CASE # 3 What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is the largest of the networking sites, with the runner up being MySpace. It began as a college networking website and has expanded to include anyone and everyone.
Facebook was founded by 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and originally called thefacebook. It was quickly successful on campus and expanded beyond Harvard into other Ivy League schools. With the phenomenon growing in popularity, Zuckerberg enlisted two other students, Duston Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, to assist. Within months, thefacebook became a nationwide college networking website.
Facebook users create a profile page that shows their friends and networks information about themselves. The choice to include a profile in a network means that everyone withing that network can view the profile. The profile typically includes the following: Information, Status, Friends, Friends in Other Networks, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall.
Users are able to search for friends and acquaintances by e-mail address, school, university, or just by typing in a name or location for search.



2. What are the disadvantages and advantages of facebook?
Advantages
· Allows user search for new and old friends
· Accessible to chosen universities having a high level of security
· Makes it less awkward when communicating with strangers or people you are not familiar with
· Love attraction - can be used as a dating service system
· Makes it easier to join groups having similar likes and dislikes
· Allows members to check students who are taking the same class, living within the same area, or coming from the same academy

Disadvantages
· Overcrowding
· Weakening long distance relationship
· Unsupported by physical adjacency
· Contributes wide-range procrastination
· Rampant addiction
· Stalking is possible
· Acquaintances be labeled as friends.

3. What are the characteristics of facebook and why many people engage?
1. True friends list: Gaming can now happen exclusively within the context of one’s actual friends. Multiplayer games no longer suffer from the Catch-22 of requiring friends to be fun while new players always start the game without friends.
2. Free-to-play business model: New players need not shell out $60 to join the crowd. Consumers don’t like buying multiplayer games unless they know that their friends are all going to buy the game as well. Free-to-play removes that friction.
3. Persistent, asynchronous play: Finding time to play with one’s real friends is difficult, especially for working, adult gamers. Asynchronous mechanics, however, let gamers play at their own pace and with their own friends, not strangers who happen to be online at the same time.
4. Metrics-based iteration: Retail games are developed in a vacuum, with designers working by gut instinct. Further, games get only one launch, a single chance to succeed. Most developers would love, instead, to iterate quickly on genuine, live feedback.Many people engage facebook because they can meet or find more new friends in other country. they can make their self enjoy because of the different games found in facebook.

4. Can we use facebook in E- commerce? Why?
Yes, we can use facebook in E- commerce, because facebook talking much about social media marketing here at Get Elastic, blogging, podcast, viral videos and so on. There are Shopping Engines, Social Shopping / Bookmarking, Deals and Coupon Sharing, Online Retailers, User Developed Fan Apps, E-commerce Service Providers.


5. How important facebook in society today?
Fecebook is very important in the society today in terms of gaining friends, entertainment of different games online. It has a great help for E- commerce because it has features like Shopping Engines, Social Shopping / Bookmarking, Deals and Coupon Sharing, Online Retailers, User Developed Fan Apps, E-commerce Service Providers for business online.

CASE #2 Effects of Computer

Computers is a must in a persons life weather it is at home or office but home computer is leading the comming generation into………..
Computers are a very useful object due to which technology is very advanced now but has anyone thought of the bad side of it?
Now day’s computers are in every house and children are perpetually on it .There eyes are getting affected but there is an lcd screen but it only stops 60% of the strain caused but the rest 40% is harmful children nowadays play many games they can sit and conquer countries but cannot cross a small road.


Effect of Computers in a Certain Company and in Our Planet

As our technology grows and more people using computers and it can cause so much heat to our planet. In any company computers are more important. Data center in a company is used to facilitate computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression) and security devices. IT department in a company is a major source of negative environmental impacts. The best way to reduce heat in our planet is to less consume of power because the IT is the biggest consumer of power.
According to Senior Editor Stephanie writes that Data Centers consume between 1.5% and 3% of all the power generated annualy in the United States. A certain Company called VistaPrint, where the IT departments does manage its data center facilities, discovered that its electric bill was projected to skyrocket if the comapny, which sells custom printed products online grew as predicted. Data Centers of VistaPrints hosted by "Cable and Wireless". The use of "hydropower" provides a renewable lower-emmisions of source electricity. The company replace its blade servers with virtul machines that use more server capacity and consume less power.
Using efficient coolong systems, or simply sealing holesin your data center's floor, can reduce energy consumption and ultimately , greenhous gas emmission.

