Twitter’s share price is almost doubled now since it has gone public.

In Chris Sorenson“s blog, “Twitter soars in stock market debut”, I think it is interest because it not only tells the increasing of the Twitter’s share price, but also figures out some problems that Twitter are facing.

The first problem is that Twitter does not have a huge mount of users as Facebook. Therefore, it is less attractive to advertisers. Twitter gets money from advertising. It post the advertisements on the pages and users will see it. However, the size of Twitter’s user is a fraction of Facebook, advertisers will likely advertise through Facebook. In contract, Facebook is more attractive to advertisers than Twitter. Facebook is a big competitor to Twitter right now. Twitter should come up some strategies to gain more users.

The second problem is that it is difficult to post advertisements on devices’ screens. Most people tweet on their smart phones, which have small screens. It is not easy to place the ads on those small screens. Twitter should make some unique designs for its ads, which can fit in those small screens nicely and perfectly. It will attract a lot more advertisers.

http://www2.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Twitterx660-273×217.jpg

In Guang Yow Low‘s blog “Will BlackBerry Rise Again”, Yow supports that BlackBerry will rise again. However, I disagree with him. I do not think BlackBerry will have the chance.

Nowadays, Apple, SamSung, HTC, Microsoft hold the largest market value in smartphone market, especially, Apple and SamSung. IOS system and Android systems are so popular among customers. Those systems create a “close” relationship with people and become a part of people’s life. However, as for BlackBerry, it rarely updates its technology and falls behind. Even it comes up a new operating system, BlackBerry 10, it won’t make a big difference in the near future. People are getting used to use IOS and Android operating system. BlackBerry 10 is not strong enough to attract people to transfer their preferences. Furthermore, Apple and SamSung are keep innovating and upgrading their technologies, and they have loyal “fans” for their products. People will continue consuming those smart phones but changing to BlackBerry. Moreover, BlackBerry 10 system is similar as the system we have now. It is not attractive enough.

If BlackBerry can’t gain more customers and rise recently, I don’t think it is able to go over its problems and keep “alive”.

http://n4bb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Blackberry-z10-vs-iphone-5-00.jpg

After browsing through the blogs, one of Fiona Zhang‘s blogs attracts my attention, which was talked about Häagen-Dazs is luxury in China. I agree with her perspective and I want to analysis more about it.

As we all know, Häagen-Dazs is sold cheap in convenience stores in North America, but in China, it is sold extremely expensive in specialty stores. What makes this so different? I would say that Häagen-Dazs is making different marketing strategies in different countries. In China, Häagen-Dazs creates a high level brand positioning. It sets a high-value consumption of its brand, and targets customers who earn high level of income. It uses the high price products to create the high level of brand name.

However, such high-price ice cream shouldn’t attract many customers and make more profit. How does Häagen-Dazs do it? Häagen-Dazs knows well that people want to show off with their wealth and luxury. Secondly, the decoration of the stores can help customers relax and enjoy their time. Thirdly, Häagen-Dazs introduced some products combing ice cream with traditional Chinese food, such as the ice cream moon cake. All of those are the elements to attract customers with high prices and make profit in China.

http://blog.generalmills.com/wp-content/uploads/mooncakes2.jpg

Today we discussed innovation and entrepreneurship in class. I learned that being an entrepreneur is so difficult and what characteristics are the entrepreneur needed.

Michael Wormald is a twenty-seven-year-old entrepreneur. He is the founder and owner of Evoda Group Digital Agency. He started his business because he saw a need in the marketplace. He has the foresight, which is a great ability for an entrepreneur. He shared the office space with an established creative agency. He learned a lot from this firm and applied in his business. Financing is a big problem. A new and small firm usually can’t get enough money from investors and therefore, he keeps losing money. Finally, he fired the sales manager and did the sales job by himself. He is a responsible person. He took the responsibility for everything he could do, although the firm was almost closed. Until one day, he got his first significant contract, his firm was saved.

After two years starting the business, Michael Wormald decides to move the office to Toronto because Toronto is the epicentre of business in Canada, which is risky but may be profitable.

All in all, Michael Wormald is a riske taker, a visionary, responsible entrepreneur.

http://www.biv.com/article/20131105/BIV0201/311059992/0/SEARCH/How-I-did-it:-Michael-Wormald

http://www.evodagroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/michael-wormald.jpg

Creating a good organizational culture is the basis of a firm. It plays an important role of making the firm better. In the lecture, we learned about how does Zappos create an organizational culture and how does this work.

Zappos hires people who really passionate on their jobs. The CEO believes that only the employees love their jobs, they can do it better and happier. Also, Zappos provides its employees a good environment of workplace and the CEO creates a close and good relationship with his employees, which make the employees more incentive on their jobs.

In the article, it mainly talks about how does the recognition and rewards program work in an organization. Different employees should be recognized and rewarded in different ways. In class, we discussed that if we are 20, we would like to get more experiences and opportunities to gain a higher position in the firm. However, if we are 35 or 45, we voted more vacations as for rewards. Different people at different time require differently. Knowing what are the employees truly want is crucial. Moreover, the recognition and rewards should be transparent. It is great and positive to let people know. Furthermore, encouraging employees is the essential.

http://www.biv.com/article/20131105/BIV0115/311059999/ask-the-experts-how-do-i-establish-an-adequate-and-respectful-reward

http://www.amsimaging.com/Portals/117943/images/human-resource-management.jpg

Apple and SamSung are the first two biggest firms for electronic device in the world recently. Most people are using an Apple’s Iphone or a SamSung’s smart phone. However, in the past days, lots of people were using BlackBerry.

