Going Places?

In terms of making life a little bit easier for people, MapQuest is probably at the top of the list of inventions. Before things like MapQuest and even more recently Portable GPS Systems, people relied on an address and a sense of direction. I personally could not have survived, I still have difficult times even with the advances that MapQuest and such have been able to provide. The detailed directions and specific road/street labeling on the directions make it so that it is almost"idiot proof." MapQuest the company was founded in 1967 as Cartographic Services and in 1999 the company was renamed to MapQuest to leverage the popularity of it's online brand. In 2000 MapQuest was acquired by America Online, Inc. (11).

Many of you reading this are well aware of the basic functions of MapQuest and probably have used it plenty of times. For those of you who haven't, here is what MapQuest is designed to do. MapQuest is an online service that provides you with Maps, Directions, Yellow Pages, Local, or Gas Prices (10). When on the initial MapQuest Screen, you are given three options to choose from: Maps, Directions, and What's New. All three of these options are self explanatory. Maps requires you to type in an address or a business name and then provides you with a map of the surrounding area. Directions requires you to type a starting and ending location by providing the website with again either a business name or address. What's New is a 360 view that provides panoramic views (360° horizontally and 160° vertically) of any given image within the 360 View coverage area. After typing in the desired location and depending on which of the three options you choose, an answer to your problem will be provided. If you desired directions, the next screen will provide you with step by step driving directions and exactly how far (distance and time wise) the trip will take you. It also shows an eagle eye view of the area you are traveling to.

As mentioned in an earlier post, there are several applications Smartphones can have. Mapquest is another one of those helpful applications, designed to make your life and traveling easier!

Below are two of the different screen shots that MapQuest provides the user with in order to make life easier...




















peace, love & go noles!


WORD COUNT: 372

SOURCES:

(10) http://www.mapquest.com/

(11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapquest

PICTURES:

http://www.digitalearthblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/mapquest-beta.jpeg

http://www.oreillynet.com/users/files/5477/mapquest.jpg

You've got the whole world in your hands...

Whether it's a BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm Pre, or HTC Touch Smartphone, you literally have the whole world in your hand. By Wikipedia's definition, a Smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality (8). These phones have been designed to do virtually anything that a computer would let you do. Check your emails? Of course, you get your email set up directly to your phone and receive notifications when you receive them. Need to surf the web? All these phones are internet capable and web accessible. Surfing the web is as easy as it would be on any computer or lap top, its simply a smaller keypad and viewing screen. Can a smart phone take a picture or record a video? Most Smartphones have better picture taking qualities than simple style phones. When viewing pictures that the iPhone takes, they look as if they are the same quality of a digital camera! Of course these Smartphones allow you to do all the same functions that a normal phone is capable of doing. Making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving texts, etc. It's all possible with a Smartphone!

The only downfall to these amazing miniature computer/cellular phones is the price that comes with them. The first price you must pay is the one associated with your actual phone plan. Normally that includes the allotted minutes allowed per month, text messages to be sent/received, data packages, etc. The second charge is for the internet usage fee. My phone provider is Verizon Wireless and my BlackBerry Curve requires a $29.99 monthly fee for unlimited internet and such.

Smartphones began much earlier than the average person knows about or probably remembers. The first ever Smartphone was created in 1994 by IBM and distributed by BellSouth. It was called "Simon." Simon's features include a sensitive screen instead of the usual telephone keyboard, integrated PIM applications, and data communication features. Simon's built-in applications were complete telephone abilities, phone directory, mail (not i
nternet compliant), calculator, calender, fax, note pad, file manager, sketch pad, to do list, etc. Simon's competitors included the Sony Magic Link with a display screen twice the size of Simon, Nokia 9210, and the Sharp MCG-1 (9). You can see from the pictures of now outdated but then innovative 1994 Smartphones and the updated and current Smartphones just how far the technology world has really come.















peace, love & go noles!

WORD COUNT: 407

SOURCES:

(8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphones

(9) http://cdecas.free.fr/computers/pocket/simon.php

PICTURES:

http://cdecas.free.fr/computers/pocket/simon.php

Paperless Bill Paying

Another daily task that has been made much easier for the consumer is bill pay. Within the last decade, consumers have now become able to make bill payments via the internet. I personally utilize this tool whenever a company gives me the option to do so. When doing my online banking with Bank of America, I recently switched to online bill pay and now receive all statements via the internet. I then can transfer funds, pay off credit cards, and take care of other various bills all within the comfort of my home. There are many incentives as to why one would want to use this method.


