One month ago, my best friend introduced me to my obsessions LivingSocial, Groupon, and in just one week I purchased an annual subscription of Cosmopolitan, $20 for $40 worth of food credit at Nikki Beach and a food coupon for a local place I eat by my job called Pancheros. I actually had to limit myself to only buying 1 thing per week, because if I didn't I was certain to be in debt. I then have started to think of how incredible such a simple app can bring me into wasting over $30?All you have to do is follow 3 easy steps , making it that much more difficult to resist. They even make it extremely easy to purchase, whether on the computer or phone. Was I the only individual so hypnotized by these promotions?
My latest favorite of all these so called LivingSocial. LivingSocial is a very popular sight which just last spring alone brought in $39 million, and is expected to go into three digit figures by the end of this year. These websites focus on selling to the public unexpected deals, coupons, packages at relatively low prices for a very limited time frame.
LivingSocial want to build a sense of surprise and keep people on there toes . They study the environment depending on the area, and then create deals which will best suit the targeted areas.
Groupon, which is in the same industry, sees LivingSocial as their greatest threat. In fact, LivingSocial actually had a greater amount of traffic to their page than Groupon. Yet, we also have to understand that just because people visit the website, it doesn't necessarily mean each one of those visitors purchases a deal on the site. A lot look around, go to the page through other advertisements and even for several other reasons.
In marketing, when consumers show preference for a product, it doesn't necessarily mean they are going to go to the step of purchasing , for example a new type of cookies. In the end, what the companies whether a company selling cookies, or a service on the LivingSocial site, and completing the purchase process.
Yet although I have shown preference for LivingSocial, I still use the other sites. What also was very beneficial for me is that Bing is now incorporating both sites together, where the deals come out together, making it much easier to see the promotions. What that feature does on Bing (called Deals) is that it puts together many deals from these sites as well as several others. This will enable people to easily browse through the page and pick and choose from thousands of different offers. Not only are companies helping us find deals, but other search engines like Bing are making it extremely simple for us to look through and browse through the promotions that most interest us.
What exactly are people so enticed at about these deal sites? Is it the limited time luring in people, or the low numbers? Whatever it is, these million dollar companies seem to be doing their work well and will continue doing so with new promotions on a day to day basis!
Till we meet again!
Aileen
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/
http://www.pancheros.com/
http://www.nikkibeach.com/miami/menu.php
http://livingsocial.com/deals/how_it_works
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/08/25/businessinsider-livingsocial-groupons-biggest-competitor-now-gets-more-web-traffic-than-groupon-2010-8.DTL
http://livingsocial.com/about
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/118616/20110303/microsoft-bing-groupon-living-social-daily-deals.htm
http://www.bing.com/
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Have Some Extra Millions to Spare? Myspace Is Up for Sale!
Three and a half years ago, after graduating high school, I remember all my friends telling me "The cool thing to get when you are in college is Facebook". I thought that it was ridiculous.I had Myspace since 2005. Myspace was the hip, cool website. I was honestly on at least 3 times a day, just surfing through the site, hearing music, spending hours on mygirlyspace looking for backgrounds, and commenting my friends on their comment boxes. Months later, I remember just making an account. I actually didn't use the Facebook account for months. I continued using my Myspace account, when I noticed that a majority of my friends would not answer any of my comments on Myspace. Where had all my friends gone? Then I remembered, Facebook!
It took me a while to get adjusted to the whole different style, and to tell you the truth, I didn't like how boring and unpersonalized it was. I liked Myspace for its unique features which Facebook did not have. Yet, slowly but surely, I learned to love Facebook. Now, I never use Myspace. I have tried to delete Myspace a couple of times, but I didn't have the heart to . It is like that first car we have! Hurts to get rid of because of the memories. Yet, I haven't logged in to Myspace for months. I just attempted to sign on, and it has been so long that I even forgot my password. After figuring it out, I notice how it looks so different, and so much is going on , that I am lost.
Is that why Myspace is being sold today? There are so many social media websites and Myspace seems to have fallen back and not advanced and modernized it's old style. Everything, especially technology is constantly changing, new updates, versions, etc keep adapting to the likes of people. Just yesterday the new Ipad 2 was released online. This clearly is an example on how technology is changing and moving quickly to keep up with the desires of society.
Myspace might not have kept up with the latest buzz and interest of social media users. This might be one reason why Myspace is being sold. Many corporations like Zynga, who is a social networking gamer website has shown interest in purchasing the company. It is said that the match would be good for Zynga because they currently depend on Facebook for most of their gamers. Yet, the issue is that many feel Myspace is asking for too high of a price for their current stand in the social media ranking. News Corp is asking for over $100 Million . Yet, if we take a look back, Myspace was purchased by News Corp in 2005 for a whopping $580 dollars! We can use what we have learned in our accounting classes how big of a loss they will be making. Major! Yet, could Zynga or any of the other companies who are interested transform Myspace or mold it into a successful sight as it once was?To myspace advantage, they has always had multiple channels (music, games, etc), which has always been to their advantage. It has worked as a marketing tools for marketers to reach their customers or potential customers, whether it's an artist to their Fan base, or a blogger to the community. This turmoil Myspace has been facing has been going on for years. In 2009, Facebook was ranked number one sight compared to Myspace. Facebook has been on top for quite some time. Myspace has to make some sort of transition, whether with Zynga, or any other site or company, in order to get back on track.
Get to it Myspace! Tom needs some new friends soon!
Bye for now!
Aileen
People have adapted to the simple status updates Facebook and Twitter has.
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