Computer Support Blog

As Cloud-based streaming services become more prevalent and popular, the major producers of movies, music, and television programming have become more anxious about the new services.  After early Internet sites like Napster gave away their content, major studios got wise (and litigious) and have been more vigorously fighting piracy.  The new strategy that both streaming services and the major studios have begun taking is creating alliances and agreements as Internet companies develop their platform.  That requires the streaming start-ups, or established sites that are looking to diversify into media distribution, to have great lawyers.  For Roku, the manufacturer of streaming media players, the legal team is headed by Kim Funk. Read more »

With so many digital photography services online, it can be very hard for a new, emerging, or revamped service to effectively sell itself to its target demographic.  Digital photographers have a lot of choices these days, but with the rapidly changing nature of the Internet, recently several online photo editors and storage sites have been shut down, while new ones have sprouted up.  Making your online digital photo service seem fresh, new, and vital can be as much a marketing challenge as it is an issue of programming your service the right way.  For Shutterfly, the challenge of marketing the website and its many services falls to Katelyn Watson. Read more »

Virtually anyone with a real talent not directly related to their field of employment who has friends will be told “you should do that professionally!”  While friends mean well by such compliments, they seldom realize that starting a business is a huge task, often involves a skill set entirely different from the skill or product that their friends love, and they are asking their friend to take something they love doing and become dependent upon it for income.  Very few people have the wherewithal to go through with such an endeavor.  However, Julie Degnan not only made a business out of her hobby, she had all the business skills to make it a success! Read more »

Style and fashion can be a tough sell using the Internet.  The Internet is great for presenting images of cutting-edge styles and connecting users to sales points, but many style shoppers have discovered that products hardly seem as glamorous as the digitally touched-up images they saw online make them look.  Fashion shoppers frequently find that colors are not as precisely rendered on their computer monitors, resulting in negative shopping experiences that can leave them out of the current trend.  But one woman has found a very effective way to synergize online shopping, social networks and the in-person shopping experience.  That business visionary is Jessica Herrin! Read more »

This year will see some exciting new sites and developments on the Internet and in the world of mobile computing.  As Microsoft prepares to return to the tablet computer market, Apple leaks rumors of its iPhone 5 and the giants of technology sue one another repeatedly over alleged patent violations, many exciting new start-ups are readying for public launch.  One of the applications that is generating a great deal of buzz already is Vizify, a service that will cull your social networking information to allow you to create an uber-profile that puts the best of you at the forefront of the Internet.  Vizify is nearing completion and taking it the last steps to launch is what Eli Tucker is entirely focused on these days! Read more »

Good ideas are only executed as viable business endeavors when the founder of a start-up assembles a team that can make that vision become a reality.  Recently, Vivian Rosenthal won a Next Generation Award for being one of the top five female leaders in the tech industry as honored by L’Oreal.  Rosenthal won her award for founding and managing GoldRun, a website that allows users to place images of real world people and objects into a digital setting based on GPS technology.  The ambitious project has allowed users and advertisers to interact in exciting new ways.  Rosenthal’s vision created GoldRun, but people like Tiffany Grace Ng built and maintain it! Read more »

With the media world moving more from an industry that is based in the physical world to one that is digital, there are very few businesses that remain unaffected.  One of the industries that is experiencing significant shifts in the way it creates and manufactures products is the greeting card industry.  Facing stiff competition from online card companies, traditional greeting card companies like Hallmark Cards are forced to innovate.  Hallmark Cards may have been in a better position to compete, as it had built its brand name into an award-winning multimedia company (with the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies) well before online card companies became a viable threat to their bottom line.  Even now, Hallmark has less to be concerned about because it has Paul Barker. Read more »

The relationship between media – movies, music, and television – continues to get closer and closer.  In fact, one of the most significant channels with which to promote new movies or programs is the Internet.  The Internet has numerous sites that act as repositories for clips, news, and historical archives for film, television, and music.  One of the most prominent sites for cinephiles is the Internet Movie Database, but for those who are much more interested in critiques and analysis, Rotten Tomatoes has rapidly grown into one of the coolest sites on the Internet. Read more »

Security is a concern in the tech sector that only continues to grow.  The growth of security services pertaining to computers, smartphones and mobile computing devices is not a reflection on the industry’s unwillingness to adapt; technology continues to change at such a fast rate and hackers continue to adapt as well, necessitating an almost-constant development of new security-related products and services.  While many computers have been protected by the most robust anti-viral software ever created, as hackers take on smartphones and mobile computing devices, many of the major software developers have been slow to react.  Instead, consumers are discovering the benefits of mobile computing protection software, like Reliaty55. Read more »

Strategic partnerships are, largely, built upon the needs of groups, companies, or individuals at the time the partnership is made.  As is frequent in the business world and tech sector, times change and the needs of companies in both fields are dramatically altered.  As a result, strategic alliances between tech companies and prominent businesses are occasionally dissolved.  One of the latest partnerships to call it quits is the alliance between Microsoft and NBC which resulted in the MSNBC news channel and website. Read more »