When I buy products I am very aware of what brand they are from. The brand affects which products I actually like. I know from experimenting with different brands which ones I prefer and which ones are better in my opinion. For example, I don't use any type of toothpaste. I use the Arm & Hammer brand because I feel that it keeps my smile brighter and whiter. Therefore I was aware of these brands in my daily life and I actually enjoyed making note of everything. It's fun to see the variety of brands I use.
I don't think advertising or marketing has affected how I relate to these brands. I actually rarely pay attention to advertisements simply because I avoid a lot of places where these brands are advertised. For example, I don't watch TV or read magazines so that automatically makes me miss out on a lot of advertisement.
I really enjoyed hearing about what types of brands everyone likes in class. Honestly, my favorite brands deal with apparel. Even though I enjoy the Gatorade commercials just as much as JP does, those commercials and brands don't really catch my eye. Even though the advertisements are catchy and quite enjoyable, something about them doesn't persude me to buy them. However, apparel is whole different story.
I used to want to be a fashion designer so maybe this is where my love of good designers come from. I see celebrities wearing designers like Gucci, Coach, Dolce & Gobana, etc. and the way they wear them really appeals to me. These designers present something new to the table that a lot of people haven't seen before. I really feel like their advertisements are the people that wear them.
Even though I recognize that celebrities are regular people, it's something about knowing that they like/wear the same brands I do that makes me want to buy them. When I buy things from these designers, I'm buying them for the quality, but also because of the brand recognition. For some reason, it just seems that brand recognition plays a bigger and bigger part in your social status as time goes on. Even though Moore makes a good point about how brands affecting society like this can be bad, I don't feel uncomfortable with loving these brands. I buy these brands for the quality, because I know there is not an overabundance in quantity. The fact that not everyone has these brands makes me feel as if I am paying for a better product and in most cases, I think I am.
In my opinion, I think that Buzz Firm Marketing is a good thing. For one, it allows companies to grow and expand. Brands only truly become brands after they build a reputation and are recognizable. It is great that companies that once were little can grow and expand to be so well known. Another thing is that is that Buzz Firm Marketing helps spread the word about good products. Usually, you don't hear people talking and spreading good news about a product that is actually terrible. Buzz Firm Marketing allows people to spread the good news about a brand so that others can enjoy it. Good products in general, deserve to be heard about and properly circulated around a community/population.
On Monday, my group presented on Henry Jenkin’s “Introduction: Worship at the Altar of Convergence”. This has been one of my favorite readings during the course because it is so different from the rest of the material we have covered. The other readings have heavily dealt with copyrights and free software. This reading introduced me to the idea of media convergence.
Jenkins defines media convergence as the flow of the same content across different means/mediums of media. At the end of our presentation, it was asked whether or not the class thought media convergence was more threatening for consumers or companies. Now I would like to take the time to express my personal opinion on this question.
Media convergence is more threatening for companies. With media convergence comes a lot of competition for companies to stay up to date. While it is true that some companies must cooperate with each other so that media convergence can occur, several companies are also competing against each other. Even though a lot of consumers own devices that do the same thing, a lot of these devices come from different companies. It is hard for a lot of companies to thrive if they don’t participate in media convergence. Most people agree that they like the effects of media convergence. For example, I don’t want a simple cell phone and most people like that their cell phones aren’t simple either. Life for me has become so much easier with the help of media convergence. If a company decides not to ride the media convergence wave, then they are in danger of falling behind and losing a lot of consumers. Also, in the race for companies to collaborate with one another and produce products quickly for their consumers, companies are at the risk of being left behind once monopolies form. Even though monopolies are bad for consumers because they cause consumers not to have options and prices can get very expensive, they are also bad for companies because several companies can simply vanish because they couldn’t keep up. This in itself has many negative consequences.
