E-Voting

The article, E-Voting: How Secure is it? , caught my eye as midterm elections are coming up.  At first, when reading the article I thought about the benefits e-voting would offer. For example, it would definitely be easier to vote if you could vote from your home or office or even on your phone, and this would also increase voting participation.  But, when I thought about the disadvantages of e-voting, initially I only considered the risk of people voting multiple times or under a name that was different from their own.  However, the article pointed out an even greater risk, which is that e-voting could expose the election infrastructure to attacks from anyone in the world!  In my opinion this is a risk that definitely outweighs the benefits.

Wanted: Social Media Sifters

After reading the article, Wanted: Social Media Sifters, I was not surprised to hear that companies are now using a type of technology that can find, decode and sort information from social networking sites to answer questions as specific as "Why do men sport stubble?".  Although this question may sound odd, the answer to this question provides information that is important to advertising companies that now can use the fact that most people think wearing stubble is sexy and apply it to their ad campaigns.  This type of technology will allow for companies to get closer to the customer and pursue "markets of one".  It is also extremely helpful because consumers do not always say what they want when asked directly through a questionnaire or a survey; however they are more likely to say what they want on blogs and social networking sites. I agree with the article that it has come to a point where companies must participate in social media, or else they will definitely be at a disadvantage and know less about their customers than their competition.

Google and China

I found the article, Google Maintains Hiring, Seeks Additional Advertisers in China , interesting because I feel that it relates to about what we have been talking about in my marketing group concerning the Heineken case.  Like Heineken, Google is a global brand and therefore, I would give them the same recommendation: to think global, but act local.  By this I mean that Google should definitely go after the market in China, however I think they should customize the sites they offer in order to suit the different country regulations and the different culture.  Although this may involve limiting what is available to users and censorship, I feel that it is something that Google should be willing to compromise on in order to gain market share in China, which is an extremely huge market.