While I was on Google searching for potential future television shows that Netflix might implement an interesting blog post from Macleans popped up. This blog was both relevant to what I was searching for and tied in nicely with the Netflix group activity we did in class.

Coincidentally, this article actually solved the Netflix team activity where we had to pitch which route would be the best approach for the company to investors. The method they used was definitely creative and convincing. Instead of a more normal approach to find out which T.V shows customers like, they used information from torrent websites. This will definitely be beneficial because people want the “best” possible and they want it “free”. Therefore the most popular television shows will be the most torrent-ed because people will not pay the expensive price that cable charges while they get just get every show for free. Tackling their thought process, implementing the most torrent-ed shows can potentially get “pirates” to subscribe to Netflix. They can essentially get all the shows they want with only one cheap subscription terminating the possible crimes of illegally downloading content. I will definitely be keeping a close eye in the upcoming months to see what this company has to offer.

In my classmate’s blog post The Risk of Natural Disaster in Tokyo, Yuki Maruoka shares his own experience of facing natural disasters in Japan and how it can be one of the essential risks for businesses in the area.

I personally agree towards his thoughts and would like to add a more in-depth opinion using my knowledge I gained from EOSC 114: Natural Disasters course as well as displaying how natural disasters effectively impacts company’s SWOT. In Japan, Tokyo is one of the riskiest cities to do business but it is not only because of the location of the city. It is considered “risky” and a “big disaster” only if it effects a large population and if it damages the city economically. To point out the obvious, no one would care if a 9.0 magnitude earthquake happened in the middle of the desert. Additionally, Japan is located in the collision point of three tectonic plates (Pacific Ring of Fire) so any movement between the three plates may pose a danger towards the country. Another important point is that natural disasters are considered a very likely external threat for most companies located in Japan. We can reduce the damage taken by businesses if they were to allocate production factories to a rural parts of the country. Ultimately, natural disasters are truly inevitable but the closest thing to avoidance is to reduce the damage that can be received.

Through browsing through my classmate’s COMM 101 blogs, I read a topic that appealed to my own personal interests. In this blog:  Fairfax Financial taking over BlackBerry my classmate Lance Wu shared his own opinion on the reason behind the downfall of BlackBerry in the smartphone market.

Though his opinions displayed very intriguing insights, I believe that there are other factors that impacted the fall of BlackBerry. I am convinced that the BlackBerry and Apple example he mentioned can be easily compared to the Kodak and digital cameras example we discussed in class. When BlackBerry revolutionized our lives with smartphones we never expected that BlackBerry phones would soon “disappear”. Furthermore, if BlackBerry effectively acknowledge Apple as a severe threat they wouldn’t be in a similar situation as Kodak was. I also believe BlackBerry changing their phone’s keyboard structure into touch screens is not really a prime factor. Something that BlackBerry lacks from Apple and other mobile phones is the amount of new innovative features they offer. The success of the Iphone is through the features they offer like the App Store where app developers are allowed to upload their creation for consumers to either download for free or pay for them. This was only one of the many factors that BlackBerry initially overlooked and it was too late when they realized producing relatively the same type of phones with minimal additional features became unsuccessful.

During this past month, my Facebook was bombarded by endless pictures of barcode-like images asking for people to ‘add them’. At first, I was quite confused thinking that everyone just switched their current phones to BlackBerry but everything made sense after I saw that the BBM app was the most downloaded app in both the Apple app store and the Android store.

Ever since the unexpected BBM launch into Apple and Android stores, there have been many thoughts and opinions floating around about BlackBerry potentially saving themselves from their current state. Some analysts say that the BBM has little to no correlation with the sales of current BlackBerry phones while others say that they gained over 20 million new users only weeks after release, which will indefinitely make BlackBerry more profitable.

Through my own personal experience in the last month I strongly believe that BlackBerry’s actions are headed towards the right direction. Considering their current state, they are only limited to a few risky options that can potentially bring themselves back into the competitive scene. Introducing the BBM App to Apple and Andriod markets allows the company to enter the same market as other popular mobile messaging apps like Snapchat and Twitter. However like those companies, they also technically make no revenue therefore BlackBerry has to figure out a way to turn their 20 million new users to “actual revenue”.

Works Cited:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/bbm-success-won-t-guarantee-blackberry-s-future-1.2254087

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/blackberrys-bbm-wins-over-20-million-iphone-android-users/article15132162/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/blackberry-boasts-of-smashing-success-with-20-million-new-bbm-users/article15134557/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57612359-94/bbm-and-its-quest-to-become-a-social-phenomenon/

Just this past weekend, the long anticipated video game console PS4 finally hit the shelves of many local retail stores including Best Buy, Future Shop and GameStop. However, the short supplies for this product left many customers empty handed. Many customers were disappointed since they waited in line for hours looking forward to get their hands on the new console on the day of the launch.

Many analysts perceive that the demand for the console during the opening weekend displays a positive sign of future sales in the upcoming months. Though this may be true, I believe that Sony could have executed their supply and inventory distribution to satisfy both their revenue income and consumer demands. They should have had a larger inventory supply during the opening weekend, the reason behind this is because Sony holds a competitive advantage over their long term rival Microsoft by releasing their console a week prior to the XBox One release. By having more inventory they would reduce the number of unsatisfied customers leaving the store empty handed as well as reducing the number of customers deciding to buy XBox One because PS4 was sold out. Though the second part of the argument only applies to a small number of people, it is still significantly relevant because some customers who want both consoles will usually by console first and the other console months or years later.

Extra Update: I tried to see if the PS4 was purchasable directly from the Sony store website so the customers who didn’t get it from retail stores will have another option. Sadly, it is unavailable so maybe another improvement would be to offer online orders as well.

Work Cited:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/15/playstation-4-release_n_4280599.html

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303559504579200310734889426

http://store.sony.ca/gsi/webstore/WFS/SNYNA-SNYCA-Site/en_CA/-/CAD/ViewProduct-Start?SKU=31-PS410036

In recent news Snapchat, an overwhelmingly popular mobile app messaging service rejected Facebook’s $3 billion dollar buy-out. This action indefinitely helped the company attract attention and led many investors to question the true value of the company as well as evaluating its potential growth. 

In our previous lecture, we discussed how entrepreneurs develop successful start up companies and certain risks/obstacles that they had to overcome in order to get the result they wanted. Moreover, this article displays relevance to that topic since Snapchat, a relatively new start up company is worth more than $3 billion dollars in just 2 years. How is it possible that mobile app messaging companies like Snapchat, Twitter and Pinterest that technically make no revenue be worth millions of dollars? I am convinced that the sole reason behind their success is because that the companies are built around an unique product that attracts a tremendous customer base. The value of these companies are determined through their users whether its the amount of messages sent per second or the amount of users active daily. With proper execution, these types of start ups can easily bypass the barriers of entry and threaten existing companies like Facebook. Conclusively, if companies like Facebook want to stop their active customer base from declining they have to think of an immediate solution and an easy solution would be to buyout the competitor. However, this solution gives the start up companies a pretty good approximation of the threat level they impose on competitors as well as determining their growth potential in the upcoming years.

Works Cited:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/snapchat-rejected-facebook-buyout-offer-report-reveals/article15417646/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/11/15/should-facebook-put-a-knockout-punch-offer-on-the-table-for-snapchat-say-5b/