AT&T Pushes for Merger with Time Warner

http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-is-in-advanced-talks-to-acquire-time-warner-1477061850

Dean Chagaris | Dr. Zhang | Marketing 3343 | October 21, 2016

This is a big deal as AT&T waits for approval to acquire Time Warner. By doing so AT&T would expand its internet and television market making it even bigger than it currently is.

AT&T has had a long history of acquiring companies and expanding its markets from communications to internet.

By having Time Warner in it's portfolio AT&T can expect to enjoy expanded market shares, new product offerings, and a larger target market. Having acquired Direct TV a year ago and combining it into its uVerse service, AT&T will now be able to double its reach into markets it currently operates.

AT&T has been working hard to bring entertainment such as DirectTV to markets at prices that cable can't compete with. When you bundle with other products such as wifi, DirectTV, and cell service, AT&T has been making offers to good to pass up.

An example if a current offer;

Switch and get new iPhone 7 32g Free
Pay off previous carrier up to $650.00
Direct TV & WiFi for $50.00 two years
Unlimited Cell/Text/Data Plan for $65.00 mo.
Free installation
$100.00 gift card

Notice the above was just one offer recently executed by me recently. I've not had TV service for 12 years by choice because it was so expensive. Average of $120.00. Now AT&T can offer 3 services, making the Television price so affordable that it becomes unnoticeable.

AT&T tis working to make television so affordable that it will close the gap with users of services from HULU, Amazon, Netflix, Apple. This will disrupt an already confused market when it comes to "too cable or not to cable", but nonetheless, make entertainment more available to the end user.

Tramadol: The Opioid Crisis for the Rest of the World

by Michael Fleming

Today, we are seeing a multitude of social issues up for debate in our society. 

Prescription drug addiction and the power of the pharmaceutical industry is the biggest social issue that hasn't been discussed, for reasons we wouldn't expect.

This article covers widespread addiction of Tramadol, a opiate painkiller, across the globe. The market for prescription drugs in the US, specifically for opiates and antidepressants, has become so powerful that any criticism of its negative affects on consumers is shunned by the mainstream media and networks that are funded by pharmaceutical companies. America is the most advanced country in the world in drug research due to our free market approach to healthcare. It could even be argued that prescription drugs do more damage to our population than the classified drugs made illegal by our government. According to specific research and this article, ordinary citizens are being hooked on painkillers which lead users to become hooked on harder, more serious illegal opiates such as heroin. The leading cause of Heroin addiction is addiction to prescription drugs. In fact, pharmaceutical companies that produce fentanyl, a prescription opiate mentioned in the article, are funding anti-pot campaigns in states such as Nevada and Arizona this year, where citizens will vote on the legalization of marijuana. Marijuana has been proven as a safe alternative to prescription painkillers. In fact, in states like Colorado, where Marijuana is legalized, Opiate-caused deaths have dropped by over 25% and addiction has dropped significantly. This article brings out the conversation America needs to talk about and find a solution to. If we don't take things into our own hands, the wealthy pharmaceutical corporations will continue to profit off of our addictions without consequence. 

Read more from the article here.

eBay to Millennial's: We Are Much More Than Auctions

  It does not come as a surprise to anyone that Amazon dominates the eCommerce market. Ebay debuted in 1995 as the first of its kind: a premier online auction site. After the websites debut, word spread quickly about the fun & competitive experience a user could have on ebay. What originally made ebay unique was the idea that users could sell personal items that were either new/used, and at the price that they thought it was worth. Sellers also loved the idea of a bidding war erupting over their item which resulted in them getting more money than they originally asked for. Times have changed.
  Fast forward to 2016...ebay is no longer the sole dominator in the ecommerce market. The beginning of the end for ebay was when big-name retailers like Target and Walmart began selling their products online.  However, the nail in ebay's coffin was the creation and quick rise of Amazon. What originally separated ebay and Amazon was that Amazon users paid a set price for items with zero chance of negotiation. Many consumers saw the "set price" approach of Amazon to be quicker and easier. Search engines like Google also made accessing price information of products easier so users knew what an items fair dollar value was, which turned them off from using eBay.
 Ebay Vice President of global branding said that his company is aiming to disassociate ebay from being an outdated "auction-type" fad. The company is doing this by offering a set-price for certain items and by redesigning the search feature of the website which now groups items by their price and brand name. The company is also
  Ebay in 2016 is trying to redefine why they exist as a brand, and what it is that they as a company bring to the table. Ebay has also started to brand their boxes and packaging tape with the company's logo to try and increase visibility to the brand. Ebay has also launched a new social media advertising campaign featuring supermodel Karlie Kloss to try and increase visibility of the brand to millennial's.
  This topic is interesting to me because I too always shop on Amazon. Since I first got the iPhone 3G in 2008 I had never dowloaded the ebay app until July of 2016. The only reason I downloaded ebay was because Amazon did not have the variety of a product that I was looking for. On Ebay I found everything I was looking for and was actually surprised of the "buy now" feature where you could pay a little bit more for an item in order to skip the auction process. I now regularily search both Amazon and eBay for products.