Online bill pay is environmentally friendly. Through the use of the internet, you would no longer receive paper statements or have to send paper statements, a check, and envelope back to the company. By saving paper we are saving trees and by saving trees we are helping our ecosystem and environment. Two companies that coordinate the receipt of all bills and present them to you for online bill paying are PayTrust and XPress Bill Pay (7). Companies like these eliminate the waste and the wait; waste of paper and the wait of receiving and sending the bill.

Two other incentives are the convenience and cost savings that accompany online bill pay. "Electronic bill presentment and payment via the Internet is one of the fastest-growing areas in business," "With more than 63 billion checks written annually where 80 percent is some sort of bill payment--either business-to-business or consumer-to business--substantial cash-management benefits and customer-service opportunities exist for those who use interactive billing and payment,” said Nick Rini, columnist for Telephony (7). Online bill pay allows companies to get paid faster by eliminating the preparation time for getting the bills ready to send out in the mail. Rini estimated that in the United States alone, companies could save $200 million collectively each day if they utilized online billing (7). That would save 73,000,000,000.00 a year. Imagine what could be done with all the money that is saved, the options are endless.


Obviously something as big as this would take time to get every company on board with paperless bill pay. Is it impossible? Of course not. Will it be a difficult task? Perhaps. But sometimes the most difficult things to come by end up being the most useful and beneficial. As the world continues to become more computer and technology savvy, I believe that the opportunities are endless and for every problem we face, there is an answer somewhere waiting to be discovered. For the waste of mailing bill pay, paperless (online) bill pay could in fact be the solution to our problems.

peace, love & go noles!

WORD COUNT: 455

SOURCES:

(7) http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/online_bill_pay.htm

PICTURES:

http://www.bowaterecu.org/flash_logos/online%20bill%20pay%20is%20here%20copy.jpg

http://www.treehugger.com/payitgreen-homepage.jpg


http://www.cbexpress.com/images/onlineBillPay.jpg

The Convenience of Online Jobs...

Everyone wants to make their life easier in whatever way possible. Within the last decade, online jobs have become increasingly more popular. Online jobs are appealing to many people because of the ease that they put on their everyday tasks and life. For example, a single mother might find this job path appealing because it allows her to make an income without having to leave her children at home by themselves or with a babysitter. It allows you to multitask effeciently and keep your priorities inline. Listed below are the top ten reasons why people work from home taken from Buzzle.com (written by Dan Young) and of course condensed for blog purposes (in no particular numerical order): 1. Don't want to commute to work. 2. Spend more time with their family. 3. Hate their bosses/managers/etc. 4. They're lazy. 5. An office job decreases the time allowed for their passions, such as sports, knitting, etc. 6. Freedom from wearing a uniform at an in office job. 7. They don't want to feel like someone is watching them while they work. 8. They aren't limited to time breaks for things such as eating, etc. 9. They don't want to deal with obnoxious co-workers. 10. They are able to work for themselves at home (6).

Online jobs consist of doing virtually every aspect of a job via the internet. Employees who have an online job receive and send e-mails to co-workers when they need to be in contact or send their work to each others and they can also communicate through video messaging or online voice conference calls. By implementing this strategy of online conferencing, it can save the company a large sum of money. In 2009 the movie Up in the Air was released, starring George Clooney. The movie is about a man whose job consists of his traveling for a better part of the year and his position is to fire people from various companies. In order to save money, George Clooney's company decides to use this innovative strategy and start doing the firing via the internet in order to save money (not having to pay for plane tickets, hotel rooms, etc). Although this method is less personal as you are staring at a computer screen with a persons face on it with whom you are in contact with, it is quite convenient. It saves the company time and money and allows its employees a chance to be with their family more seeing as they are not constantly traveling. This movie is an awesome example of how video conferencing can be implemented and used within a company.

as always, peace love and go noles!

WORD COUNT: 459

SOURCES:

(6) http://www.buzzle.com/articles/ten-reasons-why-people-work-from-home.html

PICTURES:

http://images.google.com/imagesum=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:1&q=online+jobs&sa=N&start=18&ndsp=18

http://i.ehow.com/images/a04/h7/no/transition-day-job-work-home-800X800.jpg

Applying for Jobs Online....

