Course Reflection

Time flies:  it seems it was yesterday that I wrote my learning goals for this class, but now, we have already completed our COM 597 course and entered a time for presenting our course reflections!

Needless to say, I have learned much through this interesting class which opened a door for me and led me to a wonderful world that I had never been to. The class intrigued my passion and enthusiasm for mobile phones and mobile apps, which are the things that I had never had much concern for. The whole process of studying has imperceptibly changed my mind about the mobile phone. Although I knew the mobile phone is a significant digital device, I had never realized it could be so functional in people’s daily lives with so many creative and practical apps available out there. Mobile phones have become a multi-used device that it is no longer just a device for solely making phone calls but a powerful medium carrying many possibilities. This class consolidates my thought that mobile phone has much more potential to become the most popular electronic device in the world than computers because of its portable size and affordable price. At least, I believe anyone can find some apps that would be helpful to their lives, making their lives much easier and more enjoyable, and this is why I think Smartphone is so valuable. I am very glad that I will never feel bored when I am waiting in a queue or sitting in the bus, I can do many things via my phone and take full advantage of every fragmented minute of my day. I can not only check email without going to a computer and inputting long user-name and password, use Gowalla to tell friends where I am and what am I doing but also download movies to my phone when I am busy and watch them during leisure time, or maybe just open a small game to play with, as a pastime.

After this class, one thing that I realized is important is to tie your app to reality, which means you’d better find enough data sources and figure out  who your sponsors are before you tap your foot into it. At first, I wrongly thought the app world is a place where you can free your idea and you can make anything you want, however, it isn’t. For example, the idea of class finder is kind of hard to be implemented due to the hardness of gathering data sources, so it’s really important to keep in mind that it is safer to start with something practical and more realistic. It would be better to choose an idea that is in a specific scope and has abundant data available; otherwise, you may build castles in the air and trapped yourself.

To make a successful app is much harder than I had thought after reading through Wooldridge & Schneider’s the business of iPhone App Development. First, it’s not easy to construct an idea that is innovative. When we did our project ideas, I always noticed that there are already a lot of similar apps in existence. With so many smart app developers and collective wisdom out there, it’s hard to have a unique app idea; what’s more, you have to abandon some unrealistic ones and this makes it harder to get a really great idea. Second, even if you have a brilliant idea, there is still a long tough way to go. You won’t want to ruin your idea through a ragged app screen flow and interface design which may incur users’ cognitive friction. In order to ensure a pleasant user experience, it is essential that an app be well-designed. You may out-source a professional designer to do this if you are not comfortable with it. Third, once you have a superb app with a great idea and design, you still cannot stop here and go away. There are tons of marketing& promotion waiting for you to deal with; your app will be inundated by other apps if there is no well-conceived, ready marketing operation. As a result, to make an outstanding app is similar to the process of making a movie or any other cultural production. It’s better to form a team to work on it rather than working alone by yourself because the producing process involves many different aspects of professional knowledge.

In summary, it was beneficial for me to go through the whole mobile app building process via this class. Though I may not go and start a mobile app business right away, I feel much more confident when it comes to the topic of building mobile apps. I know how it works and what the key elements that contribute to making a successful mobile app are. Additionally, I learned the principle of interface design, which would be very supportive for my further studying of design. Thanks to this class, I am now very sensitive to any latest news regarding mobile phones as well as mobile apps and I have cultivated a new hobby: exploring mobile apps!

This is my last class in the MCDM program, I am glad I have completed my graduate school studying though, with a little sentimental emotionally.  The learning experience, which has a significant influence on my view, perspective and interests, has incorporated into my life style unobtrusively and imperceptibly. I appreciate this digital baptism heartily, which refreshed my mind and life path.

The art of pricing

Pricing is an art, it is good to know that low price does not mean a benefit to your app,on the contrary, low price may result in many disadvantages to your app that you may never thought about. The fact is, the lower the price is, the longer time it will take to breakeven your input. Unless you can ensure your app’s ranking above top 100 in the app store, 99 cents is not a wise option to start.

