The Benefits and Consequences of How Far We've Come

This week we wrapped up the reading in Grant's book. The last few chapters brought up some very interesting points. One of the chapters was about the Internet itself. In this chapter, Grant brought up a term that I was actually unaware of. The term is "cyber-squatting". The whole idea behind this concept is that people will go out and take control over a domain name that they know someone else will want, and then hold out for as much money as they can get. This is much easier to understand with an example. The book used the example of www.whitehouse.com. If you go to this site you will find that it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual Whitehouse. It seems that the owner of this site is hoping that the Government will want to take control of that domain name, and will therefore have to buy them out to do so. This type of squatting also happens a lot with brand names and celebrities. The Government is now trying to regulate this and has created such things as the Anti-Cyber-Squatting Consumer Protection Act. This is aimed at allowing companies or individuals with a legitimate claim to a name or brand to take control of the domain name. This was an interesting concept to read about. I was unaware that all this was happening. It seems that people will think of anything to make some money!

In chapter 22 Grant talked about the term telepresence. Grant defined this term as, "a series of technologies that allow for face-to-face meetings between people who are separated geographically". This has become a huge benefit to the business world. Companies are now able to hold meetings with clients and other companies without having to travel to do so. This cuts down on cost of travel and fuel usage. This technology also allows users to pick up on nonverbal cues that they wouldn't be able to with the use of a regular telephone. This idea is also used for personal communication among everyday internet users. I talked in an earlier blog about the concept of Skype and all it's capabilities. People are using this technology to have more intimate conversations with loved-ones who are far away. My family is currently in the process of trying to explain Skype to both sets of Grandparents because my sister just had a baby three months ago. This technology would allow my niece to see my Grandparents and hear their voices at the same time and become familiar with them even though they are across the country. Of course to them it sounds very complicated, but it really is very user-friendly and doesn't require someone with a lot of tech-savvy to operate the program. This whole concept opens the world to so many new capabilities. For instance, the military is using telepresence in the form of telerobotics. They use this to diffuse bombs, and control vehicles. They are even discussing the idea of using this technology to replace aircraft pilots or even astronauts who put themselves in danger in order to do their jobs.
The book ended with some conclusions from Grant and a brief look towards the future. After reading this book, it has made me realize and appreciate just how many advances we have made in the area of technology. As silly as it may sound, I always looked at the Jetsons as the premium example of just how far technology can take us! And I used to think that I would never see anything like that in my lifetime. However, we are well on our way. We have the telephone that allows us to see the other person that we are speaking to, although it doesn't fly up to us on command(maybe someday!). We are continually advancing in the field of robotics, and we already have such things as the robotic vacuum and even a robotic lawn-mower. We still have a while before we reach the standards of Rosie the robot maid, but again, the beginnings are there. I've even seen advertisements recently about the advances being made in the concept of gesture recognition. The commercial used the examples of turning on lights, pushing down the toaster, and turning on music all with the simple wave of a hand. But of course the best concept from the Jetsons is the idea of the flying car. For years now we have heard rumors and whispers about exactly where we stand in the creation of such technology. I recently saw a video of a strange looking vehicle resembling a car that sort of hovered above the ground. Along the same lines, I have heard rumors of jet-packs of sorts that are being developed primarily for law enforcement. This would allow them to respond to emergencies faster and patrol larger areas with greater ease and less time spent. In other words, we are on our way with this concept as well. It is amazing the advances that have been made since I was born, and there is no telling what is to come next. I am grateful to all those brilliant minds out there who are creating these unbelievable things, and I believe the possibilities for the future are endless.

Southwest Flies High in Area of Media Convergence

The company we chose to analyze for our class project was Southwest Airlines. Southwest has been in business since 1971. Since then they have continued to grow and now have more than 3,200 flights a day and nearly 35,000 employees. In June 2010, the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Southwest Airlines number one among all airlines for the 17^th year in a row. The company is also very involved with new technology and utilizes a variety of social media tactics including micro blogging on Twitter, blogging, YouTube, an iPhone app and a FaceBook page. A surprising fact we came across was that Southwest was the first airline to establish a home page on the Internet and as of the first half of 2010, online bookings have reached 81 percent. Also, for the first half of 2010, approximately 78 percent of Southwest Customers were checking in online or at a kiosk. It is obvious that customers are really utilizing the online resources that Southwest has made available to them.

Among these resources is the company’s micro blog on Twitter. It has over one million followers. Customers can use Twitter to post complaints, thoughts, or suggestions, and Southwest will then tweet back to the customer. The company also uses Twitter for internship recruitment, and contests or discounts. Additionally they send out travel advisories such as cancellations, delays, or weather issues.

