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.