Lecture Post 2

The "Pack N' Go" is a smartphone app designed to help travelers pack carefully and efficiently for their upcoming trips. Travelers can create their own packing list, and then save it to the program, so it is available for all other users to take advantage of. It is designed specifically for you, by people like you.

Photoshop is a digital image editing application fo the Internet, print, and many other mediums. When you look around you, there is a great chance that almost every advertisement, book cover, magazine, label, etc has been created or edited on Photoshop. Color enhancing, cropping, effects and the ability to add text to any image are just a few of the tools Photoshop has.

Photoshop is a very powerful and useful application for companies. I would use Photoshop to create graphics for the "Pack N' Go" since visuals are very important for any product. Last week when I reviewed similar smartphone applications to the "Pack N' Go" a common complaint among users was that an app was boring because it didn't have many graphics. With the "Pack N' Go" I would make sure to make the app visually appealing with graphics created on Photoshop.

A must have for any product is a logo, and Photoshop will be of use when doing this. I would be able to make a unique design that would represent the packing app and differentiate this product from the rest. I would hire a graphic designer to do this so it looks professional and is well done.

Blogger Review

The Blogger I am covering this week is Craig Blaha, a privacy, secrecy, and social media researcher at UT Austin. Craig teaches many undergraduate courses including classes on "Social Media and Privacy" and "The Internet and Public Policy." Along with teaching, Craig has numerous academic and professional publishings found in chapters within books. Craig is new to the blogging scene, where he has only been posting since November 2011 on his blog "Blogging Google". (http://technorati.com/technology/gadgets/article/google-glasses-bring-the-web-to/).

In this post Craig writes about a new gadget that may become available by the end of the year. He calls the product "Google Glasses," a pair of sunglasses that will allow users to see everything they normally could on a smartphone, but through a pair of sunglasses. The product would retail for around the same price a smartphone sells for, which is approximately $260-$600. While the "Google Glasses" will alleviate pain from one's neck, it may cause for some awkward situations.

The first thing that caught my eye on Craig's blog was that he had a header. I found this unusual for a blog, but highly enjoyable. The header was a nice visual, very attractive and clear. I also liked how Craig attached links for the Oakley website, allowing viewers to seek further information. However, one aspect I did not like was that Craig didn't have many factual sources; The only source was an unnamed and this lead can lead to speculation. I also would have liked some more information on this post.

A Happy Medium

The "Pack N' Go" is a smartphone app designed to help travelers pack carefully and efficiently for their upcoming trips. Travelers can create their own packing list, and then save it to the program, so it is available for all other users to take advantage of. It is designed specifically for you, by people like you.

Competitor 1: One packing app that is already on the market is the "Packing + To Do" app which retails for .99cents. This smartphone app allows users to create and edit packing lists or use already made sample lists. Users can email their lists to their family and friends or ask for advice via Facebook or Twitter. However, the downside to this product is that the process of creating the lists takes too long and there are no lists available for babies/toddlers. Customers also reported a lack of engaging graphics, making the app visually less appealing than others. (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/packing-to-do!/id294710480?mt=8)

Competitor 2: Another app this is already available, and free, is the "UPackingList". This app allows users to create lists by selecting items from a database and then send these lists to other people. A big con for this product is that there are no "ready made" lists to choose from. Therefore, users are spending a crazy amount of time creating a list on their phone they could be doing with a pencil and paper. As well, customers have reported that there are many distracting "flashy" ads that come along with the app making it very distracting. (http://nixsolutions.com/products/iphone/upackinglist/)

After reading about the other packing apps that are on the market I would definitely make some changes to the "Pack N' Go." First off, I must say that the "Pack N' Go" meets a happy medium between the two applications by having an abundant amount of lists available to choose from made by other users, as well as the ability to create your own list. I would make sure to add graphics to make the app visually appealing, but try and stay away from busy advertisements. As a fellow entrepreneur suggested, I will add a weather section to the app where users can see what the weather will be like in their travel destination. This will make my product unique and stand out among the rest.

Technology Technicalities

The "Pack N' Go" is a smartphone app designed to help travelers pack carefully and efficiently for their upcoming trips. Travelers can create their own packing list, and then save it to the program, so it is available for all other users to take advantage of. It is designed specifically for you, by people like you.

It will be necessary for the smartphones to have RAM because lots of information will need to be saved for the app. RAM is needed to run programs simultaneously, and this is extremely important for smartphones running numerous applications at once. It is also vital because it holds memory for what you are doing at that time, such as using the "Pack N' Go".

In order to create this app, the technology specialists will need a very efficient system unit. This includes a motherboard and a quad-core processor. The CPU (central processing unit) is what interprets and carries out the fundamental instructions that operate a computer. A hard drive is also crucial. This is where data will be permanently saved. A great business needs extremely fast software, so a SATA or Solid State Drive would be preferred.

In order to keep the computers in the office up to speed it will be necessary to defragment the computers if they are slow. This means finding free memory space by rearranging the fragments of the hard drive.

Lecture Post 1

The "Pack N' Go" is a smartphone app designed to help travelers pack carefully and efficiently for their upcoming trips. Travelers can create their own packing list, and then save it to the program, so it is available for all other users to take advantage of. It is designed specifically for you, by people like you.

What better way to promote this new product than through social media. With over 200 million people using twitter as a social medium, the "Pack N' Go" will be able to reach an incredibly large audience. This is beneficial for promoting the product as well as igniting the consumer interaction that the "Pack N' Go" thrives off of.

One of the many benefits of social media is that it is very cost effective. Generally speaking, there is no cost except for potentially hiring someone to handle the social media of the company. This will allow the company to spend it's money elsewhere, such as improving the product or launching new ideas. There is no better advertising than free advertising.

In Lecture we were told that some companies are scared to engage in social mediums such as Facebook and Twitter because they are afraid of what the users and consumers will say about their products. The public is more likely to trust the opinions of their peers as opposed to paid advertisements. However, this is actually very helpful for our company. Since the "Pack N' Go" is designed by the users' contributions, there is a greater chance of consumers liking the product since they created it themselves, and hopefully passing it along to their friends.