Don’t be evil ???

Nice sunny Sunday afternoon, I am thinking of Google. Google… Google... (Should spend productive hours for talking about Google to compensate my afternoon.) So, here I am.. Today, I would like touch upon three things about Google.


Firstly, I would like to talk about is ‘Android Mobile Phone Operation System’. Android is an open platform to be mounted on mobile device, developed by OHA (Open Handset Alliance) which consists of 34 global partners (inc Google). It’s known to be open as free of charge for users. Then what Google wants to achieve from this? As we all know, Google has expanded its platform by providing free service and the advertisements have been laid out a core strategy for profit. If we look at the data that users of mobile market exceeded 1 billon now, and expected to reach 3.1 billion in 2011 - easily we can guess that the mobile advertising market is the blue ocean to Google who has enough advertises with plentiful networks & contents. And, according to NPB Group, unit sales for Android OS ranked second among all smartphone OS handsets sold in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2010, following BlackBerry OS. However, the problems still Google has now are that it can’t guarantee compatibility of App by version and open source version (which is considered advantage) can serve as disadvantage to Google.


Let’s move on Google’s monopoly issue. As you can see from below, its market share is over 60%, mainly dominating web search market. (Data from ComScore Search Result posted on May 21). Based on the news from many sources, there are some on-going issues regards monopoly, and one of them is that EC (European Commission) tries to probe Google with anti-trust. Google may argue that it doesn’t deliberately discriminates contents at all, but its search engine produces result based on PageRank (Google algorithm). However, when I tried to find out some negative information of Google, well, I can rarely find. I don’t want to reach any conclusion that Google does have censorship of search results, but on the other hand, hardly deny that there is a chance of information manipulation. (Well, skeptically, this is the power of the dominant player in certain business market. )


Lastly, I would like to talk about Energy consumption of Google’s server. I haven’t thought about this issue before, but while I was searching of some news (One of them is ‘Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches’), I thought that this issue deserves careful consideration. Here, it says that Google is very efficient but it has a lot of extra capacity to produce CO2 by making searches fast. (Even without calculation, fundamentally, CO2 produced by each internet user and Google’s data center would be huge!) Google has been criticized for the high amount of energy used to maintain its servers. Therefore, Google has pledged to spend millions of dollars to investigate cheap, clean, renewable energy. This action should be continued as a way of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility).


Well, we can talk about other issues – Intellectual property, China issue, but let’s call it a day here.


Ciao
E

To use or not to use, that is question...

Before we talk about Microsoft, I am wondering how many guys are using Microsoft in my A3 class now… Around 70%, maybe ??

Well, I am writing with Microsoft Office on my laptop which is running by Microsoft Vista, whether I like this or not. Surprisingly, I’ve been using Microsoft for 11 years in a row without any change. (for sure, unconsciously) And I don’t think I will try to have a look at different things such as Apple Mac. Assuming many of other Microsoft users as well - then, why? (First of all, I want to be clear about that I am not a supporter of Microsoft)

As a normal/lazy user, I would like to stick with things that I know how to use rather than experience new challenges. Besides my personal taste, I am pretty sure that more people (like my parents or my friends who are not a big fan of techy stuff) will hesitate to change their current way without great benefits – it’s natural behavior of people to keep what they have.

Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Servers, Xbox360, Windows Live, Windows Phone, MSN, Bing…

Also, when I think of the position of Microsoft in the market, it’s obvious that its business has a vested right as a first mover (a dominant position) in that market. You may hear of above products of Microsoft. It creates synergy effect of usage by combining their products as a package – Windows/Office/Live/MSN, etc. so it actually attracts users continue purchasing its products. When I was working in General Motors, our company used Microsoft Windows/Offices and started to change our software program for tele conference call to Windows Live/Phone as a way of cost saving. Only thinking of GM in Korea, we are more than 15,000 employees. If I simply calculate the number of users solely from major global companies which use Microsoft, Microsoft has a huge enough market for a while.

Yes, there are fierce competitions with Google, Apple..This is definitely a treat for Microsoft and will challenge it. However, let’s think of this. We have to admit that Windows boosted to supply computer to our home with easier interface (Remember - Microsoft's original mission was "a computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software”??). We should consider that there are about 60,000 engineers to develop software in Microsoft around the world. Moreover, R&D of Microsoft is 9 Bil USD in 2009, which is 15 % of their total revenue (58.4 Bil USD) - this is huge!!

