Thank you Starbucks!!

Wow!! I;m impressed with this new Starbuck's application for iphone!!

Just this week Starbucks announced the launching of this new application for smartphones where customers could make payments in-store through their smartphones and this automatically will be changed to their credit cards or Pay pal account.

To me this is the best news ever!! Not only this makes the Starbucks in-store purchase process faster but also other businesses will start acquiring this technology and, as the WSJ says, this could be the beginning of a cashless era!

Just this weekend I've been studying for my Information System's final. And is really amazing the part technology plays in businesses. To me this is completely new, just imaging yourself going to have a coffee and read the news while all you need to carry is your cell phone. Wow!! This not only simplifies businesses' processes but also people's lives.

Mashable says in this article that Starbucks thinks that people carry more their cellphones than their wallets and I can assure you that is true!! I haven't tried this application yet, but I already love it!

I was a bit upset because of the "new logo" thing. But now... I forgive you Starbucks!!

Online chinese giant is awakening

China recently reported an online population of 450 million users. That is the largest online population in the world as Dr Miyazaki said in his Blog is more than the entire US population. After reading all this I started doing some research because as it the world’s second economy after the US and still is a developing country. It sounds like is the perfect place to invest in an online business.

Youku and Tudou online video websites that stream video clips to millions of Chinese users. Their main source of revenue is advertising. Both companies’ revenue for the first month last year was around $34 million.

According to Bloomberg “China is regarded by investors as the top investment market in 2011”. Foreign investment in China rose 25% in April last year, 7% of the apparel market is sold online compare to 11% in the US. Moreover, 25 Chinese companies have gone public since June last year, China’s IPOs of online business are soaring according to this WSJ article. China’s potential is huge!.

However this whole Chinese Internet boom eventually may have limitations like the limited Chinese’s purchasing power, government Internet regulations and bans, and I don’t know if Chinese population is prepared for globalization due to the spread communist ideology in the country. Thus, I don’t know if US should feel threatened by China’s Internet boom, at least in the short term.

Piracy in US... Take a look at Venezuela!

There is a lot going on today with piracy issues, especially in the music field. US and Europe governments are trying to set regulations and finding ways to prevent the file sharing on the Internet of videos and music. When I was reading this article, the first thing that came to my mind was: If piracy is difficult to control in developed countries, what’s left for third world countries, for example my country: Venezuela.

In the streets of Caracas, you can see people standing in highways selling pirate videos during rush hours. There is also a famous street (La Guairita) well known by the “Caraqueños” because of the availability of every single movie and even just released movies in burned DVD’s. The main public university of Venezuela, (Universidad Central de Venezuela) has a section full of stands selling pirate software, movies, video games and music. Piracy is practically legal in Venezuela. There are actual stores inside malls selling piracy and there are even online business based on piracy. You can see it by yourself checking pidetupelicula.com website, this is a delivery service of pirate movies, games and music, the movies’ price in US$ is around 2$ and they can include in your order some snacks and drinks…

This is just a little example of how piracy is spreading rapidly in my country and in all over the world. Governments can set regulations and fines. But the speed of technology is faster and people will eventually find a way to copy and share the files physically and virtually. In my opinion this is a big challenge for the entertainment industry, try to develop new alternative and ways of making money and not to depend on CD’s, DVD’s. And the big governments’ challenge is to make people conscious of the harm and consequences of piracy.

Groupon: A business for times of crisis

I was taking a look at Steven Carpenter’s article “A TC Teardown: What Makes Groupon Tick” and I can infer that Groupon is the perfect Business for times of economical contraction.

Groupon takes advantage of groups and sell discounts and deals of other companies, they offer deals per city and currently the company is in almost every city in the US and serves around 52 markets. Groupon earns a share of their sales and it’s clients attract more customers, more volume, which is translated in an increase in sales. But this are not the only benefits of Groupon you can check this article of Evan Miller and he explains why people love Groupon, you could even finance a small business with coupons. I don’t know how accurate could this be, but at least is a possibility.

Some people question the viability of this business model. But if you take a look to some of the facts I don’t know up to what point is questionable. Groupon was established in November 2008; a couple of months after the financial melt down of Walls Street, not a good scene for a start up. Moreover Groupon has not only survived over the financial crisis, according to Carpenter’s analysis, since November 2009 sales has multiplied by 5. Carpenter analyzes two days, November 6^th 2009 and April 16^th 2010; the volume of customers has increase in 358% and the total volume in coupons sales in 428%. Besides the traffic of users has boosted from 900,000 in November 2009 to 3 million users in April 2010.

Even though “the competition is growing like mushrooms” Groupon had known how to maintain the leadership. Receiving this year buying offer from Google for some billions. To make your own conclusions you can check this article of the Wall Street Journal about “Why Groupon was right to say no to Gloogle?”

So, why is not groupon’s business model viable?

Is it really marketing?

What do you think when you listen the word marketing?? Personally I think of sales, creativity, customers, innovation, competition... a lot of things come to my mind, but I don’t imagine a lab with scientists experimenting with customer's mind, and brain responses from diverse stimulus to create the most sophisticated and persuasive marketing.

In my undergrad I learned that firms usually used some techniques for data collection like focus groups, surveys, interviews, observation... Now is widely known that companies use social networks to collect data, by looking at people’s conversations, interests, age and even marital status. And non conformed with invading people's privacy, now they are trying to get into the people’s mind? That’s cheating!! Then, marketing doesn’t make sense any more... Where is all the creativity?... where is all the fun?. Check out this video you will understand better what I’m talking about. Is this new trend called Neuromarketing.

What will happen with small businesses and young entrepreneurs that doesn’t have the means to compete with all this new and advanced “marketing techniques”? That's not fair competition. I am conscious of the benefits of the evolution of science, but, what is ethical and what is not? If the evolution of science is going to lead us to a world of robots where companies are trying to hypnotize customers with their marketing. I don’t want to be part of this evolution. I believe in creativity, innovation, in making the best product and advertise to communicate the benefits of you product. And let consumers make the decision when they have to decide between your product or your competitor's.