Month: October 2013

#GOVERNMENTSHUTDOWN #DEBTCEILING #FISCALCLIFF these terms have been flowing in and out of the news for months now, and their stay just got elongated as the U.S. Government shutdown in October 2013.

There is a considerable amount of concern arising from the general public, and for a rational reason at that. There are workers that are going unpaid until the government decides to get their act together (a week minimum has been predicted); there are over tens of thousands of workers that will be staying home from the following departments: department of military, department of energy, department of commerce, department of transportation, smithsonian institution, national parks, department of homeland security, department of justice, department of health and human services, department of education, and the environment protection agency.

The outcome of the unpaid workers is simple: there would be a drastic drop in job motivation and job satisfaction. But that just seems like the better half of the outcome. Anger arising from government workers can cause the formation of pressure groups that can start aggressive behavior – and once this starts, it can become hard to oppress due to the large quantity of people.

The outcome of the workers sent home is just as bad: the productivity levels drastically reduce, and national output is put into dangerously low levels. It is stated that the US will be undergoing a $300mil loss per day, which ‘humorously’ can be regarded as trivial to a nation whose annual output is 52,000 times greater.

Let us hope the US government gets its act together, and quick.

BARILLA, a classic Italian pasta making company just lost a huge segment of their customer base. Why? Because it’s chairman publicly announced that he “would not (feature gay families in advertisements)” as he does not “see things like they do and (thinks) the family (they) speak to is a classic family.” And if you thought that was astonishing, when he was asked on a radio interview what he would do if his gay customer segment doesn’t like it, he responded blatantly by saying “eat another brand of pasta”. This chairman clearly does not have a clear understanding of ethics and/or social etiquette.

This obviously outraged a vast amount of people and cultivated a mass amount of negative publicity for the company. It even encouraged people to create pressure groups (boycotting) and caused many customers to switch over to competitor brands such as Ragu.

Customers angrily began to tweet:

This hard-hitting negativity probably put the chairman back into his senses, as it lead to him apologizing on Facebook and Twitter pages. But how sincere was his apology and did it fix the damage that was already done? In my opinion after he made such blatant and controversial statements, it would be hard to gain back the loyalty of his homosexual customers, as well as those who strongly support gay rights. As the apology directly followed the continuous flow of online-hate, you can only assume that it was superficial and done only to gain back whatever his company had lost.

Read more: http://business.time.com/2013/09/26/pasta-maker-in-boiling-water-over-comments-on-gays/#ixzz2h7CxafdT

INSTAGRAM is ushering in a new change…will it be enough to drive away loyal users? Instagram has announced that it will now be introducing advertisements into users’ photo streams. This is obviously a tactic being used to introduce a new revenue stream, and their first step towards ‘monetizing’ Instagram, but how well will they be able to manage and control this change?

As Facebook bought over Instagram, it’s interesting to note that in the recent months, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, publicly announced that “(they) are currently working on some updates to the ads algorithm to improve the relevance and quality of the ads people see.” In other words, he publicly announced that the advertisements on Facebook are annoying, and irk users on a daily basis. How are they going to avoid this problem when it comes to introducing advertisements on Instagram? Statements have been made that “(their) aim is to make any advertisements you see feel as natural to Instagram as the photos and videos many of you already enjoy from your favorite brands.” They have also stated that users will be able to hide advertisements they don’t like and will have to provide feedback on why they have done so.

Is this enough and is this convenient for the users of a currently easy to use and efficient social media platform? I don’t think so, not initially at least. People do not like change, especially when it comes to social media platforms that they use on a daily basis – I feel that there will be a mass cultivation of negative reactions, but as per the norm, it will not effect the usage nor the profitability of Instagram, as users may get annoyed, but it’s never enough to drive them away completely.

Read more: http://business.time.com/2013/10/03/instagram-will-usher-in-ads/#ixzz2h7AEQe2d