United Nations aims to protect human rights, maintain world peace, and develop third world countries etc. On the other hand, the Arc Initiative focuses on building internships and workshops  and program  and Social enterprise focuses on social, cultural, and environmental goals.

Arc Initiative logo

I feel that the United Nation helps restructure the ones that need help in the core section, and Arc Initiative and Social enterprise supports it. Even if United Nations were fully funded and were used to solve a particular problem, after all the funds are used, the UN can move on to solve different problem. Therefore, to support the people who are once stabilized, Arc Initiative allows young people in the country to gain work experience, which is necessary because young people who are in our age are the ones that are eventually going to support their country.

Therefore, UN boosts up the entire country, whereas the Arc Initiative and Social enterprises help support the whole community to let the country stand on its own without any help later on.

This is a response blog post to Betty Ye’s “What Do You Really Know About Diamonds?”

Diamonds are one of the beautiful, but expensive gem stones in the world. Everyone knows that it’s expensive. I agree to her blog post, because DeBeers marketing strategy is amazing, they were able to manipulate the entire country, and even the world after that, to make people believe that diamonds are rare and are necessary to give them in rings for a proposal.

Interestingly, during an ECON 101 lecture, professor Gateman talked about a same topic. He mentioned how diamonds are called “precious” because they are expensive and a little bit shiny. Would people really buy diamonds if they became cheaper? I think people are  buying diamonds for their “snob appeal” (as professor Gateman mentioned later on.) People buy diamonds because everyone knows that they are expensive. What if they become cheaper? Would people still buy them? Or, is what Betty Ye is writing is right? Are the diamond market really restricting the flow of supply to create an artificial “rarity” to diamonds and skyrocket its prices?

Diamond and cubic zirconia

Which one is the diamond and which one is the cubic zirconia (20times cheaper than diamonds)?

The right one is the diamond.

Zappos.com logo

Zappos is an online shoe and clothing shop, and is the company we focused on in lecture 19 for COMM 101. One of the word that came up was “organization culture”. I think organization culture means, the attitudes of the employers to the employees, and how that reflects the general atmosphere of the company. Zappos has a great organizational culture. There are no hierarchy, the CEO is working with other workers with the same desk, they have parties and free food. Zappos’s workplace is very different from usual companies, however that maybe the reason the employees and the CEO have such a strong teamwork.

Zappos is known for a great customer service as well. One of the examples faced was the customer service done in phones. The mandatory 4 week training for all of the people who answers the phone to the customers leads to good impression of the company, which will then allow the customers to spread the positive word of mouth. I think this is one of the marketing strategies that uses the purchase funnel. The customer who had a good customer service will definitely use Zappos again, and that person can later on bring more customers. This is definitely a win-win.

Purchase Funnel seen in lecture 11.

Looking at Zappos, it made me realize how the environment of the company can change how people can work more efficiently, which then leads to more income. In the short term, all of the parties and free food may cost a lot, however, if this is looked at in a long term, it will bring a lot of income to the company later on.

Zappos employees

LINK

This is a response blog post to Katie Applebaum’s “The importance of a middle class”

I do agree with her idea that “middle class” are important. Indeed, they support  the economic growth and help the country grow. Her blog post was about how new artists are struggling to grow and earn money due to already famous singers having the money to promote their new music, whereas middle class artists cannot afford to do so, and how pirating music makes it easier for people to download freely, which means that there are no profits being made for artists. I feel part of this is true and part of this is false.

Promoting their music and battling against singers with million hits may be almost impossible. Without money, it would be again, impossible to create music without good resources Monarch Studios holds.

The thing is, it all depends on the people who are listening to the music. For an example, Japan, my home country has a site similar to Youtube called the Nico nico Douga,  created by Dwango. co.

Nico nico douga logo

And in this Nico nico douga, are hundred million music created by amateur artists, using Vocaloids, a singing voice synthesizer. There are many people who have made a lot of money through this, as these songs become a popular hit (mostly after gaining 500~900 thousand plays), they become CDs, be used in Japanese games, and so on.

Vocaloid : Hatsune Miku

It is a hard time since technology is developing and famous artists are becoming even more famous. But remember, Justin Bieber became famous from getting a call from his current manager after watching his videos. It is so hard to predict what could happen in a music industry. A normal boy in youtube can eventually become a billionaire, and so can an anime character like Hatsune Miku too. Allowing many people to create music is great, but involves what kind of music they are presenting (whether it fits the taste of music for the listeners or not), and if they are lucky enough to become famous.

This is a response to a external blog post by Cornor Dougherty’ “YouTube Weighing New Subscription Service”

One of the worlds’ biggest video site is adding another service to collect money, which is the  “subscription service”. Youtube shows advertisements before the video plays, which frustrates many users. This, could be gone by paying for the ad-free subscription.

My views to the topic:
The advertisements are annoying when it comes up before, or during the videos we are watching. Now, will this really work? I am quite sure this system will increase Youtube’s revenue. Youtube has billion users accessing to their site and watching videos. This paying system does not have to attract all consumers, it will work if there are few percentage of people willing to pay. If 1 % of the Youtube users are willing to pay $1 per month (This is the price Youtube is aiming to price), the total income would be $10 million. Since Youtube has so many users, the amount of money achieved would be enormous, despite the amount of people who wants to stop seeing the pre-played advertisements.

