Week 4 EOC: There's an App For That

The idea of my app would be where you can upload a photo of yours from your phone and there would be some type of generator to add a small description to it. The caption would attempt to relate to the photo as much as possible. It would also try to sound clever and be funny. It would mainly be used for humorous purposes and the photo would be uploaded to the database of the app. You would be able to create account or just use your Facebook or Twitter account and upload your photos to your account. Other users of the app can like and comment on your photo while taking into thought whether the caption fits the photo and if it was clever enough to help justify their like. There would also be a “top caption” of the day and photos will be organized into categories depending on what the photo is, such as animals, cars, food, people, and so on. It would be just like a social networking site but with humorous theme to it.

After doing some research, most of my results were apps that would allow you to add the caption to the photo yourself so I was feeling better about coming up with an original idea for an app. Just when I was just about to conclude that no app exists… it does. The app called “Frank Says What?” does exactly what I had described. The caption generator is named Frank and he is the one that adds a caption to your photos. Some of the examples that I saw were very surprising, seeing how clever this generator, or Frank can be. One feature that I did not mention in my original idea was that you can share your Frank-captioned photo on Facebook or Twitter instead of on the app itself. It’s a great app and definitely funny. I can see this app catching on.

Week 3 EOC: Making Money for Good

The American Red Cross is a non-profit organization that responds to about 70,000 disasters in the United States every year, ranging from home fires that affect a single family to hurricanes that affects tens of thousands, to earthquakes that impact millions. In these events, the Red Cross provides shelter, food, health, and mental health services to help families and entire communities get back onto their feet. Although the Red Cross is not a government agency, it is an essential part of the response when disaster strikes. They work in partnership with other agencies and organizations that provide services to disaster victims. The Red Cross helps military members, veterans and their families as well, to help them prepare for, cope with, and respond to the challenges of military service. Emergency communications, training, support to wounded warriors and veterans, and access to community resources help an average of 150,000 military families and veterans annually. The Red Cross is also the nation’s leading provider of health and safety courses including CPR, first aid and lifeguard training. Each year, more than nine million Americans participate in training programs such as first responders, educators, babysitters, and people who want to be prepared to help others in an emergency. Lastly, the American Red Cross is part of the world’s largest humanitarian network with thirteen million volunteers in 187 countries. The help respond to disasters, build safer communities, and educate future humanitarians. Each year, the Red Cross helped reach an average of more than one hundred million people across the globe.

The Red Cross was even chartered by the United States Congress to "carry on a system of national and international relief in time of peace and apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence, famine, fire, floods, and other great national calamities, and to devise and carry on measures for preventing the same." The Charter is unique to the Red Cross because it assigns duties and obligations to the nation, to disaster survivors, and to the people who generously support our work through donations.

Week 3 EOC: My Demographics

The first part that I read about the Millenials, the demographic that I had been born into, was that they are described as fluent and comfortable with digital technology. We are also described to have been shaped by technology. This is most definitely true for me because I really cannot comprehend how life used to be like without the help of computers. I think that I am so fluent with digital technology is that I do not even bother to watch TV so often when I know that I get use the Internet to find what I want to watch and even find out the scheduling of programs. The first think that I do when I wake up in the morning is to check my phone for messages (I even use my phone as an alarm clock). Second, I turn on my computer and walk off to the bathroom until it has finishing booting up. Then I log into my Tumblr account and go from there. When I am bored with that I turn on my Xbox console and play some online multiplayer.

What I also read was about how seventy-two percent of Millenials also use online social networking. The other twenty-eight percent is the percentage that I fall into. I am not so much of a social butterfly and I have had no use to Facebook or Twitter. However, I do get my social fix by making online friends at websites such as Tumblr and Microsoft’s online multiplayer Xbox LIVE. Other than that, I do not exist anywhere else on the internet. I am very comfortable with using the internet and always refer to it if I need to. To quote the book, a Yahoo! Executive mentioned, “It’s not something separate. It’s just something they do.”