In a nutshell, where Microsoft is now.. ? Its business to be continued…

Ciao,
E

Foursquare

Am I going to invest to Foursquare ?

The answer is “Yes, I will do”. The biz model of Foursquare would be profitable to sustain long enough. After I read the following webpage, ‘Linking Customer Loyalty with Social Networking’, I am confident with my idea that Foursquare will be a good biz model.

Foursquare does have a biz model to make a profit?

Per following the comment from above link, it says that ‘The business model of the site is crowd-sourcing of geo-location data with information around the location.’ This model allows the company to collect local data which can have potential value to advertisers and marketers to help them analyze customers’ behavior. The revenue model is based on location-based marketing services which is a multi-billion dollar opportunity’. So basically, profits come from company (restaurants, bars and shops, etc) with mainly their advertising, not from users (final customers). (But in the end, users pay to the company in a certain way. One of good things is that Foursquare gives opportunity to small business to benefit from the location of a potential buyer. Foursquare is the first practical location-based network as well as provides user-friendly way. Still Foursquare has million users since last year and has been valued at $125 million (which actually Yahoo offer to bid but rejected). It was told the reason of high valuation is due to the hope of its acquisition by an internet major like Google or Yahoo. This also proves that Foursquare has a huge potential to be a profitable biz model and has a chance to be like Twitter surely, even there is also risk to be ended up as bubble.

Target customer for Foursquare – who?

In my opinion, especially if I just narrow down of the target market of Foursquare into Korea, this would be a quite successful biz model. This can target late 10’s to 30’s female (the most consuming group) who are really keen at finding and sharing information with others and who have really high loyalty to the service. Along with marketing (promotion activities by shops such as providing free drinks, etc.), Foursquare won’t be failed.

Any risks/threatens that Foursquare has?

There is rising risk that Facebook, Twitter and Google would come along the service of Foursquare since they want to have this service and they are able to establish this system soon. And then..? What would be the next step for Foursquare?? Another thing that threatens Foursquare is the lack of the services. Currently, they only provide shop recommendations & users ‘check-ins’ service. It’s more like game but customers will lose interest soon, so definitely Foursquare should seek for alternatives to keep users’ interest on them. Besides, as Pepsi tries to have Foursquare program in June which informs a Pepsi retailer to users and let them accumulate points according to their check-in to store selling Pepsi. This would be a possible biz model that Foursquare can sell to other companies.

Foursquare is a pretty interesting game to me since I can get points and badges and become mayor. It’s also very useful database for me to find a restaurant here in Madrid since I am new comer. Easy to use, fun to use.. next step for Foursquare is finding their concrete position as a successful and continuous biz model.

Cheers,
E

Usage of this blog..

Well ..

I've been thinking for a few days what I would like to talk about in this Blog. And I came up with the idea. Since most of people in here are not well-known for Korea, so would like to give them a little bit of taste. (Probably, it would be more or less upon my interests about food, recent news, and places good to visit) ew days what I would like to talk about in this Blog. And I came up with the idea. Since most of people in here are not well-known for Korea, so would like to give them a little bit of taste. (Probably, would it be more or less about food upon my interests, recent news, and good places to visit)

Also, related with our Information Systems class, I would like to touch IT status in Korea. Before I took Enrique's class, I was aware of that Korea is one of the strongest IT countires in the world. But I have to admit that market for new technologies in Korea was less opened. I just heard of Firefox, Wiki, Delicious, Foursquare, etc. in class ! Maybe I am the last user of all kinds of technology stuff, however, I was so used to be in korean-based tech environment.



For instance, in Korea we have a social networking website called 'Cyworld', similar with 'Facebook'. And this is much preferrable than FB. And, we rather use 'Naver' & 'Daum' as main browser rather than 'Google' or whatever. This is same for mobile industry as well. Since smart phone market is very invigorated in the world but Korean mobile companies (Samsung, LG..) have been positioned with their previous style phone and just started to get into smart phone market. ' (see left logo), similar with 'Facebook'. And this website has a stable biz model for profits through selling music, design stuff for users' webpage and is much preferrable than FB.


Also, we use 'Naver' & 'Daum' as main browser rather than'Google' or whatever. This is same for mobile industry as well. Even though smiart phone market in the world is very invigorates, Korean mobile companies (Samsung, LG ..) have been positioned with their previous style phone and just started to get Into smart phone market.



Okay.. time to sleep.. I will talk about this in details later.




See you all in the class tomorrow!