As of this week, Nintendo released their new console, first of the latest generation, the Wii U. A blogger under the name nerdbusiness made a very extensive post of how the Wii U is a step in the right direction, but cannot compete with the convenience and versatility of the iPad.

Nerdbusiness suggests that Nintendo makes its own, console independent iPad variant that has all the bells and whistles that Nintendo customers are used to.

Unfortunately this plan has many holes in it. First, Nintendo has never made a tablet before. In fact the reason why this Wii U is so innovative is that it is the first of any consoles to integrate a tablet into their gameplay, something that at first seems counterintuitive (why play on the TV when you could play in your hands?). Nintendo obviously did everything they could to answer this question – introducing many features of gameplay that couldn’t be done via conventional tablet or console gaming such as maps in your hand for the story on the TV, or actual buttons on a tablet.

The Wii U is meant to show that Nintendo can pull off a tablet based platform while still holding true to what they’re known for – console games with reputable franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon.

While the power Nintendo has over the video game market has been in decline for the last two decades, they still remain as a large company and it is safe to say that they will stick around for at least another decade. The Wii U is a step out of the companies comfort zone – and they’re doing a great job trying on the new technology for size.

http://nerdbusiness.com/blog/nintendo-tablet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e3qaPg_keg

One thing everyone knows about Facebook is how many people use it – finally breaking the one billion mark. But does high usage equal profit? Not entirely.

Facebook makes the majority of its’ profits from advertisement, something that most website companies profit from. Many users recognize this as well, and find it perfectly easy to ignore the random links on the side of the page. Unfortunately this has limited the amount of money one can make off such a successful site – to the roughly 10% of the screen that just about anyone can look away from.

Zuckerberg is beginning to look into new ways of making profits – floating the idea of promoting different posts people make by paying a fee. The problem with the idea is that Facebook users are almost guaranteed to be somewhat tech savvy – and would quickly see through the money making scheme. It’s almost as easy to leave a social media site as it is to join one – look at the ghost town that is now Myspace and AOL.

If Facebook introduces too many blatant attempts to reach into its’ users wallets, the user base numbers will plummet, causing the site to become less and less useful, and weakening the power of the company as a whole. It’s a slippery slope, and the ever so popular site needs to be careful if they want the spotlight to remain on themselves.

In response to Joey Luo’s blog
https://blogs.ubc.ca/joeyluo28/2012/10/08/facebook-beyond-advertising/

Ten Tree apparel is a company that promises to plant ten trees per article of clothing sold in developing countries.

While at first glance this is a very reasonable and enticing marketing ploy, there is a question that my business fueled mind is bound to ask – what’s the catch?

Nobody feels their strong morale compass when they purchase clothes. In fact, most people can tell that they’re the victim of sophisticated advertisements and engineers of want. Ten Tree Apparel, at it’s core, is attempting to advertise by saying their products will remove this materialistic guilt by planting trees. Almost an oxymoron, there must be a loophole:

-Are the trees helpful? Are they weeds that will get swept away?

-If trees can be planted so easily, why isn’t everyone doing it?

-How much of their costs are actually allotted to the trees? Could they plant more?

If Ten Trees is really going to market themselves as the social entrepreneur they appear to be, they really need to focus on why they can plant the trees and you can’t. Emphasize wholesale powers that be that would enable such an efficient forestry operation, and discuss exactly how much the trees are part of the company’s goal compared to making money off their clothing. Profits are almost always the largest incentive – it’s up to us consumers to make sure we aren’t buying a good conscience.

In response to Logan Parker’s blog post:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/loganparkersblog/2012/11/17/ten-tree-apparel-saving-the-planet-ten-trees-at-a-time/ 

There has been a recent surge in products that are targeting women, whether it’s Honda cars, Bic pens, or European beers.

Honda is producing a pink car with pink lining on the seats, and UV prevention glass (along with skin-healthy air conditioning). Bic recently ran an ad-campaign for their new pink pens that involved a young girl giving the Bic-man a kiss for giving her the pens, and the European beers have been trying to reduce images of men dominating women in their advertising.

The problem it seems with these campaigns is that they are announcing that they are for women. While there have been a great many controversy over products like Barbie and how they perpetuate stereotypes, one must ask; if these companies didn’t so blatantly market towards women and didn’t make so many assumptions on the average female, would they be so in the wrong?

Take a look at a recently soaring industry – laptop and phone covers. Personally I’ve seen hundreds of different covers, all hoping to make their standard iPhone or MacBook a bit more personal. A lot of the women I’ve seen have done so via feminine decorations – pink cases for their lap tops or cute, bunny-covered iPhones. But these products don’t directly advertise to women – they’re just feminine like products. Imagine if Honda didn’t so blatantly market this new car as ‘hers’. If they simply tried to reduce the amount of UV radiation and provide healthier air conditioning, and they just so happened to sell a lot more of these cars in pink, would the debate ever come up?

I think the key to marketing towards women or minorities is not to belligerently target them. The key is to introduce features that anyone could potentially enjoy, but your target demographic might enjoy more. Don’t advertise these products as the target enjoying them, advertise as everyone enjoying them. While I don’t understand marketing incredibly in depth, I think a lot of the fumbles these advertisements are making could be reduced to less controversy.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/surge-in-gender-targeted-products-creates-marketing-headaches-for-companies/article5358521/

When we think of the term ‘gamer’, most people tend to picture a slightly overweight white male with a headset and sweatpants playing a console for hours at a time.

This is not the case for Japan it seems. The Japanese continue to revolutionize the video game market by dominating a new market – the casual, touch-and-go lightweight gamer that plays on the subway right to work. This new market is almost entirely enabled by the smart phone – a consumer who plays in short segments for a limited amount of entertainment. What these games lack in depth is made up in convenience – free to start, these games make their money off of compulsive small purchases.

This new model is incredibly intriguing, and apparently incredibly dominate overseas with DeNA make more profits in their home country than video game giant Nintendo. What I find most interesting is that these games no longer require the investment of a console, they are entirely ran through browsers and smart phones. This enables adjustments, improvements, and expansions to be implemented without wait time of distribution, which ropes in consumers for a longer period of time.

While it may be embarrassing to say, the Angry Birds model may soon replace the World of Warcraft, Super Mario, or Halo franchises as the most successful video games.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21566696-two-japanese-firms-are-challenging-world-new-kind-video-game-japan-fights-back

NPR discusses the evolution of big box stores in the 60s, such as Target, Wal-Mart, and KMart. Back then the laws on discounts had recently been loosened, and enabled these large stores to pop up in suburbs everywhere with every family owning a car.
Nowadays shopping is going through a new revolution – the internet. Ironically, stores are now shrinking because of this. Large, non-perishable objects such as technology are being bought online while most people only go out for toiletries and food. While these larger stores may act as a showroom, it’s the smaller stores that are going to catch the niche markets.

This brings attention to the lifespan of such large companies. How long can we expect Wal Mart to stick around? Very rarely do companies like these last for more than a century. What will giants like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft or Google look like in 50 years? What will make them go into decline if they fall? It certainly is hard to remain at the top.

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/19/165295840/the-past-and-future-of-americas-biggest-retailers