Does Facebook should take over Blackberry?

30

October

2013

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Some interesting rumors came online today. Rumors about Facebook wanting to take over Blackberry. This roomers say that Facebook had a meeting with the representatives somewhere last week. It’s common knowledge that Blackberry is doing very bad at the moment because of the heavy competitors as Samsung and Apple. Know roomers say that Blackberry is in search for a party to take over. Yet they don’t want to sell at any price, as they have already declined an offer of 4.7 million.

But why should Facebook do this? It can be because of the only successful product Blackberry still owns: Blackberry Messenger. Facebook wants to compete with WhatsApp Messenger and wants to start the biggest instant-messenger platform for smartphones. They are already trying to achieve this with their own Facebook Messenger. But this is maybe not as successful as they hoped. So with overtaking Blackberry Messenger they can benefit of the reputation Blackberry Messenger already has. This is the first option.

Another option is that Facebook maybe wants to start making their own smart phones. Of course they can use the insight of Blackberry, even though Blackberry eventually failed. Facebook already tried this with the HTC First with Facebook Home. This wasn’t really a success.

But is this a smart move of Facebook? I personally doubt this. When Facebook wants to stark making smart phones, why do they want to start from where Blackberry left? Blackberry turned out to be a phone that was known as the phone that was always broke and didn’t last longer than a year. Blackberry is almost bankrupt and is not a strong brand to build on. Maybe Facebook should start to make smart phones under their own name, although this might be really risky.

The only reason I found solid for Facebook to take over Blackberry is the reason that they want Blackberry messenger. This messenger was really popular and had a lot of users. From here Facebook can pick up and build an messengerplatform that can really compete with number one WhatsApp. But why not expand their own messaging app Facebook messenger?

What do you guys think? Should Facebook take over Blackberry or is there only money to lose?

 

http://www.techzine.nl/nieuws/36215/blackberry-met-facebook-in-gesprek-voor-overname.html

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Real money vs. Play money (homework assignment)

30

October

2013

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In my homework assignment I took a closer look on prediction markets based on real money and prediction markets based on real money. In the reading of this week I find that there was no difference in the accuracy of prediction with the use of real money or play money (Servan-Schreiber et al.,2004). However I also read an article that stated that play money markets can have higher accuracy in prediction certain outcomes. This is because of the fact that play money traders can (mostly) not refund their account. So the people who predicted bad in the past will be ‘eliminated’ and only the best traders will survive, but real money trades can refund themselves anytime. (Diemer, 2010)

I also compared two prediction market platforms. The first one is the Hollywood Stock Exchange which is really big and is based on play money. The other example I found was Ipredict. This prediction market was based on real money and was also a bit smaller. When comparing the two we see that size does matter in this case. As HSX has al lot of traders which make them more accurate.

Homework Assignment 359183sk

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Tips for crowdfunding

24

October

2013

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This week’s subject is about crowdfunding, so I searched the internet to find some tips about how u can raise the money you need to reach your goal. I combined several idea’s and summarized this.

Make sure you choose the best crowdfunding platform

This depends on several things. For instance the amount of money you want to raise or the kind of business or idea you want to fund. Kickstarter, for example, is a site that requires some creative idea’s while ProFounder is more for the traditional businesses.

Make clear what audience you are targeting

Of course you have to find out what people are the most attracted to your ideas, but you must also think of people who can help you raise more attention. So don’t just focus on the ones that are the most likely to give you the highest amount of money per person, but also attract people who pass on your idea’s and get their friends, family, etc. involved!

Make a plan

It sounds really simple, but don’t just post your idea on the web and wait what comes out of it. Before you share your idea’s you should already have thought about step two, three, four and maybe even more. Ask yourself the question what if my first attempt fails? Think about how frequently you going to promote your idea’s so that your promotions per week will be at a stable level, and also be prepared when your idea raises more money than expected.

Choose your ‘cash-goal’ wisely

Don’t overestimate the power of crowdfunding. It can only take you up to a certain amount of money. The average amount of money that was raised by crowdfunding was €10.000,- in the Netherlands. Some have raised up to €100.000,- , but this is very hard to achieve. So what you can do to raise more money is to break your projects in smaller pieces. This way you can raise money multiple times and even show progress from your previous projects (this motivates people to fund you again and might even attract more funders from it successes).

Get your funders a reward

This is the last tip, but certainly not the least. Get your funders a reward if your idea or business succeeds. Be creative and you will attract more people to fund your idea. An example can be that when someone donates you €10,- ,to help you finish your album, you can give them your album for free.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/11-tips-for-crowdfunding-how-to-raise-money-from-strangers/

http://www.dezaak.nl/crowdfunding:-8-bouwstenen-voor-een-goede-campagne-3230150.html

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Social commerce: Itunes for journalism!

16

September

2013

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A problem that newspapers have to deal with is the fact that ‘old fashioned newspapers’ are facing competition from online competitors. Especially the younger generation uses the world wide web to read about world problems as Syria or the economic crisis. Some critics say that traditional newspapers (printed on paper) will disappear within the next ten years.

Is this true? And how can the traditional newspapers cope with this problem? Well, there might be a solution to this problem: Blendle. An app that brings the news together. One of the founders (Alexander Klöpping) was on the television show ‘De wereld draait door’ a week ago. The clip beneath will show how Blendle works (unfortunately it’s a Dutch show).

For those who don’t speak Dutch I will summarize this clip. Blendle is designed as solution to the fact that the ‘younger generation’ doesn’t want to pay for news anymore. With Blendle you can see through all (Dutch) newspapers and select items you find interesting.  The example that is used in the clip shows that with a few simple clicks you can browse through the newspapers and look for the columnists or news-genre you like. Then you can buy this news item (for between €0,10 and €0,90) and add them to your ‘personal newspaper’. You are also allowed to share this articles on Facebook or Twitter, so you can let your friends now what keeps you bussy and vice versa. When you want to read an article that one of your friends liked or shared you still have to pay the fee for that article. The difference between Blendle and free newssites, stated in the clip, is that the articles from the traditional newspapers are made by proffesional journalists and thereby are of higher quality. 

So why would the newspapers like NRC of ‘de Volkskrant’ join this concept? As stated in the clip newspapers see this ‘app’ as an adition to what they already offer. They are not afraid (yet) about the fact that the newspaper made of ink and paper will disappear. (Althought they didn’t use arguments to explain why they think they won’t). Thereby they can earn money by selling single articles and have options to offer subscriptions to users who frequently buy their articles. 

So is this the solution to all the problems traditional newspapers are facing? Or is there no problem at all? I think this app will certainly bring extra revenues to the newspaper companies. As we have experienced with, for example, Spotify and Netflix, people want to pay for services that are easily accessible although music and films are downloadable for free on the internet. And those services offer identical services as the free ones do (for example a song made by Jay-Z remains a song made by Jay-Z and thereby the exact same thing). But when it comes to the articles made by professional journalists, I think that they will have a superior quality over the articles made by free news sites.

The problem focuses on the younger generation. This generation is very familiar with internet services and I think this connects this generation with the ‘old concept’ of newspapers. As many people of this generation already use social media to express themselves and connect with others. 

What do you guys think? Is news just not meant for the younger generation? Or is this the way for newspaper companies to keep up? And why?

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