Pandora Unveils Promotional Tools for Artists, Labels

            

               Pandora is launching a new promotional tool that is attracting the eye of many new and current artists. Artists in the present day struggle with finding ways for some of their songs to become hits. The radio has accustomed listeners to be comfortable towards familiar songs of an artist making newer songs of the same artist less likely to be heard or played. Pandora showed that people were more prone to listen to a new song, instead of skipping it, if the artist introduced the new song before the actual song. Although other Apple Music and Spotify also offer short introductions of artists' new songs, Pandora has a larger reach than of the two. Pandora is also analyzing the demographics of artist's fans so that it can plan tour maps for artists, making it a very pleasing investment to current and new artists. Furthermore, Pandora offers artists to determine how frequently their new songs are to be played when a listener clicks on that artists' station. However, Pandora is also keeping in mind the listener's comfort by decreasing the amount of times a new song is played, if listeners constantly thumbs down the song. Pandora is appealing to the artist's problem of making a new song a hit and is helping artists construct the most effective and beneficial cities for an artist's tour. Pandora is pushing for better ways to please both the listeners and the artists, making it stand out amongst its competitors.    

Click this link to read the full article. 

Sierra Elrod
October 19, 2016

Salesforce Won’t Pursue Bid for Twitter

Author:           Yoree Koh and Rachael King

October 14, 2016

Due to struggles to accelerate revenue growth, Twitter Inc. was seeking a combination between themselves and Salesforce.com Inc. Unfortunately, on Friday Salesforce.com Inc. withdrew from negotiations.  Many believe the discussions ended due to Twitters decline in stability both in the stock market and in popular relevance, a long side a nearly $12-billion-dollar price tag.  Following the reversal by Salesforce, Chief Executive Marc Benioff, Walt Disney Co. and Alphabet Inc. both departed, leaving twitter currently with no prospects. 

            In the aftermath of the business software provider Salesforce withdrew, Twitter’s already diminishing expectation for a sale has now reach a new low.  As of Friday at 4 p.m. Twitter stocks fell 5% leaving them at $16.88.  As an incorporation Twitter had not yet given up hope in finding a buyer, yet appears that the company will have to rely on their CEO Jack Dorsey.  Unfortunately, Dorsey has yet to prove he can stimulate growth in a way that can promote an increase in profitability to possible buyers.

          

  Twitter’s second quarter added 1% growth in users giving it a total of 313 million.  Along with the disappointing statistic, Twitter is also on its 8^th straight quarter of shrinking growth with it ultimately dropping 20% in total users.  Due to these disheartening statistics many analysts believe Twitter will have to sell part of the business to survive the $100 million loss in the second quarter.  On October 27, Twitter will be going through another session of tests to examine its reported quarterly earnings.

         

           In the light of these numbers, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has attempted to create a plan strategically proficient.  So far he has laid off 8% of Twitter’s workforce, and he is currently trying to recruit senior managers and board directors.  He is also trying to make incremental changes to the services offered on Twitter, such as adding “stickers” to photos.  Even with these changes Dorsey is quickly running out of good will with employees even though he has tried to rally the workers though up beat announcements, but this strategy has yet to work amongst Twitter employee who are just looking for a clear strategy to strengthen the weakening company. 

          One of Twitter’s newly developed schemes is to sign deals with athletes and media companies in order to broadcast live events in the hopes to attract mainstream viewers and premium advertising rates.   The plan has already commenced with the signing of online media company BuzzFeed Inc. to stream coverage of the presidential election on November 8.  Yet Twitter’s saving grace may be the 100 million deal signed in April to live stream 10 Tuesday night National Football League games.  Although it appears too soon to judge if the NFL strategy is a successful risk. But it is disheartening that the 3 games which have been broadcasted have only averaged 252,000 viewers a minute, compared to the average 15 million viewers which watch the game on CBS and the NFL Network. Unfortunately, Twitter’s stock has plummeted a devastating 33% on October 5, after it was discovered that potential suitors had once again passed.

I found this article extremely interesting due the fact that Jack Dorsey is stuck in an imposable situation.  Employees and investors are both asking for the answer to the million-dollar question, how can Twitter be redeemed?  He has tried every possible situation from cutting costs, and altering and evolving the product.

I order to read more about this topic please click here!

The Internet’s Top 10 Word-of-Mouth Beauty Products

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-internets-top-10-word-of-mouth-beauty-products-1475157055

Social media has greatly influenced our life styles. One way in which social media has changed the way we go about our lives is how products are advertised through it. For example, how make up brands advertise their products has changed a lot over the years. Before social media, make up brands spent millions of dollars on tv commercials and magazine adds in order to attract customers. Now the best way for these companies to attract customers is through the reviews of other people in social media and the company's/distributor's website.
In this new social media era, woman now look for reviews first before they buy something or they become interested in a product because they saw someone else use it. Beauty bloggers have a great influence on what women want to buy now. These bloggers often have video tutorials where they show how to use a product and they talk about what they like and don't like about it. When these bloggers reach a certain number of followers, beauty companies begin to send them products for them to try out and review. This is now a very influential way of advertising the products. Many women now feel more comfortable first seeing how the products look on someone else and reading the reviews before they go out to buy it.
This way of advertising relates to the social influence consumers experience when buying a product and the problem solving step (info search, identify alternatives, set criteria, evaluate alternatives) in the consumer decision process.

Using Selfies as Passwords

Companies such as Uber Technologies Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are in the process of switching from passwords to selfies as proof of identity. Facial Recognition technology is becoming more cheaper and companies are finding it easier to have their customers take pictures of themselves rather than type out a password. It's quicker Than passwords. Passwords are susceptible to being hacked, altered, or stolen, but the human face is distinct from everyone else. Facial recognition is still experiencing software problems though so there is still work to be done to make the tech perfect. However, cybercrime experts are worrying that this "quicker" and "more efficient " process leaves way for security and privacy problems.

The world knows that people love taking selfies, especially teenagers and young adults. However, giving out personal information is always a concern for people. Companies say that everything is safe and confidential, but people need to be careful with who is taking their info. We don't know where our information is actually going or what it's used for.