Part of the purpose of the internet is to make information readily available to users. Part of the information made available is making available jobs easily known to perspective employees. 52 million Americans have used the internet to search for a job. Which is a 60 % increase in the amount of people who have used the internet for job related searches since March 2000. This data was in comparison to data from July 31, 2002. (4) There is no doubt that these statistics have changed, whether in an increase or decline, but the main idea behind this is that using the internet is a means for effective job searching. Using statistics from the same website, I found that the cost per hire (CPH) is also much cheaper when using the internet. The average CPH from an internet recruiting strategy was $377. The average CPH from a major metro newspaper was $3295 (4). Obviously you can see that here is a significant amount of money saved by the employer.

The internet was adopted by people much more quickly than any other broadcast media. It took the internet 5 years to reach 50 million people where as it took television 38 years and radio 13 years. According to the statistics from 2002, 77% of internet users who are actively seeking a job use the internet to do so (4).

There are many sites that offer innumerable employer listings of possible jobs and during this time of recession there is no better time for job listing websites to get the most use. Listed below are the top 5 search engines used to find jobs in the United States according to page views: 1. Indeed with 171 million views 2. Careerbuilder with 159 million views 3. Hotjobs with 96 million views 4. Monster with 73 million views and 5. SimplyHired with 26 million views (5).

I know from personal experiences the ease of using the internet to apply for jobs. Personally I've used the search enginge Craigslist.org to search for possible jobs. With this particular site, you are able to localize the job search according to your location or a favorable location (done by state and then city). One the location has been selected, you can narrow down the job search by picking which field of jobs you desire. A few of the offered categories are accounting and finance, administraton/office, education, food/beverage/hospitality, general labor, real estate, security, tv/film/video, etc. The next page shows all of the available posted jobs listed in order of most recent to least recent. The listing usually includes a detailed description of requirements they seek in the employee, what the employees new position would entail, the jobs schedule (for example, 8am-5pm Monday through Friday), and at the discretion of the employer, pay wages. If the description fits what you have to offer and what you desire in a job, you would email the employer whatever they request (generally a resume) and they will get back to you if they want to schedule an interview. This method of job searching makes it much easier of the employer and perspective employee, allowing each person to either receive or submit multiple applications without having to physically go to each place.

I am sure that there has been a significant decline in the use of internet job searching recently. However, I do not believe this is due to the ineffectiveness of internet searching. This is largely due to the recession we are currently in and the unavailability of jobs everywhere. The less jobs there are, the less internet searchings that are available to people...

until next time, peace love and go noles =)

WORD COUNT: 614

SOURCES:

(4) http://www.recruitersnetwork.com/poll/stats.htm

(5) http://techcrunchies.com/largest-job-search-engines-in-us-by-pageviews/

PICTURES:

http://www.indiaactive.com/home/images/stories/online_job_search.jpg

Online Shopping

Online shopping is the process consumers go through to purchase products or services over the internet. It has been predicted that within the next five year, United States online shoppers will double to 132 million (1). By shopping online instead of going to a brick and mortar retailer, it allows you to browse through various stores and sites without leaving the comfort of your home. Online shopping also makes it possible for the consumer to shop at stores that might not be offered locally around them. Online websites/stores such as Amazon.com, Ebay.com, and NewEgg.com offer various new and used products all at the same site.

Pros: Can browse through various products without the congestion and craziness that can be paired with shopping at a store. Many sites offer coupons and money saving incentives that would not be regularly offered in the store. These incentives are designed to draw people into the online shopping world. According to Yahoo! Small Business and Harris Interactive, 90% of holiday shoppers consider free shipping the best incentive (2). Online shopping also saves the consumer money by not having to drive to multiple locations to find the desired product. You can also compare the desired product to other products of similar nature and products offered at different competing stores. The main incentive to online shopping is the ease and simplicity it offers the consumer. There is no shock in the findings that 63% of people who shop online are women (1). I feel that this is probably because in most cases women are the ones who stay at home with the children so online shopping makes it possible for women to multitask by taking care of the children and shopping at the same time. It has also been found that people who children are more likely to shop online than people without children (1). Once again I think this is due to the ease that online shopping provides people, especially those with children.