According to the author, apps priced as 99 cents are more likely to have negative customer reviews while higher price level apps are not. That is because the audience of the lower price apps is much broader than the higher one,  many of the the low price app purchases are impulse buys that means some of this buyers do not really wanted this app. Conversely, when people decide to purchase something that higher than 2.99, they are the ones who are really into it and thus may bring more positive reviews. The bottom line is: there is no correlation between more positive reviews and the lower app prices, it is actually not clever to set your app price too low in the purpose of attracting more customers. Apparently, setting a low price at the first launch of your app is not a good choice. As the author points out, “a higher price can give your app a greater perceived value”，it’s beneficial to bear some basic consumer psychology in mind. Besides that, higher price will also offer you with  more space for maneuver, which means it is feasible to cut your app price to boost sales when it at a price of 4.99 cents whilst it is hard to do the discount if the price is already as low as 99 cents.

Alright, it seems setting a reasonable price for your app is something strategic and critical to the success of your app. To begin with,  evaluate your app and have an idea about its real value is very necessary. It is the developer’s homework to do the competitive research, breakeven analysis and define the type of application. If the app does include some strong features that other similar apps do not have, then it is safe to  price it slightly higher without undermining  its sales.

Making an app for iphone is a long process. From the very beginning of brainstorming to the post-production market practicing, each producing step is crucial to the ultimate success of the app. Generally speaking, developers are more inclined to assign more energy for the pre-production part while neglect other equal important part of the whole process. Taking sometime setting a proper price for your app is as vital as coding your app, it should be taken seriously since the power of the price will determine whether your app can make profit or not, and even worse, survive or demise. It is a good reminder that developers should take deep consideration to this point. For the final success of your app and the effort that have been put, it is necessary to pay attention to this step and perfectly accomplish your app project.

A draft application precis

Class Finder

Rationale: As learning is a crucial part in people’s life if they want get a better job or life, people’s needs for learning is increasing and the education market is huge, however, sifting through tons of school information will be time-consuming and exhausting if there is no systematic information platform for people to search. It will be very helpful and ideal if there is a tool that can be leveraged to help people to find perfect classes catering to their specific requirements and needs. Class Finder is such an application that have done all this work for people. It offers comprehensive data base (school information, class schedules,locations,tuition) for people to look up the very information they want. People can search by their locations, time periods to finally locate one class or course.This app is aim to provide a mobile, convenient tool for any learners to find classes , courses or tutors for their specific learning needs and interests. This app includes a wide range of education information for a wide range of audiences. It not only provides degree course information but also offers certificate program information, also, if you are interested in learning a new instrument like flute, guitar or drums, this app is also helpful for you for it provides you with corresponding tutor’s contact information and their students’ reviews.

Audience: There will be no specific age limitations. This app not only designs for students in high school who are preparing to enter a college but also for any people who have the plan to learn something new and need to acquire corresponding class information.

Competing products: College Finder, Campus Finder

These two apps have the similar ideas that help people to find classes through their “career assessment test” , “browse professions” or “special programs”, these search method has no problem and the categories are good, however, the school and class information provided is very scarce and obviously not enough. After i input the zip code, took the “career assessment test” and got several professions that fit me, i tap one of them and it gave me a few list of universities, after i tap one of this universities, i only got two choice: one is to request Info which requires your name, phone number and high school graduation year, the other option is call live advisor. I don’t want to call, so I just submit the information and that’s it. Nothing happens. I am just wondering how and when can i receive their promised “free information”. The only information i got through this app is just a small list of schools, no introduction, description and any other class information were provided. The app’s overall design is not bad, its step by step, clear and obvious,  nevertheless, there was no immediate useful information pop up for the users. What a fatal weakness! In addition, they don’t provide experimental college classes or information like  private tutors. That is also a con to the app due to their weak information data base. In the contrast, Class Finder will provide a very comprehensive class date base to student with In-app class detail information including time,registration information and tuition fees. People can find almost any kind of class as long as they have figured out what to learn.