Southwest has a very successful blog called Nuts About Southwest. In fact, in October of 2009, Nuts About Southwest was awarded “Best Blog” for the third year in a row at the PR News Platinum Awards. The blog itself has current events related to Southwest as a company and also information about employees. They have different polls to get customer feedback, as well as videos, podcasts, and guest posts from customers. These guest posts are reviewed by Southwest and they will do their best to resolve any issue or answer any questions. The blog itself acts as a sort of hub that ties in all of Southwest’s social media efforts. The bottom of the page has links to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Southwest also has its own YouTube channel. There are a variety of entertaining videos including singing or rapping flight attendants, and a humorous game they call toilet paper racing which must be seen to be understood. Besides this they have informative videos that deal with customer relations, informing customers about policies and procedures, and videos about the ways in which the company is advertising throughout their airports.

Southwest’s Flickr page is basically a discussion forum for suggestions, thoughts, and complaints, but also has photo groups where anyone can add photos. Southwest then takes these photos and will use them in their other social media platforms. It seems that this page is a popular site for plane enthusiasts and has over a thousand members.

Southwest has a great example of media convergence with their iPhone and Desktop application called DING!. This application allows users to have insider deals and information about sales and flights that they wouldn’t get anywhere else. The application conveniently enables customers to book a flight, check on flight status, book car reservations, and even check in for a flight all from a customer’s phone. This obviously provides a lot of benefits for people who travel frequently.

On top of all of this Southwest has a Facebook page with almost one million friends. The page has contests and sweepstakes to win free travel and other prizes such as hotel stays, restaurant gift cards, and even cars. The company uses Facebook to promote their bags fly free campaign, which really sets them apart from other airlines that have fairly steep rates.

Overall we think that Southwest is using this variety of social media platforms very effectively. They allow customers to communicate with each other in various ways which helps to increase customer loyalty, and build a sort of culture. It’s obvious that Southwest strives to be fun and family-oriented and uses exciting ways to engage customers and attract interest. We had a hard time trying to think of any suggestions of how the company could improve with their use of social media. The one thing we noticed was that their Facebook page states that they will not address customer concerns on that page. It directs them to the company’s blog or to an 800 number. It seems like a real missed opportunity there. Some of their customers may only use Facebook, not the other media platforms, and would prefer to post questions and concerns there. Also, it was difficult to find any criticisms or negative publicity about the company anywhere. This of course is good if there isn’t anything for customers to complain about. Our concern was that Southwest could possibly be monitoring their sites and removing any negative comments. Otherwise Southwest seems to be doing very well with adapting to changing technology, and their numerous awards and millions of satisfied customers seem to speak to that fact as well.

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Broadening our Horizons

For the past two weeks we listened to presentations given by our classmates. I was surprised that everyone chose a different topic. That just shows how much is involved in the seemingly simple phrase: "Media Convergence". All of the presentations were very insightful and taught me something that I didn't already know.

One of the main presentations that sticks out in my mind was the presentation done on Skype. To be dead honest I have never used Skype, never seen it used, never heard about any of my friends or family using it. I had no idea it was such a widely used technology, and I certainly didn't know that it was free. It was also interesting to learn about all the possible consequences of using Skype. For instance, potentially someone could hack into the system and listen to your conversations, or read all of your instant messages which are automatically stored unless you change the settings. Another thing that I learned was that you can have multiple users on at the same time, I believe it was up to 25! I was under the impression that it was just for two people to talk one-to-one. I can see how this technology would be very beneficial for companies to use for conference calls. Another main benefit that she talked about was the fact that Skype has the ability to connect people who are far away from each other. The example she used in her presentation was a soldier overseas watching his baby be born through the use of Skype. It's so amazing that he was able to do that, and technology made it all possible.

Another one of the presentations that really stuck out to me was the presentation about terrorists using the Internet, entitled "Terror on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube". This was a very interesting topic, and also a frightening one. This presentation discussed the fact that terrorists are using social networking sites to send information to each other about planned attacks and even information about how to build bombs. Terrorists are also using this technology to recruit new members, and to spread the word about their cause in hopes to gain sympathizers. This class really focuses on all the ways that technology is improving our lives and the many positive uses for it. It was valuable for us to hear about the fact that not all uses of technology are positive. As users of technology we must be responsible, and also aware of what we are encountering. If we see something on the Internet that shouldn't be there (i.e. instructions on how to build a bomb) we need to report it. Hopefully the efforts of our government will continue to pay off, and they are keeping a watchful eye on the Internet and these terrorists.

Overall I learned a lot from the presentations given in class, most of which I probably wouldn't have learned about otherwise. Technology is taking over and there are many consequences because of this, both negative and positive. Our class talked about a wide variety of these consequences, however, there are still a huge amount of topics out there that we didn't discuss. It really just showed me how much I have left to learn! A lot of the information was very helpful and applicable in my everyday life, so I'm glad that we did this project.