Farmville

    Some of you may be asking what Farmville is. To the rest of the population, or Facebook users, Farmville is one of those annoying games that people on Facebook play. Facebook was just an ordinary social media site until a man by the name of Mark Pincus created the games we see on Facebook. Using games as a way to chat with other members around the world created a huge hit and interest in it as a whole.
   As he was just a video game creater, he also created the company Zynga. He joins the forbes list of billionaires with a net worth of 1 billion dollars. he is the brainchild of the popular Facebook games such as Farmville, Mafiawars, and Cityville. I often recieve these stupid invites to these games on Facebook and it's almost impossible not to join only to stop the invites from ever happening again. He has amassed a fortune. The company gains money by actually charging real wold money to those who want to boost their virtual farms.
   The company receives money from extremely wealthy investors. The company is said to be worth well over 7 billion dollars by the end of the next quarter. With this much success, why haven't more people actually taken the time to grow real gardens? We could possibly stop world hunger with how many users acre actually playing Farmville. Imagine, millions and millions of new farmers in the world!

Free: Why $0.00 is the Future of Business

   Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, has also written another best seller called "Free". The book talks about how businesses and people are making money by simply "giving away". How could something like this happen? How can we see profits from giving away "stuff"? What is the secret? Well, Chris Anderson knows how.
   We come back to the World Wide Web. As we know, using the web is free, for the most part. It's used to access millions of pages and millions of topics of interests to millions of people. What Anderson states in his book is that these select individuals and groups have made money by just using the web to outsource their ideas and and creative ability. If we go into description, just look at all those artists on myspace and youtube who have become successful. All they had to do was post a video or recording of themselves and post it on a free website. Offering free music to the world allowed them to put themselves out there.
   A perfect example is the in a blog post I did a few days back regarding Justin Bieber. He put numerous videos on Youtube and was signed by usher no more than 2 years ago. He is now worth well over 67 million dollars! And to think, Justin was only 14 at the time. Another artist group Anderson mentions is the successful is Radiohead. They offered free music online through myspace and hit it big.
   Anderson also discusses the Gillette founder and how he was able to cut the costs down for creating razors in which he essentially gave them away to the army so he could gain greater recognition for his other services (shaving cream). This ingenious method for marketing is why Gillette is one of the biggest corporations today!
   Although I haven't read the book yet, I will sure read it in the near future. The above information was gathered through blog posts and recent articles about the book. If this book is as interesting as The Long Tail, it will surely be a good read.

The Long Tail

   I recently googled "The Long Tail" and I came upon a blog devoted towards The Long Tail Book. The blog was created a few years ago and it was updated over a period of time in which the blog was updated by Chris Anderson himself.
   The blog contains information pertaining to the Long Tail and other news that correlates with the subject. The blog also incorporates promos on his articles and books which are in bookstores or through sites that have Kindle products. In his more recent posts, he talks about his new book "Free" and where and how to get it for free. I will discuss more on the book "Free" in a later blog post.
   Although the site has not been updated in the last 2 years (last post was on December 11, 2009), it still holds valuable information on the long tail and how companies have learned from it. If you scroll back, we can see the early stages of these successful companies and how Chris Anderson has dissected them. Such companies include Netflix, iTunes, and other various sites. Much of the information gathered through the blog posts are still used in everyday business. It's great to see how these business became as successful as they are today!

