Comm 101

Only a month ago, Twitter flew out of its nest and into the New York Stock Exchange. Many financial journalists and investors predicted that Twitter would fall short in demand, similar to when Facebook first initiated its IPO. However, Twitter has surprised many investors by actually soaring up the stock market, from its original price of $26 to $46. This is not just a simple luck of the draw, Twitter’s strategy from the beginning was to not follow in the footsteps of Facebook, who overpriced their initial stock price. Instead, their strategy was to give themselves a modest valuation and enter the stock market at $26, versus Facebook’s $49. In addition to setting a reasonable market share price, Twitter had prepared for its IPO by finding new key partners in the TV advertising economy. By doing so, Twitter was able to gain more public recognition through advertisements and attracted new investors. By doing a CPEST analysis for the company, we can see that Twitter has thoroughly evaluated its competitors as well as the social culture that exists today. Twitter chooses to differentiate itself from its competitors such as Facebook and Pinterest through its unique short messaging and hashtag system.

As China continues to grow rapidly, technology giant, Apple, is trying to pave its way into the Asian market. So far, their efforts have fallen short, as only 28% of their revenue comes from Asia. Cue in Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, the woman who is responsible for transforming the traditional Burberry into the technologically savvy brand that it is today. In the upcoming spring, Ahrendts will be leaving Burberry and entering the digital world, where she will become Senior Vice President of Retail at Apple. Her job will be to help Apple differentiate the look of its products and market it to Asia, particularly to China. Since the passing of Apple founder, Steve Jobs, the company has been struggling to maintain its products at the high standards that had once been instilled. By introducing Ahrendts into the company, Apple hopes she can help “crack into the Chinese market” by adding “pizzazz to Apple’s bricks-and-mortar shops”. By looking at her previous successes at Burberry, it seems that Angela Ahrendts has a real shot at developing a larger customer segment in China through branding and product differentiation. Faced with fierce competition from companies such as Samsung and Google, Ahrendts will feel the pressure of putting Apple back onto the technology catwalk.

The gist of the blog post by Ronald Yu of Learning Solutions Magazine gives insight on why he thinks eLearning is not universally accepted due to cultural barriers, especially those barriers set-up by Asians and Arabs.

My response is that I think that eLearning is able to overcome cultural barriers as those who create it come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. I disagree with the fact that Asians are “relatively tepid” in accepting eLearning as my father, who is from a Chinese background, introduced eLearning to HSBC back in 2005. I agree that different world views may lead to different learning styles, but I believe that it isn’t the idea of eLearning that is at fault, rather the delivery of it. In order to combat cultural barriers, the European Union holds annual eLearning conferences where many large corporations send their employees to attend seminars so that they can learn how eLearning works, and how they can implement it into their company effectively. Having attended the EU conference myself, businessmen and political figures worldwide have told me how they are currently using the innovation of eLearning and engaging their employees through it.

When we go on Facebook from our phones, why is it that we come across so many ads? Recently, Facebook has expanded its efforts of mobile advertising apps in order to prove to the general public that they are able to provide a platform for businesses to grow their customer relationships. The company first introduced this new concept of “mobile app install ads” in August 2012. The concept of which is businesses would buy ad space and gain revenue through customers clicking into their ads, which would then lead them to the Apple App Store, or Play Store in the case of Androids, to download the advertised app. Seeing that this was an efficient mean of advertising, Facebook has added new features and focuses more on developing an advertising strategy that will help businesses retain their customers. The success of this mobile ad launch can be supported by looking at the number of advertisers who use these apps to advertise, with the numbers “almost tripl[ing] in the first half of 2013, from 3,000 in the first quarter to 8,400 in the second.” Although mobile ads generate significantly less revenue in comparison to Facebook’s main revenue streams such as digital video advertising, an analyst from Pivotal Research believes that mobile ads will be Facebook’s “key new source of ongoing revenue growth.” By introducing a new revenue channel, Facebook will be able to generate more revenue while simultaneously reaching out to more customers as businesses recognize the power of their brand and what they can accomplish through mobile advertising apps.

Whenever people tell me about going on road trips, I picture the stereotypical car ride in a Jeep, speeding along the highway with the windows rolled down, and the radio blaring out of the stereo. But all this is about to change. Since partnering with Sprint Corp., Rogers Communications Inc. and Sprint have announced that they will be introducing Canadians to the first ever “connected car”, which will provide Canadians with Internet access wherever they go. Who needs the radio anymore when you can have a phone on four wheels?

By introducing this new product, Rogers and Sprint aim to expand their customer relationships and establish a new revenue stream as they satisfy Canadian demand for connectivity on-the-go. Rogers and Sprint have not yet decided on which car companies they plan on partnering with.

Although the public has showed interest in the product, car companies might be reluctant to partner with Rogers and Sprint as they have not yet set a price on how much they will charge for this product. Most importantly though, is the safety concern that arises when consumers are able to access wifi while driving. It wasn’t long ago when most of Canada banned texting while driving because it resulted in distracted drivers, so how is surfing on the Internet while driving different?