Bebo, The White Elephant

With news coming through that social networking site Bebo, is set to close at the end of May, it goes to show that companies have to constantly invest in their product to make it more well known, and above all, more profitable. Bought by American giant AOL for $850m in 2008 when it was the most popular social networking site in Ireland, the U.K and New Zealand, and 3rd in the U.S, it has since lost considerable market share to rival Facebook which in now the most popular of these sites in the world.

This news opens many questions as to how these sites are so popular which in turn leads to wonder how do they make so much profit. Advertising is the money marker for these sites, but how did Facebook succeed where Bebo have clearly failed? In 2007, Facebook gave a platform for developers to create applications to work within Facebook, such as games and quizzes, and as users stayed on Facebook for longer amounts of time using these applications, they gave more personal information over, which Facebook collected on their servers, which they then used to give precise targeted adverts to users, thus making more revenue for Facebook.

Here is a video showing what type of information Facebook collect on their users, although this video is negative about Facebook, in my opinion I think it is very clever how they collect their information;



This video will show you just how much information Facebook receives every second by it user's;



Bebo failed to capitalize on the information they received from users, and with little or no investment from owners AOL, many people left to join Facebook which was more aesthetically pleasing, was being constantly updated, had applications which Bebo had none of, and most importantly, it more than likely had more of your friends as users than Bebo, which is the main point of these sites.

Links

BBC News Article on closing of Bebo
Irish Times Article

Augmented Reality, real life, but better?

Augmented Reality, (AR), is a burgeoning field that mixes computer power with real life to add extra information to a scene or event. The next generation of AR is designed for people on the move - and it's already being implemented

App's have already been brought out on the IPhone to huge success, below is a video of one such App which will give you a overview of what this technology can do;



 But what does this emerging technology mean to the business world?

Well for instance, if you were looking for somewhere to eat in a city you were unfamilar with, using the App, a list of all restaraunts in the location would be shown, a company like Mc Donald's could pay hefty sums to be included in the App which could garnish them with more customers. Company reps could use it when going to customers to see if all their products are up to date and serviced.

It's not just using your camera where AR can push the boundaries out on what we can do with our phones, below is a video showing what can be done using sound;



There are thousands of uses for AR in the mobile market, but there could also be some negative aspects to this emerging technology, thieves could use the technology to case houses or offices to see if people are in the building, or sex predators could find victims by using the Twitter App showing Tweets in their general area.

I think this technology has large potential for businesses, although some industry guidelines should be put in place to try and offset some of the negative aspects of it.

Of Pod's And Pad's.....................

Launched on the 27th of January, the I-Pad is the newest product from Apple. It has the same functionality as the I-Phone and I-Pod, so basically it's a bigger version of them! But what is the reasoning behind bringing it to market?


CEO of Apple Steve Jobs said;

“All of us use laptops and smart phones,” said Jobs. “The question has arisen: is there room for a third category of device in the middle? We pondered this question for years. In order to create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks.”

The IPad is not just a new product, but a new category, which millions of people around the world will be familiar with due to using IPod's and IPhones.

It will also be a cash cow for developers who will be able to make applications for it which they can sell on Apples App's store, which will also make more revenue for Apple as they will take a percentage of App's sold on the store.
Apple have also announced a new store for the IPad, IBooks, this will be a book store online where you can purchase books from the store and read them, in opposition of the Amazon Kindle or the Sony Reader.


To view the keynote speech by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, watch the video below;



In my opinion I think the IPad is another success for Apple, who are now the biggest mobile device company in the world, although later editions of the IPad should include some of the missing features of the first one, such as USB ports and multitasking.

Google, an eBusiness Leader

As this is my first blog entry I thought it would be fitting to talk about one of the leaders in e-Business, Google. I will give a brief rundown on what Google have brought to the market in the past and I will also talk about the new and upcoming products they are working on.


Starting in 1996, Google began as a search engine, by 2000 it began to show advertisements on its search results pages which were associated with search keywords, this was a large money earner for Google and it’s advertisements now account for over 90% of its revenue. Many websites now include Google advertisements which are revenue generators for not only Google, but for the sites which they are on, I have placed one of these ad’s in my blog which I’m hoping will create some extra revenue for myself!


Over the next few years Google began to buy up small start up companies and other large companies, such as Youtube, in order to develop new products and gain a larger market share. Products such as Gmail, Google Earth, Maps, Street View, Google Chrome, a rival to the Internet explorers of Microsoft and Firefox’s, have all proved to be popular and positive for Google.


Recently, Google launched Google Wave, built into Gmail, it is a collaboration tool which you can use to socialise with friends, or work with colleagues on group projects, etc. Below is a video which shows some basic functions of Wave;



Earlier this month, Google launched its rival social networking product to Facebook, Google Buzz, also built into Gmail, it works with all products in the Google family, such as Twitter and Youtube;



With these new products and more in the pipeline, it seems there is no stopping Google in the race to becoming the market leader in e-business.