My views to the blog:
This blog post was interesting as it had Youtube’s prospective in why they wanted to start a new service, and how Youtube has the potential to earn more subscriptions. It also mentions about recommended strategies Youtube should do in order to gain more users, and win against other similar online video sites.

The First Nation’s chief has gained $800,000 for selling 236 hectares of land. This is not what the citizens hoped for.
Many people were against with creating the pipelines in their area, afraid that the oils may leak and harm the environment. For example, the land near the Nak’al Koh River was broken from logging, road building, farming.

Chief of Kwilwetlem, Ron Giesbrecht

The chief is supposed to be a leader, but the fact that he sold parts of a land is a betrayal for the other people against the creating of pipelines, mines, etc. I feel this is contradicting with this article as all of the First Nation people are against of modernizing their land, but instead, desires to keep the land the way it is (in the article with the link).

Why did the chief sell the land? It is almost like as if he is pro modernization. Different three nation had also sold their land for money, which was mentioned in this article. Can the people of First nation really protect their land and resources?

LINK

On September, Microsoft bought Minecraft, one of the world’s famous games with $2.5 billion. This means that Microsoft gets the rights to the game and Mojang, the development studio.

Microsoft already has $85 billion in hand, so $2.5 billion may not seem as much. But Microsoft was suffering from the decreasing shares in their own smartphones, so buying Minecraft was one of the method to gain profit.

I think the action Microsoft took was smart; Microsoft wanted to increase their profit, and Mojang was having trouble managing their company and keeping up with the demanding fans. Minecraft, although it is known as a “game”, is not really a game where people compete each other to win. There are no goals either, making it more of a social site. Although some fans are wailing about how Minecraft itself would not be fun anymore because Microsoft is intervening, both companies/producers/CEOs got what they want. They both agreed in buying and selling, which makes it an advantage for both sides.

LINK

I bet many people have used eBay and PayPal. First of all, eBay and PayPal were not together until 2002. On October 3rd 2002 (which is amazingly today), eBay bought PayPal and owned them.
Now, since PayPal is still it’s fast growing segment, eBay has decided to spin off, meaning, “The creation of an independent company through the sale or distribution of new shares of an existing business or division of a parent company. “ from next year.

I think what John Donahoe (president and CEO of eBay) did was great. eBay and PayPal are still popular and it shows no sign of slowing down. Thus, splitting these two up enables to expand their market and create more profit if it goes well. As mentioned before, people still rely on PayPal, especially people without credit cards find it easy to be able to pay online, therefore I doubt John Donahoe will regret about his decisions he made.
In fact, according to the company, eBay’s sales reduced by the growth of PayPal. Separating these two may create more opportunities for both sides and may establish a strong market for the online marketplace.

Companies rely on customers who buy/use their goods or services. Trademarks, or logos may not be so important for some people, but they are actually important to companies. These small pictures, words and fonts have meanings and messages in them to appeal their company to the consumers.

What are the messages behind certain company’s logos? Well, for example, take a look at Amazon’s logo.

Amazon’s logo

The <font color=”#FFA500″>orange arrow</font> pointing from a to z shows how Amazon have many varieties of products, and can send them anywhere to you, the consumers.

Therefore, it is not surprising if one of the logos look similar, and leads into a battle to win for its rights. The article I looked at was an issue between Disney, famous for Mickey Mouse and Deadmau5, a Canadian DJ and performer.

Logo of Deadmau5 and Disney

Who used these ears first? Well, it’s obviously Disney. But Deadmau5 has been using his logo for a decade, which makes it funny for Disney to sue him.

This is one of a hard situation. As mentioned before, logos are important to companies. If they’re similar, that’s going to be a problem. But for this case, I think it’s different. It’s actually impossible to confuse which logo is for which. First of all, the ears seem different, and Mickey doesn’t have a creepy white eye and mouth for his silhouette.

Copyrights are difficult because you don’t know when it’s actually “copying” and when it’s “original”. There are billions of different companies around the world, and I guess it’s not surprising unless the logo is too similar.

I find this case too hard for Disney to win. Illustration of mouses tend to have big ears, and the fact that Deadmau5 has been using the logo for 10 years may be a little too difficult for the lawyers to agree with Disney. This battle is ongoing, and we (at least I) can’t miss it.

LINKS

Many companies in the world aim to  give a good quality of food to the consumers. However, there were several corporate ethics that went wrong in food companies in Japan last year, due to “a cost reduction program”. One of the famous ones would be false labelling of food products.

One of the biggest ones that occurred in Japan was the false labelled menu in several restaurants in a franchise hotel called, Hankyu Hanshin Hotel.
Some of the examples would be, cryopreserved fish served to the customers when the restaurant’s menu said “fresh raw fish” and vegetables that weren’t organic were labelled “organic”, and were sold at an expensive price.

The chief of the hotel did say this wasn’t to create more profit, however this problem has definitely created a bad reputation amongst the franchise hotels.
As a result, they have created and extreme amount of profit, which is the opposite of what Friedman said. Friedman said going against the law, and only thinking about gaining profit is unethical in business. This hotel, however, has broken Friedman’s business ethics.

(This problem in the hotel was found in 2013 Oct. 22nd)

LINK