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Team Solomid (TSM or Solomid Corporation) is an electronic sports organization based in the United States of America. Team Solomid was founded in 2009 by two professional gamers of the multiplayer online game League of Legends. The competitive team, named Team Solomid, was formed in 2011. Electronic sports (eSports) is a form of competition that is facilitated by electronic systems in particularly video games. Like any other big sports organization the value of the TSM brand is determined by its competitive history and the loyalty of their fans. Brand loyalty towards the team and the team’s athletes is what sets TSM apart from all the other eSports teams that are out there.

TSM gains most of its revenue from the sales of merchandise and advertisements. Since the organization does not own any platforms and does not have to maintain large infrastructures of information systems their costs consist mostly of player salaries. As expected IT plays a very big role in eSports, not only do they play the game on an online platform, their biggest revenue streams come from online advertisement and streaming. By using only a computer TSM is able to keep the business operations going. After examining the IT strategy of TSM we have found an emerging trend in technology that could transform the competitive strategy of the corporation, content creation.

Content creation can be described as the contribution of information to (digital) media for an audience in a specific context. Content creation, especially educational or for entertainment, has become a key part in people’s lives. Examples are the homemade videos and vlogs that are being uploaded and watched on media websites such as YouTube and Facebook. New forms of content creation such as virtual reality and 4D are being issued on new platforms like Oculus Rift, Microsoft’s HoloLens and the HTC Vive. The rise of these new technologies will reshape how content is made and will set a new standard for disruptive marketing.

The vision of our content creation strategy is to be able to engage with and provide value for the fans in more ways than only through the championship games. This will be done by providing more value in the form of video content to fans and game enthusiasts. The mission is to create more quality video content in the form of vlogs, skits, animation series and documentaries. Through this content the company will be able to monetize the fame of their players and generate more exposure and revenue for both its players and TSM. More exposure for the athletes and TSM will lead to a faster increasing and more loyal fan base, which in return will lead to even more revenue. More revenue for the company can help TSM improve the gaming infrastructure and increase salaries. If more teams would follow and invest in content creation and start generating revenue out of it, it will result in a very positive impact on the whole gaming industry in the long run.

Team 68

Ming Li (376565)

Min Heng Lin (336451)

Elisabella Hu (371389)

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As you know computers and human beings don’t speak the same language. Interaction however is possible through something we call Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). However with the help of the improvement in language recognition technology, we could switch from the old GUI’s to conversational interfaces. This is mostly important for the smartphone industry and if you really want to segment on a target group it would be the Chinese smartphone industry. The use of internet on smartphones in China has been skyrocketing for the last couple of years, so more people are benefiting from the new technology. Furthermore Chinese characters are not easy to write in text form, it could take some time to send a text message or browse the web, while on the other hand if speech could be used, the task would be many times easier and faster.

Voice interfaces have especially in recent years become more practical, because of advancements in machine learning. Examples of this trend are Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Now. The most prominent company that is striving for conversational interfaces in China is Baidu, the google of China. The search engine is already making impressive progress with the accuracy of its voice recognition. Also the potential is there to advance conversational interfaces to the next step.

In November Baidu came out with their new voice technology, Deep Speech 2. It is a large neural network that associates sounds with words and phrases. The recognition of the technology is with high accuracy. The technology is especially impressive, because of its understanding of Mandarin. Mandarin is very complex and different tones suggest different meanings, however Deep Speech 2 is very capable of still transcribing the speech. Baidu needs to focus mostly now in learning their AI to understand complicated phrases and responding in an appropriate fashion. This way their voice assistant, which is called Du Er, can have a helpful back-and-forth conversation with the user. Their goal in the long run is that all devices, like any home appliance,  could understand human speech and respond to us. Something that seems far away, maybe is closer than we think.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600766/10-breakthrough-technologies-2016-conversational-interfaces/

The bot revolution: How conversational interfaces will replace apps

Conversational Interfaces: Where Are We Today? Where Are We Heading?

Hoe de conversational interface het internet op zijn kop gaat zetten

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently unveiled his plan to colonize Mars, a brilliant idea if he has the resources and technology to back it. The plan of course is a dream come true for humanity, because eventually the Earth is going to deplete and it will not be inhabitable anymore. However the technology used in the program seems the most interesting. How can Elon Musk make it affordable to travel to Mars en masse?

