Wrap-up of week 1

Materials read:

Do you trust this face by GQ
Video conversation with Reid Hoffman
Does the Internet make you smarter/dumber?

     I had no technical issues in consuming any of the media and found the amount that was suggested to complete a bit overwhelming as just looking at the hours from the videos alone would take up an entire weekend day. Luckily though, I felt that I did enough reading and video watching, in addition to the podcasts, that I now feel pretty comfortable with the materials and a general introduction to things like twitter and blogs.

     I especially enjoyed the conversation with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman to see what that site will develop into in time. I think it is a useful site, and especially since I am planning a career change in the next couple of years, I am extremely interested to see how that site can serve my goal to network effectively.
  
     In fact, as the professors point out, as I have my eyes open to web marketing, I have noticed several things announced this week surrounding the materials that I have consumed. The first was an announcement email by LinkedIn that they are tailoring their job path tools on the site to make them more useful for people in different stages of networking. For me I see this as a better use of the vast networking opportunities present with the data that LinkedIn controls, to help somebody move up the ladder or into a new career, for example. These are exactly the types of products that Reid mentioned would be coming out and it is cool to see the manifestation of his comments.  The other thing that I noticed as relates to web marketing was an older issue of Bloomburg Businessweek that I had around the house talked about the massive effect Google's Adwords have on companies' availability to generate revenue from online search results. The interesting aspect was that with a simple and routine tweak of their software, they can literally gut a company's revenue stream from reliable web results where their top tier return is lowered dramatically. Even if Google didn't intend that result, it can devastate online commerce sites overnight and there is a power struggle with Google and its business customers to prevent those sorts of conscious or unconscious rewrites. In the macro aspect, it truly shows how powerful Google is in its control of the internet, raising some questions about monopolies and non-compete issues.

     That is about all the reflections I have this week, I will probably watch a couple more Charlie Rose videos since I find his interviews interesting and informative.

Beginning week one

Resources complete:

-Chapter 1 Age of Engage

-Podcast Newspaper 1, 2, 3

                I was interested in the Age of Engage overview which appeared to be a opening chapter of a book centering on the new marketing, what they term marketing 3.0 and how we got here. I particularly enjoyed the history of marketing and the various iterations it has taken; especially since this will only be the second marketing class I have ever taken, and will most likely be the final given I am an MBA/MS Finance dual degree.

For this week, my learning goals: To better understand the tools, sites, and impact of web 2.0 and 3.0 on marketing practices

Projected outcomes: to learn more intricately the above topics and apply them to my formerly robust knowledge base of the web. Lately, I have not been able to keep up given the rapid pace of development in the web coupled with work, school, and family commitments occupying the bulk of my time.

Initial questions that I would like to have answered: What are the newest social media and web 2.0 connectivity sites that can be useful in my future career? How can I best learn given the various course materials provided in this course? Will I be able to get through a majority of the recommended readings, podcasts and videos?

Other materials: none as of yet

Long time lurker, first time Blogger

Hello X501,

I'm looking forward to seeing the results of our forays into the blogosphere