Week 4: Hardware

Because the most integral part of my business uses social networking sites, access to a computer and the Internet is the most crucial element to my ability to conduct my business. In class, we learned about hardware and how to choose which computer will give you the best results for your computing needs. Because I will be spending so much time working on the computer, the choice I make for the computer that I want to use for work is very important.

My main uses will be the Internet for social media and email, Microsoft Office Word and Excel, basic photo editing and storing, and a calendar. I am a huge virtual multitasker so I want a computer that can function quickly while running multiple applications. I want a computer that's user friendly and visually pleasing. I definitely would like a laptop, so that I can take my computer with me when I meet with clients.

Apple's Macbook Pro is a quad core so I will have a powerful CPU. It has 8MG of L3 cache which will allow my computer to go fast because it has a lot of memory with very high cache, two things which determine how fast the computer will carry out processes. Also it runs at 2.2 GHz which will also means the computer will go at a fairly good speed. 2.2 GHz is not very high, but it's also not low. However, 2.2GHz should be good enough for my usage. The Macbook Pro is very user friendly because it is currently running Lion. I am experienced with Apple computers, so I am comfortable using this operating system. I can access the Internet as long as I have an open Internet connection on my Macbook Pro. Also, all Mac's come with a software called iLife that include an application called iPhoto which I can use to store and edit photos that I will upload to Facebook. It also has a 750GB hard drive with 5400 rpm which gives me enough storage and good running speed. It comes with a DVD drive and a 15 inch screen which will allow me to have a comfortable screen size and ability to watch/burn videos if I decide to also incorporate videos into my social networking usage.

Week 3: Internet Privacy

This week in class we discussed the importance of monitoring the information you release over the Internet because we are quickly losing more and more of our privacy the more that we post in the online world. I will relate this to my business in two ways: my personal privacy and the privacy of the profiles for boutiques that I create.

It will be imperative for me as an entrepreneur to have a squeaky clean record because I am developing new relationships in the business world. When I approach a potential new client, they may decide to look me up on Google as a sort of background check, and I must make sure that they won't find anything compromising on me. Therefore, I will keep my Facebook privacy settings tight and private, and may actually make a specific Facebook profile for myself for business clients that decide to add me. I will make sure that information on my both pages are appropriate and treat everything I post as something I wouldn't be ashamed to see "on the front cover of the New York Times" as my IST professor said so eloquently. I will use the tightest security settings on my profile for friends and family so that those who are not my friends could not even search for the profile on Facebook. My work profile will be searchable, but will still have tight security settings.

The profiles for the boutiques that I create should have loose privacy settings because I want the Facebook/Twitter profile to come up online when others search the boutique. I would also encourage the boutique to remind customers that they are on Facebook/Twitter and encourage their customers to like the boutique on Facebook and follow them on Twitter both verbally and on business cards. I suppose the most important thing is to ensure that inappropriate content does not get accidentally posted on the boutique's Facebook/Twitter profile. Any inappropriate content may offend the clarinet and damage the business's reputation.

Clearly, losing our privacy on the Internet can be used to one's advantage or can force us to have to be more cautious, but if we are educated on the ways to monitor our information we can separate our work and personal lives. Using profile privacy settings will help make my business more successful by keeping my personal life private and making boutiques public for the patrons to subscribe to.

Hello all. This is my first blog post so here it goes. I am an 18 year old from California making a blog about my entrepreneurial idea for my Freshman Information Studies class. I'd like to start a marketing firm that uses social media websites (Twitter and Facebook) to promote boutiques that hire my services.

The main service my firm provides relates perfectly to the topic of the past week's lecture on Social Media. First I would make my client a Facebook profile. Then, I would take advantage of Facebook's capability to post photo albums by creating monthly albums that would showcase the boutique's new inventory for the month. This would work well because it would show up in their friend's newsfeeds and be very eye catching. I would also use status updates on Facebook and Twitter to remind followers and friends of sales and promotions. By giving a personality to the boutique customers would feel more in touch with the boutique. These social media sites would create and open forum between customers and the store so that customers could ask questions and provide feedback.

I choose social media as a marketing device rather than email because so many people spend way more time on Facebook than on email and it is a much more personal forum.