How long will face book last?

In his opinions that Facebook might not last for a long time. I don’t agree with that.

Facebook now is world-famous and it still enjoys a great popularity. Though there are lots of competitors coming out but Facebook still has its own advantages—the experience. Using the experience, it knows how to keep its users. However, it is obvious a bi problem for it to attract new ones as compared with other competitors, such as WeChat and Skype, it is actually less functional. For example, there is a trend nowadays  that people tend to video chat with their friends and families. WeChat and Skype can both apply such service to attract users and meet their demand. However, as for Facebook, it cannot. It hasn’t catch up with the trend. Also, I personally think that it is Facebook is not that user-friendly compared with WeChat. And as for its users’ comments part, it is not that private as when one comments on WeChat, only people who know him will see it but it is totally different in Facebook.

If only Facebook can catch up with the trend and better understand wha its users are looking for, it will last for quite a long time.

China’s Tencent About To Overtake Facebook

In her opinions that China’s Tencent will never overtake Facebook. I don’t agree on that. China’s Tencent is a national company, yes it is. But nowadays as the increasing Chinese populations and the dramatic growth in the number of Chinese people going abroad, Tencent became more and more popular both at home and abroad. This is a trend which indicates that more and more national companies, like Tencent, begin to step out of Chinese market and target into the International ones. Thanks to the closer connection of the world economics, national companies now can get a good opportunity to expand their business to the world.

Also, Tencent’s apps, like WeChat and QQ, actually are add more modern elements in to better meet customers’ demands. Facebook is Internationally famous indeed, but I believe that Tencent will overtake it in the future with the satisfying functions in its apps.

It is reported that the annual sale in the small Atlantic bakeries has been falling down by 12% per year. The reason for it is simple: the bakery’s biggest chain store customer moved its buying operations from the Atlantic to the west.

For such a dilemma, Mr. Deretti, the president and owner of Kookie Kutter Bakery Ltd, plans to expand into new markets to tackle the problem. This strategy actually works quite well that the sales increase steadily. He is also able to improve his equipments and hire more stuff to launch new products.

The same as Mr. Deretti, many small business owners begin to expand their business. In fact, market expansion can bring around a lot of benefits. First, the company can obtain a chance to staff new employees and expose the business to a wider range of customers. Second, a relocation possibility and the exposing of new problems that the company might face with in the future can always help to build the business more successfully.

Flutter announced being acquired by Google last week. This acquisition brought benefit to both Google and Flutter. From now on, Google customers can easily flip through Web pages, play videos or scroll down important documents with a simple hand gesture, which will actually appeal to a great number of customers. As for Flutter, according to the Flutter CEO, Navneet Dalal, the $40 million deal between Flutter and Google actually brought Flutter a chance to continue their research at Google.

Flutter is a Y Combinator-backed startup that focuses on gesture recognition technology. It has already launched a Mac app, which was downloaded in more than 90 countries, reaching the top-five apps in the Mac App Store in its first two weeks of launch in some 30 of those, and number 1 in 14. It had around 1 million users on desktop. Now that Google has acquired Flutter, it has a powerful tool to stand out among all the competitors. A good acquisition always brings great benefits around, thus before acquire a small business, big companies should always think twice on what the strategy will bring about.

Also, as is known to all that Flutter focuses on the gesture recognition technology. It is not the only business producing such apps, but it is the one that focuses on the most. This acquisition actually proves that a useful and revolutionary tool can catapult a small startup to a huge payoff.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/02/google-acquires-yc-backed-flutter-a-gesture-recognition-technology-startup/

The Black Friday originated in America as it usually is the first day when shops open after American Thanksgiving Day. People always shop a lot that day. In tradition, shop owners used black ink to mark the earning. Thus, Black Friday came into being as shop owners got the largest amount of earning.

Nowadays, as the Black Friday comes by, shop owners will try to keep customers and attract new ones in all methods. The most common one to appeal to new customers is advertising. Direct mail, newspaper and magazine, yellow pages, signs and billboards, website and vehicle wrap will always work. Then, some companies will ask their customers to help by giving them a reward for each referral or providing incentives for them to continue referring others.

As for keep customers, some moving activities or events definitely work. For example, mail a newsletter or fax a brochure to them, or even use email and telephone to communicate with them, showing that they are still remembered, cared about and welcomed. Everybody likes to be remembered and there is no exception for the customers.

Recently, McDonald’s announced that it would end up the cooperation with Heinz, which used to be its best partner in French fries’ ketchups. What led to such astonishing change between these two companies was all about competitions. H.J. Heinz Co. was acquired by Bershire Hathaway and Brazil-based 3G Capital. 3G Capital also owns the Burger King hamburger chain, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

McDonald’s decision ended up the long-term relationship with Heinz, which also affect customers’ choices. As for Heinz, it definitely suffers greater loss, even outside the US. What we can learn from this is that whatever the size of a business, managers should always pay attention to their decisions, taking into account what effect will be bought to them after the decisions are carried out. Never blindly take on a new client or partner, who might severely cause the conflicts with the existing ones.