Apple and SamSung keep innovating and upgrade their technologies. They are trying to make differences and they succeeded. Nevertheless, BlackBerry did not change a lot, whether the the appearance or the technology of the phones.

We learned the consumer behaviour and market research in class, and we did an activity of cookies. I figured out that customers prefer better tasted cookies and are willing to spend money on those cookies. Same as the phones, customers prefer good-looking and greater technology products. Those products are fascinated and practical. Sometimes, people can also show off. Iphone and SamSung’s smart phones can satisfy customers this both kind of needs. Although, BlackBerry is operating a new system, BlackBerry 10, there is no big differences.

Moreover, Fairfax Financial was planning to take BlackBerry private for $4.7 billion in cash and the sale was called off. The share price of BlackBerry is $6.49 per share right now. We do not know that if BlackBerry can still survive.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21589445-fallen-star-smartphone-industry-things-go-bad-worse-only-thorns

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20131109_WBC716.png

Nowadays, the numbers of TV viewers are decreasing, and the online-video viewers are increasing in China. Personally speaking, I do not like watch TV. There are so many advertisements and changing the changing the channels is really annoyed. Online-videos also have advertisements, but those are short and rarely played in the middle of the videos.

There are some big online-video firms in China, PPTV, Youku Tudou, Sohu, QQTV, LeTV and iQiyi are very well-known in China. Those firms not only get the sources of shows, also create their own shows. In the article, it mentioned PPTV is releasing a new reality show called “The Goddess Office”. In the class, we learned that Netflix is creating the original shows and discussed how can it make more profits. Furthermore, LeTV made the internet-enabled set-top boxes, just like what Netflix did. This shows that whether in China or North America, online-video streaming and set-top boxes are more and more widespread.

However, making their own contents and the set-top boxes do not mean making more profit. There is no guarantee of making profit but means taking risk. The way of making more money and the most difficult thing to do is to lure more advertisers.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21589434-chinas-online-video-market-largest-and-most-innovative-world-it-also-most

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20131109_WBC730.png

Candy Crush Saga is a game which was released in April 2012 for Facebook and released for smart phones approximately seven months later. It was developed by King. This game suddenly became popular since then. It gained more and more players and now it retains over millions users. I also addicted to play this game four months ago. However, I’m not playing it anymore. I’m tired of playing it.

On September 26, 2013, the maker of Candy Crush Saga secretly handed in the files of applying IPO. From my personal perspective, the main reason that the maker decided to transform its company into public is the company retains a large number of users.

However, I do not think this is a good decision. Generally, the companies going to be public which are really huge, such as Apple, Google, Yahoo, etc. On the contrary, Candy Crush Saga is not that strong and huge enough. Its ought to have more weaknesses than benefits of being public. It is risky to transform into public. In my point of view, it’s not rush to being public. Just do the spadework and expend the company first to gain more strengths.

http://business.time.com/2013/09/27/creator-of-candy-crush-takes-risky-ipo/

http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/851559_567376339961741_956524800_n.jpg?w=360&h=240&crop=1

Groupe Bolloré is a French family-owned firm which is planning to start an electronic cars’ business. We learned the Business Model Canvas in class and I think this news can be well related to the canvas. Nowadays, pollution and the scarcity of resources are big problems in the world. Petroleum is non-renewable resources. It will be run out one day. Therefore, the value proposition of Bolloré is to save resources. They use electronic instead of Petroleum. Moreover, their products are targeting to rich countries. Producing efficient electronic cars creates very high costs. Hence, only rich people can afford these cars. Rich people are their most important customers and sell them directly. They attract customers who are interested in new technology and fashionable. Their key partners are Renault, Better Place and Pininfarina. However, Better Place declared bankruptcy and they are no longer in a collaborate partnership. Their key resources is the battery which is provided by Pininfarina. Bolloré is planning to expand urban car-sharing schemes and as well as producing its existing electric Bluecar at Renault’s factory in Dieppe. This is Bolloré’s key activity. This product requires high technology, so it costs a lot which absolutely includes fixed and variable costs.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21586590-french-firm-seeks-new-roads-profit-electric-cars-plugging-away

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20130921_WBP006_2.jpg

Instagram is an online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enable its users to take photos and videos and share to their friends and followers. Nowadays, this app is very popular among people, especially teenagers. Not surprisingly, I am one of those users and I like it. Instagram was bought by Facebook in September 2012 for $715 million in cash and stocks.

On October 3, 2013, the company announced that the advertisements are going to be involved in Instagram. Users will be able to see the ads in their photo streams. However, if they are not interested in these ads, they can hide those and give feedbacks as well. I personally hate seeing ads when I’m using the apps. It’s annoying. However, in my point of view, Instagram is making a great decision. Most people who are using Instagram are following the celebrities and some brands. They would like to follow these informations. Therefore, the ads which are posted on Instagram will be valuable. The companies can get more customers by posting these ads and Instagram can make more profit. Furthermore, this action won’t have a negative influence on Instagram cause users can decide to keep the ads or not.

http://business.time.com/2013/10/03/instagram-will-usher-in-ads/

http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/158539421.jpg?w=360&h=240&crop=1