It is my story!

In my country I had a cell phone which was made by Samsung. The name of the cell phone is ‘Mini skirt,’ It has a slim shape that makes it easy to grip. Furthermore, it has touchpad on the upper side giving it a simpler shape. For these reasons I bought this phone without any hesitation.

However, the more used “Mini Skirt” the less satisfaction I had. That’s because the function of the touchpad does not work well. What’s worse, is that sometimes it got out of control without any touching.

　

← left: my korean cell phone, the 'Mini Skirt',

right: my USA cell phone

　

That made me enter the Samsung cell phone’s official website. There are already many customers who felt samely as me with the Mini skirt and they argued to Samsung by writing reviews that it had many defect to use.

Amazingly, the Samsung company was welcoming of those ideas that came from the customers. After a reasonable period of time the Samsung put an advanced cell phone on the market. The name of that phone was the “Mini Skirt 2.” Right, that is advanced version of the Mini Skirt.

What about the customers who already bought the old Mini Skirt? They were active participants who submitted their idea about the defects of the Mini Skirt. Of course, they got chance. Samsung gave them an opportunity to upgrade their cell phone for free. When it received the service of upgrade, it functioned almost the same as a new phone(the Mini Skirt 2.)

How amazing! We can change the huge companies’ products! And it makes products easier to use.

This situation is related to the concept of “Conversation” which is mentioned in “Conversational Marketing Asks 'Can We Talk?'"

‘The conversation’ is initiated through ad units in blogs, Internet forums,
social networking sites, message boards and any other forum that features
two-way conversation. It allows people to talk about themselves in relation to a marketer's products.

Don’t you think this is the Win-win game for both customer and company?

Now, I am totally satisfied with my upgraded cell phone. :) 　

　picture credited by: www.anycall.com

You were the cover model of TIME !

2 years ago the American famous newsweekly TIME selected “YOU” for Person of the year. That means an ordinary man who use internet, blog, media and be active in those places can be a TIME’s Person of the year. It shows that the User’s power grow incredibly bigger than the past, and also play a big role in current society.

For example, in my country Korea people participate actively in creating UGC. Have you heard about UCC? We called ‘UGC’ to ‘UCC.’ The word “UCC” is an abbreviation for User Created Contents. Its meaning is similar to UGC.

　

Incredibly, In Korea the “UCC” exercising a huge force to public. Sometimes Korean called current society as “the boom of UCC.” People express their thought by making and circulating it. “Lim Jeong-hyun”, famous Korean guitarist who became a world star through YOUTUBE.

　

→ click "Here" then you can enjoy Lim's play.

　

Of course, said by “Nobel Laureate Says The Internet Makes Us Dumb, We Say: Meh” and “Death to User-Generated Content” the UGC have a problem such as false tips and problem of copyrights. However, I found lots of interesting things in the UCC. As you can see the case of Lim’s, users can become creator or producer on the internet without any limit of age, sex and human race. Isn’t it cool? :)
　
There are no places we can express our thought freely except the INTERNET.

　

　

Pictures credited to: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20061225,00.html

　

　

Just imagine your flavor

One of students in my class said about 'Vitamin Water' and I found it interesting.
That is when I apply for getting a job in Vitamin Water, I should be a creater of flavor.
How exciting it is!
Click here and you can read Kim Bryden's wiritng:)

My Dunk

Have you ever made your own unique stuff?

After reading the article “Innovation Tools & Trends Nike's New Public Design Studio” from Business Week, I could not contain my curiosity. Then I entered NIKE's official web site.
I spent the whole time making my own NIKE shoes and backpack. It was really fantastic and I did not realize how much time had passed. This task may play an important role in marketing.

← This backpack is designed by me! see at the both sides of shoulder strap. it says "ITEC 335"

According to my experience and the article mentioned, customers have begun changing their passive role in the market place to an active one. Furthermore, their power is growing and getting bigger.
It seems like there is no discrimination between corporation and customer in the current market.

However, when I made my own NIKE dunk, I wondered if the customer has power over the company.
If people see my design and try to purchase that DUNK, can I claim that NIKE DUNK (made by myself) as my property?
The answer may be “No”

As you can see in “Artificial Intelligence, With Help From the Humans” article, I think ‘crowdsourcing’ and ‘open Innovation’ help companies to expand by using consumer ideas.

In conclusion, I think cunsumers just help companies to get bigger and wealthier.
What do you think about this?

(I will be sad if my precious DUNK is used as NIKEs’ marketing resource for free.)

Is “Second Life” our real second life?

It is exciting to find another me in the virtual world.
However, when I read some articles dealing with Second Life, I began to worry about it's future.

That’s because when the virtual world relates to real life tasks, such as finances, it will bring some copycat crimes from the reality of our lives.

Of course, it has a bright side. In the case of “Second Life's First Millionaire,” Anshe Chung is the first millionaire. It is not only success in the virtual worlds, but also success in the actual world because Second Lives’ cash, “Linden dollars,” can be converted to real cash.

On the other hand, with keen observation we can think about the opposite side; fraud, swindling, money crimes.

In Korea, there are some cases similar to these criminal acts. the Korean famous 3D game “Lineage” also has game money called “Aden”.

There are a lot of items which can improve characters’ fighting skills, that can be purchased by Aden. The “Lineage” became more popular so there were cash transactions between items and cash.

Unfortunately, extensive cyber frauds linked to money and items occurred.

More surprisingly, the criminals were teenagers!

How amazing! Virtual world is closely connected with reality. However, it tells us the virtual world cannot completely escape the actual.

I can say the Second Life is another aspect of reality, not just a fancy new world!

Pictures credited to:http://imagesearch.naver.com/detail/frame_top_080722.html#

Be a tension!, when you are in the virtual world.

"Be a tension!, when you are in the virtual world."

Have you heard about Korean favorite web community "cyworld" ?
It is like an american social networking site "Facebook". I do not know well about the Facebook but when I first looked over this site, I thought it seems like a Korean web site cyworld.

While reading "Social graph-iti", I agree with the situation that people on the internet, especially social networking site, ignore the advertisement and concentrate on their contact with knowing people, because in Korea, a lot of people only use cyworld as their space of communication not as space which meet with an advertisement.

↑ This is a cyworld. The Korean famous online world.(and that person is me!)

In cyworld, there were already a lot of attempts about advertising and marketing but most of them were failed. Why these situation happened? I found the answer about this question while reading "Social graph-iti". In this article, Mr Tobaccowala says Facebook has only “large crowds who are communicating without expressing specific interests." this accounts tally with the reason why marketing failed on social networking web site.

However, according to "Social graph-iti", Reuben Steiger represents that using other sort of marketing such as experience, it can be successful at the Facebook. I can not totally agree with this opinion. The object of using Facebook or cyworld is just connect and communicate with friends, not to be exposed to official work or marketing. If these places were used as commercial site, people are going to lose their interests and leave.

Furthermore, when social networking web sites are used as space of collecting data, such as reality mining, it will bring a disaster. Of course, it has bright aspects, particularly at the public-policy level. by "Clive Thompson on Real-World Social Networks vs. Facebook 'Friends'". In my opinion, however, the human rights is more important than prevent spread of disease. I know that reality mining is also useful to protect human rights, but it is more like an invasion of the privacy.

I hope Facebook and cyworld present as a peculiar spaces to communicate each other not to be used as financial tools or places of collecting data. We feel comfort and free when visiting friends' virtual space and writing a serious or light comment to communicate with them without waste time and money. People do not want to be a tension when they exploring their own virtual space.