Recently, the arbitrator ruled that Starbucks must pay $2.23bn in damages plus $527m in interest and legal costs to Kraft foods. Kraft foods is a company selling bags of Starbucks branded coffee in 1998 under a deal that was due to run until March 2014, getting revenue of around $500 million annually. However, According to the testimony of Kraft foods, Starbucks took its business back early than expire day, which broke the distribution deal and caused Kraft foods a huge loss. This is actually totally different from that in Starbucks. Starbucks insists that it was Kraft foods that could not efficiently spread out its brand, which caused a loss in Starbucks’ business.

Such long-running legal battle failed to keep providing investors an opportunity to invest in coffee industry. However, the recent final sentence seems to bring it back. According to the sentence, Starbucks is supposed to pay at least $1 billion in addition to any legal fees to Kraft for damages. To pay such large sum of money and continue its on-going operations, Starbucks has a huge possibility to tap into debt options, which will finally affect its all-time high shares to take a dip after the lawsuit.

Mergers and acquisitions have been a growing trend in the airlines industry during all these years. As reported, American Airlines and US Airways have cleared the last major hurdle to merging days ago. However, many people are still worrying about such changes among airlines companies and hoping they can get as less loss as possible.

In fact, mergers and acquisitions benefit both airlines companies and customers. Not only do they expand the scope of services, but also they can bring the two companies more revenues than before by raising the ticket price and offering more flights in the new services scope. Take American Airlines and US Airways as an example—US Airways passengers will gain access to American’s international destinations, particularly London and Latin America. American’s passengers will be able to better connect to smaller U.S. cities that US Airways serves. However, it’s common that merged companies push up the airfare because of less competitions.

Before merging with each other, airlines companies need to pay great attention to some specific elements. One is to check the scope of services for both companies to avoid overlap because overlap in the airlines companies will make mergers and acquisitions less profitable and companies may suffer huge loss. The other is to avoid merging with companies that have bad reputations, or it will bring the loss of customers.

Two years ago, Apple was strongly blamed for its different guarantee policy in China. It actually broke the Chinese laws for guarantee in electronic products by shortening the guarantee period and narrowing the guarantee scope. By doing so, it will definitely earn much more money, especially when the company is in a huge potential market, with tens of thousands of people using its products. However, things turned out in a different way.

This unfair guarantee policy set off people’s dissatisfactory against Apple, which, also decreased its sales in the Chinese market, and moreover, influences the company reputation all over the world. What’s worse, this issue also reminds people of the bad treatment its Chinese workers received years ago. After the Chinese government-run media exposed all these shocking facts to the public, more and more people, social organizations and companies start to focus on these scandals on business ethic. Some even can’t help asking if it is the twist for Apple.

However, before things are getting even worse, Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized to Chinese customers on its distinct warranty policy on Monday. He announced that Apple would correct its warranty policy to be the one admitted according to Chinese laws and also give them the same solution to their products as they do in the other countries. Nonetheless, it is far away from enough. People’s dissatisfactory against Apple hasn’t been eliminated yet. Also, as China has become the second largest and most potential market for Apple, where factories still manufacture its products, Apple still face the huge problem of its reeeeeally cheap but illegal Chinese labors. We can also foresee that Apple will face a lot more problems before further developing its Chinese market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/technology/apples-chief-tim-cook-apologizes-to-china-over-warranty-policy.html?_r=0

The most shocking issue appealed to a huge number of people as Microsoft bought Nokia in a bid of 7.2 billion. This, however, indicated that Nokia’s high-end strategy failed to bring it new customers and it in fact gradually faded from people’s eyesight as a Smartphone brand, instead, Microsoft took over its line.

Years ago, Nokia started to step out of the box and tried to look for something new, which was different from the trend. It used new Smartphone systems like Symbian and Windows phone8, which, being the totally new things that hard to be accepted by people. However, it believed that the new things would definitely bring them new opportunities to further develop the market. Nevertheless, it finally turned out to be wrong. It failed in its positioning on using the new systems to attract people’s attention, which supposed to depend on people’s preferences, and finally, the wrong position led to the acquisition from Microsoft. However, it will still benefit Nokia, as it provides Nokia a chance to reflect and urge it to focus on what it owns now and leads it back to a correct way of positioning. Also, as a Smartphone brand, Nokia’s devices business has gone, instead, it now focuses in its three new technologies: NSN, HERE and Advanced Technologies, which may be a huge hit in these fields.

This actually indicates that a good position to a company, including marketing, strategies and so on, is a very essential part.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-microsoft-nokia-idUSBRE98202V20130903