Cons: When using online shopping as your main means of shopping, you are confronted with some unfavorable differences. First, online shopping does not offer the same immediate gratification of buying a product from a store. You must wait for the product to be delivered, which can sometimes be delayed due to Holidays and back-orders. In addition to waiting for delivery, many companies charge for product delivery. Depending on the company, their choice of delivery method, and different aspects of the product (weight, height, value, etc), delivery prices are based accordingly and can be expensive. Secondly, when shopping online, you are purchasing a tangible object but until you receive it it’s intangible. For example, when buying an article of clothing, you cannot try it on until you actually receive it. If you order a size small t-shirt when in fact you need a size medium t-shirt, you are faced with a huge hassle. You must then go through the process of waiting for the t-shirt delivery, trying it on, sending it back to the store, and then waiting yet again for the different size t-shirt to arrive. This long process has lead to 40% of online shoppers having a lack of satisfaction with the return process (2). Thirdly, when using online shopping you aren't able to receive recommendations from store clerks who could have valuable information for you. 90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know. 70% trust recommendations from unknown users (3). Although both percentages are very high, recommendations from people they know is 20% higher and could possibly lead to more effective shopping). Lastly, many people fear that from shopping online their credit card number and such could be stolen and they could be another case of identity theft. However this is beginning to change. 76% of online shoppers believe that online shopping is becoming safer. Eighteen months earlier it was at 66% so people are starting to not fear the idea of identity theft through online shopping (2).

Online shopping is intended to create a world of ease for the everyday shopper. Some unintentional effects of online shopping is addiction, laziness, and lack of face-to-face communication. In a world where addiction and laziness amongst people seems to keep becoming more of a problem, online shopping could be at the root of it. And if not a causation of these negative characteristics, it could most definitely be accompanied by them.

What are your feelings about online shopping, whether they are good or bad, I'd love to hear them!

Peace, Love, and Go Noles!

WORD COUNT: 781

SOURCES:

(1) http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/net_selling.htm

(2) http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~rls/statistics.index.html

(3) http://www.bazaarvoice.com/resources/stats

PICTURES:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1mTYSLH3dMY67ACY3HXDc1krNmn8b0Qq686JMMMEdJ_t4o0zj-cELIF4aJ48kJSJ1A0bxnpaybeVEsPoD-77tFPFITlDdKzcQ6gcpXs2M2_IK64hT3_SG8zL9xV95F-QoZNEArQqY_8k/s400/online-shopping-cartoon.jpg

http://www.designerclothesonline.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/online-shopping.jpg

Blogging101

Hi! My name is Alexa. I'm a Senior at Florida State University. I graduate this Spring 2010. I'm currently enrolled in a New Communications Technology class and as part of a project we are required to create a blog. This blog will be dedicated to talking about how technology has changed our day to day activities and how we complete our daily tasks. Each entry will consist of a different aspect of technology that has aided in how we complete daily tasks. The diffusion of innovations theory states, “the diffusion-of-innovations approach initially may seem technologically deterministic, but it stresses the ability of people and their cultures to act as influences in the spread of innovations.” (Straubharr & Larose, 2006, p.50) "...society cannot function without without the media and that the media exist to serve the needs of our societies and cultures." (Straubharr & LaRose, 2006, p. 50) In my personal opinion, each of these technological advances I will be discussing were a form of the diffusions of innovations theory that we are now so very dependent upon. Each starting out as some new, foreign idea and ending in a world changing invention that will forever alter our lives. There are two different kinds of people who implement these ideas; early adopters and laggards. "Early adopters are the people who enjoy being first on the block with a new gadget, perceive immediate uses for something new, and are willing to take the risk." (Fidler, pg.14) Laggards are behind on the adoption of new technologies (Straubharr & Larose, 2006). Any kind of comments or input on your feelings of the topics would be greatly appreciated! I've never created a blog so here goes nothing...

At the end of each blog, the WORD COUNT and INFORMATION/PICTURE SOURCES will be provided. Each individual website address will be numbered and only the number will be put into the blog. At the end the number that correlates with the website address is provided for you.

WORD COUNT: 329

SOURCES:

Straubharr, J., LaRose, R., & Davenport, L. (2010). Media now: Understanding media, culture, and technology (6th ed., "Enhanced Sixth Edition"). Belmont, CA:Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

Fidler, R. (1997). Mediamorphosis: Understanding the new media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.