The dancing bear

It’s quite enjoyable to read through the < Cognitive Friction>, with the authors humorous writing style. It seems that people have been suffering those dancing bear-wares since they entered the information age, but they just don’t realize that they actually have the chance to get much adorable software through better designs and their interaction with them could have been much easier.

As the author points out, many people just “adopt cognitive friction as a lifestyle”, they get fun through overcoming those difficulties, if this is true, it is not hard to explain why our software interface is so suffering but we are still tolerating them, the interaction process with those bearware itself is so enjoyable and why there need a change? Especially when people tend to be the victims of “Stockholm Syndrome” who will appreciate whatever tiny benefit they get, which is such a pertinent metaphor to describe this psychology phenomenon in this context!

I cannot agree more that “ the web is probably the biggest dancing bear we’ve ever faced.” It is not as smart as it could be. I have spent a huge amount of time on waiting for some unavailable links. Software-based products usually can kill my time really relentlessly.For example, in order to download some certain apps to my ipod touch, I have to update its software to the newest ios 4.0.1, the process almost cost me a half day to accomplish it. Maybe part of the slow process is due to my slow internet connectivity and my overloaded computer rather than the problem of software design, but it still cost me some time to figure out how to do it without any instruction, in addition, it also presents another problem that whether it is worthwhile to spend tons of time doing things like this? And what is the opportunity cost you’ve sacrificed during this time? Technology especially information era technology brings up cognitive friction, I am just wondering is that really a bonus to human-being? I would be glad to see if things can be much easier to operate and control in the future with simpler software design and a much faster Internet speed.

Sure, having it better than nothing, that’s why we still appreciate a beer can dance, at least, it danced! Probably, we should expect more and that is fair to us!

Does the term “computer literacy” becomes an euphemism for social and economic apartheid? Maybe that is partly true; however, I have to admit that it is a necessity to master some basic computer skills in the context of this information era, otherwise,you will lag behind the times. It is unrealistic just sitting there and refusing the development of the technology. You should stand up and make some effort in order to get any rewards. No pay, no gain. I think it is kind of reasonable to sacrifice some time and endure some pain if you want gain something. I will definitely feel like guilty if reaping without sowing since the place where we are living is a physical world that obey the rule which gaining is proportional to your paying. I will feel much peaceful if something I have is from my honest effort. As a consequence, I am not in the great expectation of the scenario that enjoying the fruits of technology without having toiled, unfortunately, I am probably fall to the category the author has defined: apologist.

< Designing for Power> states quite clear that the tasks doesn’t equal to goals, however, most designers remiss this point. I think it’s really important to keep in mind when we designing for the users, simplicity is always much better than complexity. If we can explain something within one sentence, we had better not use two; similarly, if one new feature will be rarely used, we had better hide it or simply git rid of that. What users need is something efficient and to the point rather than something cumbersome and confusing. The article refers “polite software” which is a really interesting conception to me, not only Human being should behave politely, but also does the software, if it expects to be welcomed!

Idea flash out

Education finder – find classes from multiple schools by topic

audience: people who are seeking education information and trying to figure out which school to go
purpose: help people to find the most suitable class catering to their needs sifting through different schools
competing apps: TAFE Queensland Mobile
possible organization sponsor: Universities, Colleges, and other educational institutions

What  to do on a weekend on a nice day – something new to do on a sunny Saturday (sharing and picture uploading)

audience: people who are seeking creative ideas for their weekend and who would like to share their happy moments with others
purpose: help people find new spots or activities for spending their weekend; social networking
competing apps: Gowalla
possible organization sponsor: Local entertainment spots,parks,bars

City-specific volunteer match – organizations looking for volunteers on x-day and time

audience: organizations who are seeking for volunteers and people who want to be volunteers
purpose: as a middle man to match the volunteer to corresponding organizations
competing apps: ivolunteer
possible organization sponsor: organizations who are seeking volunteers

Charity event finder

audience: people who are enthusiastic for charity events
purpose: make charity event more accessible to masses
competing apps: ivolunteer
possible organization sponsor: Charity organizations

