New Media and New Markets Assignment 7: Find an effective use of PR online

An example of an effective use of Public Relations online is Coca Cola's sign in London's Piccadilly Circus to promote the World Cup and was on the official World Cup website.  This contains a "What's your Celebration" FIFA campaign with a signboard that displays personalized messages along with live scores and a World Cup news ticker. Members of the public were also invited to perform live re-enactments of his of her favorite goal on a pop-up Astroturf pitch. Ericsson also ran a Big Cheer online promotion at http://www.bigcheer.com/ which invited World Cup fans from all over the world to cheer on his or her favorite team through Twitter, Web and SMS. All individual tweets were printed live on confetti in a large box and the winner won a SonyEricsson XPeria X10.  This is a great way to promote the World Cup by getting international fans excited about watching the World Cup and allows them to participate in the excitment of  the greatest tournment of all time in soccer.

An additonal example of effective PR online to promote the World Cup was developed by Selena Cuff a CEO of a wine distribution company. She went to South Africa on a business trip and attended the first annual Soweto Wine Festival where she founded the stories behind the creation of each wine to be fascinating. After visiting South Africa, she developed Heritage Link Brands which imported and distributed wines from South Africa owned vineyards.

Los Angeles based Heritage is using the World Cup Tournment as the basis for its own  "Heritage Wine World Cup." This entrepreneur developed an online social media contest where each week the votes of Facebook fans and Twitter followers determine the winner in a match-up between two Heritage wines ( http://www.inc.com/). The next step involved the winning wine of each bracket advancing to the next round or the FIFA version. This promotion also involved a pool component where the person who chooses the most winners takes home a prize. The prize is a year membership to the company's wine club and dinner with the wine owners in the Fall.

This company has been doing tastings around the USA to create brand awareness, celebrate soccer and increase wine sales. Heritage will also be the offical wine supplier for the  Chicago's World Cup the "Final Match." Heritage has also won a small business administration loan to help pay for the World Cup promotion's. I think Heritage did an excellent job promoting the World Cup by combining their own individual passion for soccer with their passion for wine. This is successful for the Heritage business because wine sales increased and they helped promote the World Cup through innovative strategies with social media.

New Media and New Markets Assignement 6: Discuss an Internet Policy Issue

An example of an internet policy is privacy in the Marriott and Ritz-Carleton  hotel chains. Mariott and the Ritz-Carleton explain how they address the concern for privacy issues in their policy private statement. The statement consists of several general and technical details about what the hotel changes does to address hotel visitors' privacy issues. The statement was updated in June 2010 and now has a click to chat feature which includes the "remember me" enhancement for web-enabled mobile devices. This Click for Chat also describes the new mobile Blackberry and IPhone applications, and change the department number in the contact address.

Policy privacy issues that hotels visitors are concerned with are: Browsing Information, Information that explains how the Marriott or Ritz Carleton collects and how to use it, Children's Privacy, Reservations, Click to Chat, Accessing Marriott.com from a Web-enabled Mobile Device, Updating your Marriott Rewards Account Information, Marriott Rewards Communications and Use of Member Information, Creating an Online Password for you Marriott Rewards Account, Marriott Rewards/Chase Card Services Visa Card, Securing the Transmission and Storage Information, Travel Related Services, Disclosure of Information to Third Parties, Cookies, Pixel Tags, Emails, Investor Relations Communications and Vacation Owners issues.

As a Marriott Vacation Club Member, I am most concerned with the issue of updating my Marriott's Rewards Account Information and computer cookies because I am concerned my point total will not be accurate. If my point total is not accurate and people find out my password to my Rewards information, my information will not be up to date and I will not get my free trips or discounted trips. I am also concerned cell phone companies can get my credit card information on my mobile device if I book a trip online. Finally, I am also concerned about the Remember Me feature. If another individual found or stole my phone, they could easily book a trip I may not find out about right away which is very concerning.

New Media and New Markets Assignment 5: Find two examples of an ineffective website

One of the websites that I found to be extremely ineffective is:  http://www.sportingnews.com/. This website is very cluttered and is very confusing to navigate for several reasons. There are many advertisements that pop up which take away from the content of the recent news in different sports leagues. The advertisements are often bigger then the news which takes away a lot of info from the site. The layout is very hard to follow and because there is so much going on the sight is constantly reloading. There is a lot going on on the homepage  The navigation bar with the vertical drop down menu interferes with clicking the different news features. The website is constantly freezing and is making me want to go to a different website to get the latest NHL and Baseball scores.  The way the site is designed makes it harder to learn what is most important such as ground breaking news of transactions or updated scores. Every sport and every news story headline is just mixed in together to create a lot of confusion on the sporting news.  The Video section is also on the bottom of the page which makes it harder for readers to even find it on the homepage. A lot of sports readers find it interesting to be able to learn more about his or her favorite store and look at recent plays online so this should be more towards the top of the home page. 


Another website that is ineffective is: http://www3.shopping.com/. 
This website is ineffective because some pages do not open for the good you are shopping for which causes the website to lose money. If the link does not open and the customer can not buy the good they are shopping for they are already going on to another website that they can buy everything from. This website then loses money on more then one good because the customer is already gone and on to the next site where they can easily checkout. The discounted items are at the bottom and are not easily visible from the home page. The advertisements are also bigger then the items shopping.com is selling which suggests the ads are more important and valued then the actual products. The page is also very confusing to navigate and is very cluttered and unorganized. The brands that shopping.com offers is also in the middle of the page and is very poorly located. The brands should be located at the top so people no right away on the options of brands that they should be able to preselect on the site. The way the colors are on the page also makes all the shopping goods blend in which makes it hard for viewers to know exactly what shopping goods are that shopping.com carries. 

New Media and New Markets Assignment 4: Give an example of diffusion of Internet technology....

An example of diffusion in internet technology in the United States was the development of internet banking in 1995. Wells Fargo allowed customers to access there banking account online and the first only internet bank opened which was called Security First Network Bank. Since 1995, banks have been increasing their online presence because it leads to more productivity gains for the bank . The internet has made it much easier for the banks to reach and serve there customers 24.7 regardless of where the consumer is located. It also allows customers to always have access to their bank statements 24/7 and get a detailed summary of what he or she is spending his or her money on.

Furthermore, it allows the banks to cut down costs by conducting standardized, low-value-added transactions such as balance inquiries, account transfers and bill payments through the online system. This allows banks to focus on their specialized high transactions such as small business lending, investment banking and trust services.

Bank customers use to be unsure about handling and checking their balances online especially those customers that used small localized banks. Customers became more confident with doing online banking when they found out that a large number or large banks would be adapting internet banking. Customers were also more likely to do online banking when they found out banks that offered an online banking option were also stronger performing banks overall. In 2003 banks attributed an increase in profits as a result of adapting to new technologies such as online banking ( Berger, Allen and Loretta Mester (2003). “Explaining the Dramatic Changes of Performance of U.S. Banks: Technological Change, Deregulation and Dynamic Changes in Competition,” Journal of Financial Intermediation, 12(1), 57-95).