones. But then it becomes a loop; social media on a rise due to large smartphone user base which later on converts into smart phones built suited to accomodate social media features.
Attention deficit customers are good for online/mobile businesses. I seriously wonder for how long will this digital revolution continue to thrive. Quick, easy, short term is what drives most mobile businesses. Is it even right to instill temporariness and hype about it?
I don't know.. i seriously dont know.. but I see a ray of hope.. all thanks to Rocky Agrawal. :)
Disclaimer : The views are mine and I am just a another female, affected by the mobile world revolution. Please do not take me seriously.