The project relies on 3 key factors:

• Full rocket reusability
• Refueling the spacecraft in orbit
• Propellant production on mars

It will start with a big rocket, something around 200 feet tall, which will deliver the crew capsule in orbit, then the booster will return to Earth, pick up a fuel tanker and carry that into orbit, after which it would fuel the spaceship for the trip to Mars. During the flight to Mars the spaceship will deploy solar panels to gain energy from the sun. Fleets of these crew capsules will hang around in the orbit until there is a favorable planetary alignment, which is every 26 months. (Drake, 2016)

All this will lead to the main goal: making the human race a multiplanetary species. Tickets to Mars will start at a price of around $200.000 and continually drop down to when almost anyone can buy it. Flights could harbor 100 passengers and could start within a decade if things go well. The timeline seems ambitious. Technological his plan seems plausible, however no one has ever attempted to do it at this scale before and the rocket Musk wants to use is 4 times as big as the Saturn VI, the biggest rocket of NASA. Another hurdle is the financing of the project. Putting someone on Mars costs around 10 billion dollars now. Fair enough investors will get attracted by the sheer idea of colonizing another planet and the idea of helping the human race as a whole. Musk said himself to this problem: ‘’As we show that this dream is not just a dream but can be made real, the support will snowball over time.’’ Also there is a possibility that there are minerals or materials found on Mars, which could benefit the profitability of the project, but will it be enough? Something very important to also point out would be the human factors like radiation or the effects of space on our body not to mention the conditions on Mars itself.

How Musk will deal with these unknown hurdles? Only time will tell. A very short amount of time in his opinion. Musk has to realize some groundbreaking things. He has done a lot of great things in technology already, but if he could make this project work at all, he should be called one of the greatest minds of this generation. All in all the announcement was great for publicity and definitely put SpaceX on the map if it wasn’t there already.

This video explains how the Interplanetary Transport System works:

 

Sources:

Blankesteijn, 2016. Plan van Elon Musk om Mars te koloniseren grenst aan bedrog [online]. Available at: https://fd.nl/opinie/1170040/plan-van-elon-musk-om-mars-te-koloniseren-grenst-aan-bedrog

Drake, 2016. Elon Musk: A Million Humans Could Live on Mars By the 2060s [online]. Available at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/elon-musk-spacex-exploring-mars-planets-space-science/

Plumer, Resnick, 2016. Elon Musk plans to colonize Mars. We have many questions [online]. Available at: http://www.vox.com/2016/9/27/13079382/elon-musk-spacex-mars-colony-plans

Van Noort, 2016. Vraagtekens bij de Marsmissie van Elon Musk [online]. Available at: https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/09/28/vraagtekens-bij-de-marsmissie-van-elon-musk-4508438-a1523806

Hull, Johnsson, 2016. Musk Offers Mars Vision of Reusable Rockets, $200,000 Fares [online]. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-27/elon-musk-s-vision-for-mars-travel-focuses-on-reusable-rockets

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Founded in June 2011, Twitch is the world’s leading social video platform and community for gamers, video game culture, and the creative arts. The concept is simple, people that are good at a game make an account, play the game, turn on their camera and talk to their viewers (these people are called streamers).

Twitch’s phenomenal growth since 2011 has resulted from both direct and indirect network effects. First of all, there are strong cross-side network effects between Twitch viewers and streamers: the more viewers that come to Twitch, the more streamers are attracted to the platform by the prospect of gaining more fans, more subscribers, and ultimately more revenue from advertising and donations. In turn, as more streamers bring their content to Twitch, more viewers are drawn to the platform to watch and even interact with their favorite players and teams.

Secondly there is a second form of indirect network effects involving Twitch and third-party console manufacturers: driven by the large and growing number of Twitch streamers and viewers, console manufacturers Sony and Microsoft have chosen to incorporate native broadcasting functionality on Twitch into the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Emphasizing the role of twitch in the console gaming industry.

Lastly, there are also direct network effects at play. As more streamers and viewers come to Twitch, the more interaction takes place in the form of live commentary and discussion among viewers and often even with streamers. Twitch has succeeded in creating a strong community of gamers who value the social experience of creating, consuming, and discussing game content together in real time.

How does Twitch make money? There are 3 main revenue models:

1. They sell ads that are being displayed during the streams as well as banners around the site.
2. Twitch gets a commission of all the viewers that subscribe to a channel. A subscription to a channel is 5 dollars per month.
3. Sponsorship, game developers will pay twitch a fixed amount to be featured on the front page and have a stream of their newly developed game running on the front page.

The business model of Twitch.TV is very similar compared to their main competitor, Youtube Gaming. The main difference is that Youtube Gaming earns most of its revenue with video on demand. All streams can be automatically uploaded to the streamer’s youtube channel. 

According to the COO of Twitch Kevin Lin, twitch will stay a gaming and creative arts platform. He believes that gaming is the core of the business, it’s where the passion is at, that’s the key differentiation of twitch.  They’ll continue to grow and expand globally and hope to reach more and more people, especially in Asia where gaming is huge. If twitch keeps focusing on their core competence we believe it will stay a big player in the industry for a long time, especially because of their popularity and the constant rise in streamers. Furthermore if innovations in the industry like VR gaming are dealt with correctly, the future for twitch seems bright.

 

Team 68

Ming Li (376565)

Min Heng Lin (336451)

Elisabella Hu (371389)