Last summer I tried experimenting, making a website of my own, which I gave up on after a week. If you visit it, you can see that all I really have on the homepage is a couple of Google ads. If these ads were to be clicked, Google would probably pay me about 20 cents or so. In a year long term, about forty people actually visited my page and clicked on the ads, and I ended up making a whopping fifteen dollars. So you could imagine how much Myspace makes on advertising. I also have open source or “free” software that I installed, such as chat and an media player. I even installed a free forum software which I later uninstalled because of multiple spamming and advertising of pornographic websites that were posted on it. I couldn't believe that other websites would actually take the time to spam my forum with advertisements. If websites are willing to advertise on a small site like mine, that practically has no visitors, then why not pay a popular website like Myspace a few bucks to advertise their website to the world.
Many websites are paid to put advertisements on them, including Myspace. Whether a fan page or self made, nearly everyone that is famous has some sort of Myspace page. Many Artists or Musicians uses their Myspace page as an way to promote their music, and it works. Just look at Coldplay's Myspace page, they have over 20 million views and over 400 thousand friends. In my opinion, it was a smart move on Cartier's part to pay Myspace for a page on their massive network. Cartier is promoting their jewelry the same way artists are promoting their music. Myspace is a huge networking website that has millions of users nation wide, and Cartier is just taking advantage of the Myspace technology, and using it as a form of media to communicate to consumers . So by paying Myspace to advertise their products, Cartier's name will spread like chain letters throughout the Myspace world.
In our discussion about open source software, John enlightened us on what open source software actually is and mentioned that there is an open source version of word that is available for download free of charge. Kara brought up a good question, “Do you think Microsoft would be mad?”. This was really interesting. At first I thought that Microsoft would be mad, why wouldn't they?. I mean who would want to pay a hundred dollars for something, when they can practically get the same thing for free. Microsoft would be losing valuable consumers and money to open source software. Then I realized that Microsoft like Myspace is well known. I've never heard of OpenOffice.org until John mentioned it in class and doubt that many people actually uses OpenOffice.org. The fact is that whether its software, music, or jewelry, if its not well known then people won't pay attention to it.
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3 comments:
I agree with your post. I guess Bill Gates wouldn't mind if he lost one or two customers over the course of a week because some tech-guru decided to write up his own code for a power point application and put it up on his/her blog for free download.
But consider this: Google the term "Word Processor" and Microsoft Office, which I guess can be heralded as world leading as far as word processors go, is not the first link that comes up. Two of the first three links lead towards open source software and the second link is a Wikipedia entry. Coming in fourth is... Microsoft Office.
So what's going on here? It seems as if the Internet is starting to cater towards the open source movement and shifting the power of evil monopolizing corporations in favor of the little guys.
I believe this is evident in Davis too. Spiraling towards central downtown from the city's outskirts, we move from chains (KFC and Del Taco) to independent businesses (Sophia's, Woodstocks, so on). Instead of having to rely on some gigantic supermarket to get ourselves full, we can go downtown to see what these people have to offer us. Maybe we don't have a Costco because Davis is just way too small, but would you rather trade a 50 pound crate of vegetables over a fresh select few, hand grown with the utmost care by our local farmers?
What I'm trying to say is that, even if it may be easier and sometimes really convenient to rely on the major players we are so comfortably familiar with, it could also pay off to search a bit more and experience something unique and off the beaten path.
You are doing a good job picking up on the readings and class discussion. I also like the way you have opened the post with a narrative that situates what you go on to argue about MySpace, Cartier, Microsoft, and your general comments about advertising. The situation with your own website and the capital you raised in a year definitely make a compelling argument for why Cartier stands to gain some customers while advertising on MySpace. My comments relate most directly to the writing (watch the typos too). Cris’ comment is an excellent and model response for the more nuanced conceptual stakes of your post.
You're views on advertising have aroused my interest. Is this part of some class?
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