Journal Entry 11 - A Look at Online Gaming Around the World

     We presented our final project last night, in which we discussed Ubisoft's transition into creating a cloud gaming system to distribute their games. We focused much of our discussion and analysis based off of their current largest consumer bases (as a publisher) which are the US/Canada and Europe, respectively. If we take a look at some of the larger emerging economies and markets, such as China, it is easy to see that they are some of the fastest growing markets/internet sectors. Now, the People's Republic of China has always had an interesting relationship with the gaming industry - especially when factors such as censorship and bans come into play. If online and cloud gaming providers were to continue expanding into new markets, as is predicted as inevitable considering the improvement in infrastructure and services provided on a more universal level, companies like OnLive and Ubisoft will have a difficult battle to fight when it comes to censorship and game ratings.

Journal Entry 10 - E-Commerce Workforce

I was discussing future plans with students from class and learned that many of the that are graduating this year, or are rising seniors, are very interested in pursuing a career in e-commerce. When I asked what kind of job within the industry they didn't have a concrete answer but explained that none of them were computer engineers or were interested in becoming a developer. One of my close friends graduated with a BCom, majoring in Accounting, from McGill 5 years ago and about 2 weeks before writing the UFIE decided to go back to school to receive his Bachelor of Computer Science from Concordia - best decision he has ever made. So I'm wondering about the number of positions out there that are technical versus the number of positions, working in e-commerce, that does not demand a technical degree. 

An article written in 2003, so a possibility exists that these are not the same conclusions if the study was repeated ten years later, discusses the number of job ads (positions) that are technical/non technical for working at an e-business. There findings indicated about 45% of positions were for developers, with 33% as a coordinator/manager position within an organization. This percentage actually surprised me as I thought the % for developers would be a bit higher. The rest of the ads were as follows: 6% analyst positions, 2% administration positions, 12% non-IT jobs. I will have to spend more time looking into more recent findings... stay tuned....

Journal Entry 9 - CTRs

     After we discussed brand power and ownership earlier in the semester, specifically Facebook Likes and what they represent, I started thinking more broadly about e-marketing campaign CTRs and conversions. At the last company I worked for, we dedicated a majority of our marketing budget to Google Adwords and Facebook ads and saw CTRs of about 0.04% which, according to a few e-marketing blogs and specialists, is about the average. There were also significant differences when comparing the success across our different ads (depending on what product we featured, and a few of our keywords). In a time where these advertising options are significantly cheaper than traditional print advertising (when considering small, start-ups and their budgets), I thought it would be interesting to examine who the biggest Facebook advertising clients are.
     No surprise that GM, McDonalds, HSBC, VISA, Mastercard and Nike appear in the list of top 30, to name just a few of the big players. Google is another one in the top 30, receiving about 34,000 weekly downloads of Chrome that can be directly linked to these ad spaces. Really, the only surprising name on the list was fab.com, and only because of the discrepancy in size, and revenues, between someone like Unilever and fab.com (assumption that I am making...). Bidding PPCs for similar companies within an industry but of different scales would be interesting to examine...

Journal Entry 8 - Online & Mobile Shoppers

     Since my plan post grad is to return to the retail industry, I am always interested in understanding a little bit more about general online consumer trends - whether it be online shopping as a whole or shopping online using mobile devices. The company that I used to work for, that was a e-retailer, was still working on a fully functional mobile and tablet version of the site and online shopping is their main business. I personally do not use my phone to shop online, or even browse online, but since the company I am now working for is looking to expand their offerings into this space, I thought it necessary to know a little more about how fast this trend is growing. eMarketer tells us that between 2010 and 2013, online shoppers in the US will increase from about 172 million to 190 million. This number is expected to continue growing. In 2010, U.S. e-commerce sales accounted for about 228 billion USD.
     With regards to purchases made online via mobile devices - 'shop by phone' doubled in total sales (in the US) from 2011 to 2012. In 2012, shoppers made approximately 25 billion dollars in purchases in the US alone. These trends will not be slowing down, or fading out, anytime soon pushing the need for retailers to remain competitive online before competitors win out by simply being more accessible. More proof to show my boss!

Journal Entry 7 - Mobile Trends

     As follow up to last night's guest speaker, I thought I would take another look at mobile security trends, in order to better understand how companies are trying to protect against the rise of mobile malware. Bullguard.com believes that there were over 2,500 different mobile malware programs in 2010. While I did not come across a prediction for 2013, we can only image that the number has increase, or that there have been great measures made to protect devices and users. Juniper Research found that only 1 in 20 smartphones and tablets have a third-party security software.
     I am a smartphone user and have never thought about installing a security program on my phone. I receive emails to my phone, but never open suspicious emails or emails that I am not expecting from a friend of colleague. I also never use the internet on my phone. While my chances of downloading malware are decreased, they are not zero either. I can only imagine that the cost involved in many security programs are enough to deter users from purchasing them. I wonder how large the threat must become, or how many mobile and tablet users that have experienced some sort of security breach it will take, for mobile security to be at the forefront of people's thoughts when purchasing a new device.

Journal Entry 6 - Kids and their phones

     Even though I am only in my late 20s, my formative and teenage years were almost completely cell phone free and when cell phones did enter the picture, it was so that my parents could check in on me past 9pm - they were never something that you compulsively carried around in your hand without checking every 5 minutes (hard to believe but from my experience, they were really more of a nuisance than anything else!). These days, I can't help but cringe when my friends (everyone and their sister...) leave their phones on the dinner table or pull their phones out mid-conversation to immediately text/bbm/imessage someone back as if their life depended on it. There is no real point that I'm trying to make, really I'm just venting. However, these trends are hard to ignore, especially as an organization. If we know people of all ages are compulsively checking their phones, why wouldn't you want to make sure that some of that time is spent on your site, using and purchasing your products and services?
     Since I come from retail industry experience, I am especially interested in knowing which of my favourite sites have user friendly, full functional mobile apps. I would guess that most do, but when I left my last job (only 7 months ago), they had yet to perfect this type of app and they were a mostly e-com retailer. Research to come...

Journal Entry 5 - IT

     I started a new job last week working for an american apparel company that has its canadian head office in Montreal. They want to launch their Canadian e-com site next fall or by early 2014 at the latest. Since I used to work at an e-retailer, my new boss started off by assigning me various research projects that will be used to determine certain online policies and offers - mostly customer service based. It's nice to be back in an office a couple days of the week, and I am definitely interested in the work that has been assigned to me but I couldn't help but fixate a few major differences between my old place of work and my new one.
     When I arrived for my first day of work, Mr. Smith in IT was asked to set me up with a laptop so that I could work on my projects. He immediately gave me access to all the shared files (without knowing if I was a part time intern or an actual staff member). I'm a trustworthy person so in this case, having granted my complete access to the system on my first day will not affect the company but I wondered if this is normal practice… The second thing I noticed was that the internet connection went down several times that day and the following day, and Mr. Smith had a hard time fixing this problem. I am in no position to pass judgement (I would be clueless as to how to fix such a problem after trying to unplug and restart), I can't help but wonder about the fate of the e-comm in an environment that seems so delayed in its IT capabilities and functions