Compare price of same item in different stores

audience: shoppers
purpose:help shoppers to find lowest price goods
competing apps: Shopspark, The Grocery Game,Pricomatic(windows apps) Local Gas Price
possible organization sponsor: supermarkets, retail stores, farmers markets

Local concert/live music finder

audience: people who like live music and concert
purpose:  bring convenience to people who like music and concert
competing apps : iLike
possible organization sponsor: Local artists, theaters

Free wifi spots that you can filter by food, coffee, neighborhood etc

audience: people who are seeking venues that providing free wifi
purpose: help people to find a free wifi spot in a fast manner
competing apps: no similar apps I have found
possible organization sponsor: free wifi providing venues

3G&4G Networks Summary

3G is the third-generation of mobile phone technology standards. Mobile devices with 3G capabilities must offer the potential for a minimum peak bit rate of 200 kbps. Wireless data providers that offer 3G wireless access frequently go well above this minimum 3G speed, in order to remain competitive against current 3G speeds of up to 7.2 mbps. The highest 3G available is around 14 mbps for uplink speed, and 5.8 mbps for downlink speed. The International Telecommunications Union defined the third generation (3G) of mobile telephony standards – IMT-2000 – to facilitate growth, increase bandwidth, and support more diverse applications.

The typical services associated with 3G include wireless voice telephony and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. However, with the capability for high-speed wireless data transfer, 3G has enhanced or made possible a myriad of additional applications such as mobile video, secure mobile ecommerce, location-based services, mobile gaming and audio on demand.

To get from 2G to 3G, mobile operators had made “evolutionary” upgrades to existing networks while simultaneously planning their “revolutionary” new mobile broadband networks. This lead to the establishment of two distinct 3G families: 3GPP and 3GPP2.

Short for fourth generation, 4G is an ITU specification that is currently being developed for broadband mobile capabilities. 4G technologies would enable IP-based voice, data and streaming multimedia at higher speeds and offer at least 100 Mbit/s with high mobility and up to 1GBit/s with low mobility (nomadic).

4G is an IP-based and packet-switched evolution of 3G technologies (such as WCDMA, HSDPA, CDMA2000 and EVDO) that uses voice communications. A number of technologies considered to be 4G standards include Long Term Evolution (LTE), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) and the IEEE 802.16 (WiMax) standard.

While 3G is defined by ITU as IMT-2000, IMT-Advanced is being studied by ITU as 4G. IMT is now used as the generic name for 3G and 4G.

http://www.slideshare.net/mandyleelucky/3g4g

three online resources for the communicator who wants to “stay up” on developments in mobile

1  http://www.mobile-phone-directory.org/

This website for mobile communication is very well-organized with its clear and simple design.You can seek all aspects of mobile telecommunications information through its four main sections: Glossary of terms, Technology, Phones, and News. I like it’s neatly layout and useful classifications which bring convenience to its readers and make this site very impressive.

2  http://www.mobileburn.com/

This website provides in-depth reviews of mobile devices to help keep its readers abreast of the most important news and product launches in the industry.

3 http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/top-10-tutorials-to-develop-iphone-apps/

I have found many useful articles here, for example: <Top 10 Tutorials to Develop iPhone Apps> is the one quite pertinent to our class content and it provides many insightful and practical tutorials for beginners to start with. I would suggest this site for gaining more updated mobile information especially in the aspect of apps.

Three interesting Health apps

Yoga Stretch

Strike a pose.

With Yoga Stretch, you can practice Yoga at home with its instructor guides for different poses. You can not only choose the meditative background sound and follow their display yoga positions in sessions, but also you can have your own customized session that fits your skill level.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoga-stretch/id295454747?mt=8

Lose It!

Keep a log.

Through this app, you can manage your diet plan easily! It will calculate how many calories you take everyday for you! Record what you eat everyday and how many exercise you take, you can finally control your everyday calories and reach your weight goal!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lose-it/id297368629?mt=8#

Description

Succeed at weight loss with Lose It! Set goals and establish a daily calorie budget that enables you to meet them. Stay on track each day by recording your food and exercise and staying within your budget.

