The Financial Post announced announced McDonald’s is planning to spending 1 billion dollars on renovating 1400 Canadian restaurants. Renovations include double drive-thru lanes, wifi, fire places, flat-screen televisions and revamping the inside with stone accents, all this to “modernize the chain” and help the company compete with Canadian fast-food chain Tim Horton’s.

This is surprising as a majority of the McDonald’s in Canada just went through renovations two years ago, with upgrades identical to the ones listed above. When McDonald’s became and official sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics held in Vancouver McDonald’s across the country were transformed into bright, trendy restaurants.

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Although this is an expensive endeavour considering most McDonald’s have been recently updated a move in a cleaner, more modern appearance is the way to go. McDonald’s took a hit about 7 years ago, after the documentary SuperSize me came out. McDonald’s went through many criticisms about the ingredients and lack of nutritional value in their menu as well as the cleanliness and process of preparing and storing food. Since then McDonald’s has made a number of changes for the better. This more modern, upscale look will keep McDonald’s moving in a positive direction and maintain their popularity among consumers.

Since September 17th the Occupy Wall Street protests have been growing. These protests are mainly aimed at the American Government and Wall Street executives. The marchers are protesting the influence money has on the government, that the government has yet to prosecute any Wall Street executives who acted illegally and immorally leading to the economic crisis the United States that has affected a number of other countries’ economy as well. Other causes of protest include social inequality and insufficient social and health care.

The movement is set to hit Canadian cities on October 15th. The protests have been highly organized, but “leaderless”, run instead by committees responsible for legal issues, medical, media, food distribution, even running a library.

It will be interesting to see how local governments and authorities in Canada deal with the peaceful protests. I think the response will vary from Western to Eastern Canada. After the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto there are a lot of activists and citizens disappointed in the police force’s response. The Toronto sector has cut off communication with police, while the Vancouver Police remain informed of protestors agendas.

The protests are self-sustaining, a sort of commune they could last longer than the average protest.

Since my last post about smartphone consumer rates the iPhone 4S has been released and Steve Jobs, the visionary behind Apple, has passed away. This has lead to a media frenzy about how Jobs shaped today’s technology and speculation about the direction Apple is headed in his absence.

The article “How Apple outsmarted RIM and Nokia” is a further exploration of the smartphone shift. It’s not the qualitative facts – percentages of consumerism of one smartphone compared to another, but rather the explanation of that shift. The article pinpoints the factors that make the iPhone both user-friendly, and trendy.

The iPhone marketing and advertising is credited to Steve Jobs, a huge factor of consumer popularity is due to Apple’s omnipresence. Apple ads are both ubiquitous and have a way of capturing the consumer -similar to your favourite sports team- you just want to revel in the collective identity and success. Apple’s success compared to Nokia and Rim however can be credited to Jobs’ creation of an “eco-system.” The eco-system is iTunes and the app. The app network will continue to attract new businesses to develop their own apps for the iPhone. This system creates stability and insurance for Apple’s future.

Throughout the past few months newspapers, blogs and other media outlets have been flooded with stories featuring the smart phone. Articles regarding Canadian telecommunication company RIM’s struggle in the market as stocks plummet, as well as endless “hype” surrounding the iPhone 5 ( to be released any day now.)

An article in the Globe and Mail this past week outlined BlackBerry’s declining preference among consumers. The picture below shows that from June until August only 9% of consumers purchasing a smart phone chose a BlackBerry.  On top of that, 29% of BlackBerry users said that they were going to upgrade to an iPhone in the future and of all smart phone users 55% said they planning to acquire an iPhone.

The media keeps telling us the BlackBerry is going under, but as a Sauder student it’s harder to believe. Since moving to UBC this fall my BBM contacts have doubled. BlackBerry’s seem to dominate Sauderite’s preferences. Is it because of BlackBerry’s reputation as the classic “business phone” and we’re all trying to play the part? Or are we all just waiting for the iPhone 5 or mobile contracts to end?

It will be interesting to see if RIM makes a recovery in the following year.

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