Here is a link to The Long Tail blog:

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/

Social Media Sites and the Addiction

  

   There will be somewhat of a rant. I workout about 5 days a week. I go to Planet Fitness in Hadley Ma. This is a very big gym and it's usually always crowded by College. Usually, you only have to wait for machines on average of 5-10 minutes. As I approached the last machine on my daily workout, I notice a young girl walking towards it as well. Of course she gets there first as she didn't even notice me standing there. Her headphones were in her ears and she was using her smart phone to access her Facebook account.
  I waited a good 15 minutes and came back to the machine to only notice that she was still surfing Facebook and creating wall posts. The whole 15 minutes she had used on the machine were actually to work the muscles in her fingers. Why was I to be punished because a girl couldn't leave Facebook? Has this world come to a screeching halt where everything and everyone revolves around these social media blogs?
   I've heard many friends and coworkers who will totally be opposed to these social media sites. They tell me that it's just something that they don't want out there (their person information). Another person wondered where the old school ways of meeting a person face to face went. Of course, we all have our own reasons as to why we choose to be apart of these sites. Some can't live without them. Some can purely live without them and be happy. I sure as hell know that if I become obese one day, the girl on the "Facebook-workout-girl" will surely get hers.

PinStack.com

  

   I'm a member of many forums on the world wide web. I recieve most of my news from these websites as it gives me the freedom to surf around and ask questions relating to anything I need to know. Forums are a big part of my daily life as I'm a member to two devoted watch forums, an automotive forum, and a tech cell phone forum.
   Pinstack.com is a great site for smart phone users. Everyday, they have groundbreaking news on new devices and new software and applications. It's a very helpful site to the first time smartphone user, or anybody who just wants to dig up news on new devices that are being tested or customer reviews on specific phones, software, and applications.
   This forum is one of the largest forums in terms of dealing with every smart phone available on the market. Although there are many other forums that dedicate themselves to the love of cell phones, pinstack.com is highly ranked as one of the most informative and successful smart phone forums. They also include places where you can find cell phone accessories at extremely cheap prices; the forum is affiliated with many online stores and dealers.
   For the first time smart phone buyer in the future, I highly recommend this forum. It's very easy to navigate through and much of the news and information is no later than a day old. The amount of information that is available through these sites is amazing and most importantly, it's free to join!

www.pinstack.com

YouTube is Their Studio

  

   I love to sing. It's been in my blood since I was born. Before the internet was around, my way or showing the world my love for singing was doing live performances at talent shows or random small concerts around town. It was my of showing everyone my style of music and what kind of music was in me.
   While I was surfing youtube videos early morning, I stumbled upon a few videos of people singing a cover of a song I enjoyed. They had a very well edited video with actual studio equipment and amazing singers. It inspired me to do some recordings as they were able to get over 4 million views in less than 4 months!
   Youtube has made made many music sensations today. Artists such as Justin Bieber and Esmee Denters have signed and made millions just from placing videos on youtube. Bieber and Denters started their webpages early, when youtube was still in it's early pages. Today, both artists have millions of subscribers and Justin Bieber is pretty much littered all over youtube. His music videos have the most hits; his "Baby" video has close to 500 million views!
    It's amazing what these media sites can do to people. I plan to place some videos on youtube as well, but not to get famous, but just because I love to sing and have been harassed by many to do so. I will do it because of the pleasure I get out of it. I hope others will find the same pleasure when listening to me sing.

Social Media and Confidentiality

   Social media blogs are everywhere. It's extremely easy for anybody to search for a facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. account just by typing in their name in the google search field. I think it's become pretty crazy how easy it is to find somebody's personal information that quickly nowadays.
   I was speaking with my manager today and she was telling me that she had peeked at my facebook profile before she had hired me. I looked at her funny and realized that I had set my profile cautiously in order for strangers to find nothing about me. She had told me that she just wanted to see what I looked like and wanted to see personal information as well. The good thing was that all my information on my profile was hidden and has been hidden for reason like that.
   Today, facebook has over 600 million users and I can guarantee that more than 3/4 of the profiles out there are not restricted enough to outside users. Social media sites have given us a new way to stalk legally. Not only is it scary, it's easy to do and anybody can do it. I have some suggestions that might help keep your information private.

1. Keep profile settings updated daily to insure information is not leaked
2. Hide profile pictures and album pictures
3. Keep the people you know best or friends and only let them access your profile
4. Don't accept random friend requests from strangers
5. Don't discuss work or incidents at work in your status updates