Let’s take a look at all the way media convergence helps the consumer. Media convergence allows consumers to have a wide range of convenience available to them. Instead of buying multiple devices, media convergence allows consumers to have a few devices that do everything they need. Most consumers prefer having a few devices that contain multiple devices. This way, they don’t have to spend an extreme amount of money to buy things separately and it is easier to keep up with their devices.
As a consumer, I enjoy being an active participant in media convergence. I love the fact that I can get the same information from different sources. I also like the fact that even though I don’t get the highest quality devices, I get all the devices I need at a relatively fair price.
In "Technology and Below-the-Line Labor in the Copyfight over Intellectual Property", by Andrew Ross, there is a debate on who should own a copyright. Ross discusses whether or not the companies or the workers should own the rights to intellectual properties.
Although I can see how the argument for either side can be made, I make an argument for the companies. In reality, copyrights are a very complicated thing. I think that a regular person is more concerned with the profit made from a copyright instead of the actual copyright. It seems to me that dealing with all the responsibility that comes with a copyright might be too much for a person.
When companies get copyrights in their name, they become responsible for that intellectual property.It makes sense that a large group of people will know what to do with whatever intellectual property is being copyrighted over one person.More ideas can go into refining the intellectual property and more experience will be valuable to protecting the copyright and knowing how to handle it properly. Although workers should have some say in what they create, their work is probably safer in the company’s hands. The worker’s ideas have a chance to be advertised properly. Without the company, it is possible that the worker’s ideas would never even reach the public. Even though it seems unfair, this is simply how things work. A lot of times, workers should be grateful that companies even have enough faith in their work to expose it to the public and put their name behind it. A good name and support system behind an idea is sometimes all it takes to make an idea successful.
One day I might be in a position where a company is trying to own the rights to an idea that I came up with.As a future computer engineer, I am looking forward to working for a highly successful and established company. In doing so, I realize that if I happen to produce some helpful and important intellectual property and present it to the company, I will not be the one that gets the fame for it. The company’s name will go behind the idea. I am perfectly fine with this because this is my job and this is what I am being paid to do. As long as I get my money at the end of the day and get the satisfaction of doing my job extremely well, then I will be fine. I’m not becoming a computer engineer to get famous for my ideas. I’m becoming a computer engineer because this is something I want to genuinely do with my life. I can only assume that many other workers feel the same way.
Hello everyone! My name is Ivory A. Technically I am from Conway, Arkansas. However, I do all of my daily activities and socializing in Little Rock, Arkansas so that's usually the city that I represent. I am a computer engineering major and plan to get my Bachelor's and Master's from Georgia Tech. I plan to become a member of the African American Student Union and the National Society of Black Engineers.
My most interesting interaction with Wikipedia was a "Wikipedia Race". I guess it's something that people only do when they're extremely bored, but it can actually be quite fun. The point of the game is to get two people to start on the same Wikipedia article and see who manages to get to a chosen Wikipedia article first by only clicking links within articles. For example, if the two players decide that they are going to start on the Wikipedia article "Microwaves" and end on the Wikipedia article "Banana", then they would first click on a link inside of "Microwaves" that would put them on the track to end up at the article "Banana". The game might sound a little weird and silly, but it’s really competitive and challenging. You’d be surprised at how hard it is to get from one page to another by only using links and how much you would actually have to think about what links you need to click on to connect the two ideas. Even though the ideas might seem closely related, the path between is probably long because of the abundance and assortment of Wikipedia articles. The links won’t be as easy as “Microwaves” to “Food”, “Food” to “Fruits”, “Fruits” to “Banana”. Just in case you were wondering what path I took to get from “Microwave” to “Banana”, the links are from “Microwave” to “Protein”, “Protein” to “Egg white”, “Egg white” to “Cooking”, “Cooking” to “Food”, “Food” to “Fruit”, and finally “Fruit” to “Banana”. So whenever you have some free time, you should definitely have a “Wikipedia Race” with your friend and you might even want to try and find another path from “Microwave” to “Banana”. It took me 2 minutes to do my “Wikipedia Race”. How long will it take you to do yours?
