An interesting article related to my internship company...

MySpace, Facebook: Big not always better

CNN.com says "Forget Facebook, MySpace or any other online hangout that boasts tens or hundreds of millions of people.

Katie Ellis, 23, a tri-athlete, uses Athlinks as a networking site and even finds people she has unknowingly raced against.

For Teresa Munoz, Athlinks, population 34,000, is the place to be."

This lady can't find the people she can connect with for the sport.

This totally sounds out the focus of my company:

"Social-networking sites geared toward hobbies, sports and other specific interests -- alongside those targeting certain age groups, ethnicities or diseases -- are finding growing success as supplements to the larger online hangouts or even as replacements."

Join Orbius today!

Another argument for looking elsewhere for building communities:

"Why not MySpace or Facebook? Ellis said that after seeing her older brother use both, she's concluded "I think it's a waste of time." "

There is certainly a problem of "finding the right groups and identifying the most dedicated members" when it comes to building online communities.

Someone who is interested in joining few craft-related groups, tried doing that on Facebook but "found participants "all really young, immature and not very knitting-literate.""

Really happy yesterday and these are the reasons why:

-got 10 bucks for participating in a behavioral experiment
-joined the Fairmount runners for my first track training in USA ever and made friends!
-Got a starbucks mocha frappuccino on the house when my PNC linked Upenn card cannot be used to pay
-Had a good meeting with Upenn's Weiss Tech House to organise an Engineering Day for children between 7 to 10 years old
-Lots of new orders for Shopaholic!

Quite Happy today too because...

-Had a good idea for how my Bioethics class can use Orbius as a platform to discuss about relevant issues
-received all my online shopping items!
-Had a really fruitful and enjoyable lunch with Andy, my colleague at work!

Interesting extracts from my readings for Bioethics and Responsible principles for Engineers module:

"Biophysical characteristics are sometimes associated with
a consumer’s ability to recognize and protect one’s self from
persuasion attempts (Laczniak, Muehling, and Carlson 1995)
and the ability to understand the implications of marketing
messages (Laczniak and Murphy 1993; Rittenburg and
Parasarathy 1997). Sometimes these biophysical characteristics
are used to advance the “dumb consumer model” (Calfee
and Ringold 1992), which posits sellers can deceive consumers
and consumers are helpless to resist. At other times, populations
with these biophysical characteristics are used to
advance the notion of a “smart consumer model” (Calfee and
Ringold 1992), where the consumers recognize that sellers
are trying to stimulate a purchase and they are active agents in
their own consumption decisions. Calfee and Ringold (1992)
believe in the “smart consumer model” more than its alternative,
but the alternative does allow for the possibility that
there may be times when consumers truly are unable to be
“smart.”

Beware of what advertisements could do to you!

My recent online purchases!

Been shopping a lot online.! here are my bargains:

From Victoria's Secrets!


From Forever21!

Apple iPhone Ad: Facebook