You’ve seen Lose It! on the Today Show, in the New York Times, or heard it mentioned on Howard Stern. Isn’t it time to join the millions of others who have downloaded Lose It! and give it a try yourself?

Lose It! is simple and fun to use, but includes great features:

- Simple, attractive, streamlined interface
- Comprehensive database of foods and activities
- Quickly add new foods or exercises to the database
- Setup recipes for more complicated foods
- Quickly add to your log with previous meals, my foods, and other shortcuts
- Track nutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrates, and more
- Works with or without a network connection
- No advertisements

In addition, set up a free Loseit.com account to
- automatically back-up your data
- add friends for extra support and motivation
- see more detailed online reports
- export your data to excel
- setup daily or weekly email reports
- get reminded when you forget to log your meals
- share your progress on Facebook or Twitter
- keep your data private or share with friends- you are in control

Lose It! is the most popular, complete, and streamlined weight loss application for the iPhone.

Optimism for Mental Health 3.5

About Optimism for Mental Health

Helps you monitor and develop strategies for improving your mental health. Discover the triggers of illness, the warning signs of a decline in your health, and strategies that help you to stay well.

The great strength of Optimism is that it helps you to be proactive. A continual feedback loop, in the form of charts and reports, improves your understanding of your mental health and the things that are helping or hindering you.

What’s New in this Version
- Offers the ability to customize the core data fields e.g. mood, sleep, etc. All labels in the application can now be changed. This gives the flexibility to record mood more than once per day or other key concerns such as anxiety in the core fields section.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/home_learning/optimismformentalhealth.html

Course learning goals for COM 597 Building Mobile Applications

As a MCDM student whose main specialization is social media, the active role of Mobile phone as a strong social media tool can not be ignored. Having solid and comprehensive understanding of mobile technology in hand is a prerequisite to deftly leverage mobile as an efficient communication and marketing weapon. Due to the lower price of mobile devices compared to PCs and lap tops, mobile device will definitely become the most popular medium for the approach of information exchange through all over the world. The outlook of mobile phones is quite fascinating and spectacular; as a result, I am eager to gain an overview look of mobile technology as well as the burgeoning apps stores for smart phones.

I am not  a smart phone zealot before I take this class, what I have owned is just a plain Nokia handset with its main function of making phone calls and text messages. I didn’t have high requirements for my mobile device, the main usage of my cell phone is voice calls, I don’t even like texting messages for the reason that I think it is a waste of time and would rather make direct phone calls. Other functions in the handset I may frequently utilize is the camera and alarm clock, that is all what I need out of a mobile phone! Probably one of the reasons that I didn’t switch to a smart phone is due to the “learning curve” I thought I may encounter when doing this, however, I have currently changed my Nokia to a HTC windows phone and expecting for a brand new experience. For the new features, I don’t like using Google Maps because I prefer to use my navigation better; I don’t like composing email through this mobile phone for I am not used to the small screens and keyboard; what I like most is the YouTube channel the windows phone has. One of my hobbies is watching videos on YouTube, and this windows phone makes this really easy to happen. I enjoy this feature a lot for the reason that I can access tons of interesting videos everywhere at anytime, what a great entertainment!

Back to the topic of my learning goals, I would set my target not only to understand the most common terms of mobile technologies such as GSM,Gestures,SDK,Symbian, but also strive to gain comprehensive knowledge of how to make a successful smartphone application.I think building mobile application can be a very creative process which can help to open up our mind, help us think about how to bring benefits to our society through these platforms. I entirely agree that technology should bring positive effect to our communities and people. My goal for this class is quite clear: learn mobile application techniques, future mobile app trends, understanding the challenge of data, and knowing how to help organization to develop a smartphone application. Most importantly, I hope, with my teammate, I can accomplish a project which could bring beneficial effects to our public. I am not a mobile company employee, however, I still have the enthusiasm to embrace the mobile technology and hoping to refresh my knowledge of mobile application after accomplishing my last quarter of studying in  this awesome MCDM program.