Week 1 EOC: Great Customer Service

I cannot exactly recall a time where I had experienced great customer service.  I am not saying that all the customer service that I have had were terrible, but because I did not have much need of it. As a customer, I just like walking inside the store, quickly grab whatever I need, proceed through the checkout and go on with my day. So I guess closest I ever had with great customer services was in one year on the day after Black Friday. The night before, my sister and I decided to do our Black Friday shopping at Target. We figured that nearly every item in the store had some sort of percentage off from the original price so we grabbed whatever we wanted. One of the things we bought was a hand mixer. We didn’t bother checking the price being it was Black Friday night. It was until the next day we were looking over our receipts from Target and my sister had noticed that the hand mixer probably was not on sale or at least not as much for our satisfaction. The hand mixer was sixty dollars and we both knew that no hand mixer is worth that much. Later on, we returned to Target with the brand new hand mixer for a refund. The woman at the customer service desk ask for the receipt of the item and want to know how we wanted our money returned to us, either in cash or have it placed back onto the card since it was originally paid with debit. It was that easy and that fast. There was no one in line so were probably there for about literally thirty seconds. I now feel comfortable about returning to Target if I ever have to bring back something for a refund with no hassle. Target has a quick and great return policy that I appreciate as a customer. 

Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

I think other factors, besides consumers not wanting to purchase $60 games, should be considered in the reason why video game sales have been dropping. Besides consumers keeping a close eye onto their bank accounts, current events have been taking a toll on why video game sales have been going down.  After the shooting at Sandy Hook, there has been a nationwide spread to push for gun control. Violent video games have been taking the blame for the shooting, resulting in many families declining any further purchases on video games especially the ones with first-person shooting.  “The news came amid a nationwide push to reduce gun violence, which many are connecting to violent video games and movies. Vice President Joe Biden leads a task force on policy proposals and has promised to send ideas to Obama…” (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/01/11/december-video-game-retail-sales-drop-22-percent/)Another reason is due to the video game industry switching from physical hardware to digital. Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE online service offers digital download for many Xbox titles. "Although we believe that the ongoing transition from the physical to the digital platform will ultimately benefit the video game industry (due to the cost effectiveness), low priced digital games have failed to offset the rapid decline of high-priced retail sales in recent times."(http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dismal-video-game-sales-2012-161853534.html). These downloads still priced at the usual $60 and are now in competition with the mobile gaming platform, where most of those downloads you can find for $5 or less and sometimes even for free. Lastly, another factor that makes a play in the video game industry’s decline in sales is the lack of titles.  The top-selling game for 2012 was Activision’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.” Military first-person shooter games have one of the most popular genres for the past four years. Other popular titles were Halo 4, Assassin’s Creed III, and Madden NFL 13. It is likely that gamer’s saved up their money just for the purchase of these popular franchises, meaning other titles released in 2012 like Dishonored, Borderlands 2, and Mass Effect 3, fell short. "Gamers reserved the bulk of their retail dollars for these popular titles, which they were likely to play for dozens or even hundreds of hours online with friends."(http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/10/business/la-fi-ct-video-games-sales-20130111)

Week 1 EOC: My Voice

A musician is obviously acknowledged through the music they create. But sometimes a musician has an image to portray and keep up with. Photography maybe the only way to support a musician’s image be shown to the world. My name is Kylie Cameron and I am very active in the rock and roll community, more specifically the heavy metal scene. I started off as an experimental photographer venturing through many types of photography, from landscapes to simple photos of objects, and even architectural. After trial-and-error, I combined two of the most important elements of my life together, those being music and photography, and setting my main focus of photography in the music industry: to capture heavy metal musicians in their moment while performing it live. Some of my best moments I have experienced were attending concerts and watching my favorite music artists perform directly in front of my eyes. Now I love to have those great moments as a big part of my career. I would also love to have my works published mostly for those who wish they could have been there. While I’m not creating music photography, I also like to do portraits and landscapes.