Computer Support Blog

Facebook versus Google Plus – which side are you on? It is the battle for the future of social networking and the outcome will decide the direction the Internet takes in the coming years. Google+ is still a relatively new social networking site, having only been launched last year, but it shows promise.

Some of the most basic features of Google+ were applauded by the public when first introduced. Facebook did its best to integrate similar features within its own site, but the features on Google+ are far more seamlessly incorporated. These features include the circles, hangouts, and making Google+ part of all other Google websites.

Google+ allows you to easily group your friends the way we do in real life with the circles feature. The best thing about this feature is that no one else knows in which group you have put him or her. The hangouts are the video chat feature for Google+ and this feature allows people to chat with everyone in one of their circles all at the same time.

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Online gaming has taken a few major turns in recent years, especially in terms of type of players and company business models. Until recently, most games on the Internet were for hardcore gamers. Now, anyone can find a game online that he or she will enjoy playing.

Social networking games have created a window into the gaming world for casual players by creating thousands of games that are free and very easy to play. These games come with a revolutionary business model that other types of games are slowly adopting.

Massively Multiplayer Online games, known as MMOs, are a type of game in which players from all over the world can play the game together in an online world. MMOs can be any type of game, but Role Playing Games (or RPGs) are the most popular. These MMORPGs, like the well-known World of Warcraft game, are beginning to change.

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If you play games on Facebook, you know about Farmville. No matter your opinion on the game itself, there is no denying that Farmville is a huge success. As is Zynga, the company that created Farmville.

Zynga currently has four of the past year’s top ten games on Facebook, according to Gameinformer. These games, of which Farmville was not one, were ranked based on how highly players recommended the games.

Zynga’s Farmville remains a very popular game, even if it did not make that list. How and why is it so popular? Why do people play a game where they have to run a farm? How does Zynga make money from these free Facebook games?

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All throughout school, your English teacher taught you the correct spellings of words, how to formulate proper sentences, and the difference between a colon and a semi-colon. Then, you bought a computer and a cell phone for your children. Suddenly, you cannot understand a word of the text messages they send you.

With the rise of the Internet and text messaging, the way people communicate has changed. The young people who have grown up using these written methods of instant communication needed an faster way of typing their messages, so they developed what is known as ‘text speak’.

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Between work, school, afterschool activities, other responsibilities, and trying to have a social life, it can be easy to forget to do your laundry. Laundry tends to pile up and hardly ever get done, at least in most households, but what if there was an easy way to do your laundry while concentrating on other tasks?

The Samsung announced its new WF475 washer and dryer set at the Consumer Electronics Show this January, which feature integrated Wi-Fi. Along with the now-standard touch screen settings display, your washer and dryer will be able to connect to the Internet.

This built in Wi-Fi capability will allow users to activate the washer and dryer with a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. With this ability to remotely activate the system, if you forgot to turn on the washer before you left the house you can do so whenever you remember, wherever you are. You will be able to start and stop the cycles, change settings, and remotely monitor your laundry by using the SmartHome app.

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Even though YouTube is the largest and most popular video-sharing website, it is not the only one. Vimeo is one alternative for independent filmmakers. Vimeo has gained a large following but it will never be as big as YouTube because it limits the content on the site to videos that the users have made themselves.

The site is popular with musicians and independent filmmakers because it is an easy way to highlight their talents in a community of like-minded people. Users get good exposure on the site when they post their own videos. Many hope to use Vimeo as a springboard for their careers in film or music.

Vimeo announced that it would be completely redesigning its website soon. The video hosting site wants to make the experience it provides better than ever before and more easy to use. Probably the most noticeable change will be a larger video player covering most of the width of the page. Users will also discover new ways for them to share their unique content, easier navigation around the site, and more privacy features.

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The music industry, which has spent the decade since they effectively sued Napster out of business, has watched their market shrink for years.  The business leaders within the music industry blamed digital downloads of music, specifically pirated downloads, for the steady decline in revenues.  But 2011 showed some interesting trends in the music industry which suggests that the executives may have simply been grossly impatient with their emerging market.

In 2011, for the first time ever, digital music sales grossed more money for the music industry than physical media (compact discs) did.  While the music industry claimed that digital music would outstrip physical media sales back when Napster was in operation, the decade between its demise and the reaching of this milestone suggests that the music industry did not know how to effectively exploit the new medium and sales path.  After all, if pirating music had been the sole problem with the music industry making money off digital downloads, as soon as Napster was shuttered and iTunes started selling digital downloads, the music industry would have met their goal of selling more digital downloads than physical discs.

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Social networks come and go; that is rapidly becoming one of the realities of the Internet.  What is fascinating to see is how the different social networks attempt to appeal to different niches, whether they try to make their appeal from the interface device or to a target demographic.  LinkedIn appeals to professionals, Facebook appeals to friends with shared interests, Twitter appeals to cellphone users who are on the go; each social network has a niche.  Until now, no social network has been built around the sudden prevalence of video technology on smartphones.  That changes with the emergence of Viddy!

Viddy is most analogous to Twitter in that it is a social network built on very short communications.  Like Twitter, Viddy appeals strongly to the smartphone users who love to stay connected and share material through their smartphones.  As a more sophisticated way of social networking, Viddy uses videos as a platform for its network!

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For companies in the technology sector, having a sense of the marketplace and the potentials of both your company and the consumers you service is essentials.  This means having corporate executives who are strategic thinkers.  The ideal corporate officer for the tech market must balance a sense of pragmatism and vision for multiple product releases and market scenarios.  Arguably, the person most responsible for anticipating the needs of the company and executing the plans that adapt the company to changing market conditions is the head of Strategic Planning and Operations.  For Autodesk, that person is Moonhie Chin.

Moonhie Chin is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and Operations for Autodesk, a software company that primarily makes animation and art software.  Chin is a powerful executive who has been working for Autodesk since 1989.  As the Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and Operations, Moonhie Chin is responsible for leading the team that keeps Autodesk competitive around the world.  If falls to her to allocate the infrastructure of Autodesk – in materials and personnel – to determine what products the company will release and when they will be available on the market.  In her role of Senior Vice President, Moonhie Chin must not only be aware of the demands on the supply chain at Autodesk to ensure they manufacture their products in a timely fashion, but the forthcoming products by competitors as well.  Chin has to anticipate the consumer and corporate trends to position Autodesk for success.  Given that Autodesk has been steadily growing, with increasingly more popular products, since Moonhie Chin took over as Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and Operations, she is clearly doing the job right!

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The idea of play is an ancient one, so it is a pretty ambitious goal to reinvent the wheel on toys.  In fact, given the billions of dollars that are spent each year producing, developing, transporting and marketing toys, the idea of trying to completely reinvent the marketplace is an audacious one.  When the casual concept for such an idea turns into a viable business unexpectedly, sometimes the innovators themselves are surprised.  That is exactly what happened with Outfit 7 and Samo Login.

Samo Login is the Founder and CEO of Outfit 7, a Slovenian mobile app company.  Outfit 7 is best known for the Talking Tom application, an animated cat that you upload to your smartphone.  The cat repeats phrases you say to it and interacts in a limited digital environment.  Samo Login’s concept for the figure was to create a toy for mobile phone users.  With more than two hundred million Talking Tom apps downloaded, Samo Login’s concept seems to have truly taken off!

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