Book review # 3

  

 

 

 

While Chris Anderson provides us with his brilliant insight of “free” approach to boost business, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff are enlightening us with their fabulous experience and analysis of leveraging groundswell to further develop our business. They two are both great marketing books came off the press in a timely manner to catch up with the new digital environment. As people today are exposed to varies of social networking sites pervasively, needless to say, it is an environmental advantage that we should take to benefit our businesses. <Groundswell> is such an excellent book you should read if you have an intent to acquire a new fancy method of marketing without a high cost. Whether you are new to the social networking tools or have already know some of them, you can gain the very information you need when you complete reading it. It offers theories as well as vivid case studies both dedicate to demonstrate the strategies that you should implement when doing your business. It is a detailed guide-book that you can follow step by step from scratch without incomprehensible.

 

 

The context is organized in a clear style. Two authors divide the content into three main sections:

 

1 what the groundswell is and the introduction of the basic tools you need to understand

 

2 what to do about it

 

3 how to apply it to succeed within your company

 

 

Through the reasonable layouts, you can quickly reach the information which is most to your needs. As both the authors are Forrester researchers, they provide many concrete data helping us to better understand and absorb their analysis and recommendations. For example, the social technographics ladder is such an intuitive graph helping me to gain an overarching view of the social technographics profile of online U.S.adults. Online consumers are divided into six categories: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactive. It Is quite interesting that among all the consumers, only 18% of them are creators, which means only this certain amount of people are publishing a blog, publish web pages, upload videos, write articles or stories and post them. 44% of the online consumers are inactives which means they do none of these activities. It is necessary and crucial to understand this fundamental graph and data as it’s a critical step when it comes to the appropriate selection of social strategy: you need define your customers first, make sure to which category they belong and then can the decision makers take corresponding measures. The bottom line is : you should targeting accurately before shooting, otherwise, things may turn out to be inefficient or even futile.

 

 

Only After locating your customers can you start the next actions which includes five sequential steps: Listen, talk, energize, help and lastly, embrace. ” marketing departments will need to develop new skills to listen, and then respond to, feedback from the groundswell. ” Among those steps which I think most important is the listen part. Without patient listening, you won’t know what the needs of your customers and you cannot draw your solutions. We can only response appropriately after we figure out what the crux is. Then we can start our conversation with rapport. A specific case study is showed in the book presenting how to listen through brand monitoring: the American arm of BMW’s Mini Cooper brand (P89-93). Decentralization is a key feature in the networked world, so we are no longer remain in the traditional method of one-way communication, namely, from the top to the bottom;Instead, an equal conversation is what we advocate here.

 

 

” The transition from shouting to conversation will challenge your marketing department. It’s a fundamental change in attitude.” (p 125)

 

 

A good conversation is always a good start. Marketers should build a solid relationship with their customers through the medium of many social media tools. Why not take the advantage of these already existed media platforms and already formed communities for a free market research? Why not find enthusiast customers and turn them into evangelist? All this magic power can occur in this fertile land of groundswell. Once you can harness the power of your opponent for your own advantage just as playing jujitsu, you can thrive in groundswell.

 

 

 

I think all companies should take action to engage this irreversible trend of “social media marketing” as they are cost-effectiveness and powerful. The book is well written; however, it lacks some content that I was wondering when I started reading it. Besides the well-know brands, I wish they can talk more about the start-ups which may not have sufficient budget for high-cost marketing methods. Does groundswell magic can only work well among big brands or it can also be leveraged by small-scale business? Furthermore, I am also curious about whether it will become the dominant methods of marketing in the future.  

 

 

All in all, <Groundswell> is an outstanding book presenting tons of informative information that could help to guide a social media novice to set out her journey in this fantastic emerging marketing field. The knowledge you gain here is not abstract but practical. I am appreciate the two experts can share their insights as well as their experience and knowledge with us, simplifying and distilling the essence of social media marketing and pave an efficient way for us to follow. There is my favorite quote in the book, “psychic income is free- it’s paid in love, not money.” (161) Sure it is. Nothing could be done if there is no human nature of altruism. I am also appreciate this for its contribution to make all this magic happen.

Citations:

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Press.