Data Center Server that Consume Less Energy

Startup server maker SeaMicro today unveiled a new low-power server that promises to slash power costs for companies running large Internet services and cloud computing platforms. SeaMicro’s multi-core x86 server runs on Intel’s low-power Atom chips, whose energy efficiency has made them the processor of choice for many mobile phones and laptops.


The Green Advantage

Generally, the shift to green IT is of multiple benefits. Those benefits can positively affect your return of investment making the switch all worth it. And just

what are those benefits?

•First and foremost, green IT is a help to the environment. The use of them reduces the already big pile of e-waste. For instance, a simple move of replacing fluorescent bulbs with energy-efficient lights will lessen the number of burnt bulbs dumped into landfills. How? Well, high-efficiency light bulbs tend to last longer which means they require lesser replacements.
•Green IT helps you save money. Most eco-friendly technology devices are energy- efficient which means that they consume lesser energy. And in a business, that translates to less electricity to pay for.
•The first two benefits leads to this third benefit. This refers to personal fulfillment. Knowing that you have helped save the planet while earning something out of it is a very wise move that creates a sense of nobility and fulfillment.

GLOBAL WARMING

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. According to the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 20th century. Most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century was caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which results from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation. Global dimming, a result of increasing concentrations of atmospheric aerosols that block sunlight from reaching the surface, has partially countered the effects of greenhouse gas induced warming.

Climate model projections summarized in the latest IPCC report indicate that the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the 21st century.[2] The uncertainty in this estimate arises from the use of models with differing sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentrations and the use of differing estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions. An increase in global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, probably including expansion of subtropical deserts.[4] Warming is expected to be strongest in the Arctic and would be associated with continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Other likely effects include changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, species extinctions, and changes in agricultural yields. Warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe, though the nature of these regional variations is uncertain.

The scientific consensus is that anthropogenic global warming is occurring.Nevertheless, political and public debate continues. The Kyoto Protocol is aimed at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentration to prevent a "dangerous anthropogenic interference".As of November 2009, 187 states have signed and ratified the protocol.

CASE # 1 GOOGLE

Google is a highly successful internet business. Recently they have broaden their scope
with a multitude of new tools. Research Google business model and answer the ff.
questions below. You may add additional information not included in this question.

What new services do they offer?

This list of Google products includes all major desktop, mobile and online products released or acquired by Google Inc. They are either a gold release, in beta development, or part of the Google Labs initiative. This list also includes previous products, that have either been merged, discarded or renamed. Features of products, such as Web Search features, are not listed.

Search
Alerts - Get email updates on the topics of your choice
Blog Search - Find blogs on your favorite topics
Google Chrome - A browser built for speed, stability and security
Directory - Search the web, organized by topic or category
Images - Search for images on the web
News - Search thousands of news stories
Scholar - Search scholarly papers
Web Search - Search billions of web pages

Explore and Innovate
Code - Developer tools, APIs and resources

Communicate, Show and Share
Docs - Create and share your online documents, presentations, and spreadsheets
Groups - Create mailing lists and discussion groups
Translate - View web pages in other languages

Go Mobile
Mobile - Get Google products on your mobile phone

How competitive are they in the international market?

Having studied Google abroad somewhat significantly, I believe this article provides a very naïve view on Google’s success abroad. Absolutely, Google, as any American company, needs to be extremely aware of the impression they make when entering foreign grounds, as the risk as being seen as arrogant – the ugly American – is omnipresent. And, yes, Google should continue to grow their in-country teams significantly in order to best overcome cultural and sales hurdles and take advantage of unique opportunities and the gigantic world market that is growing at a quicker pace than the U.S. market. Recent stats point to European e-commerce in a position to surge past U.S. e-commerce.

Yet, don’t attempt to fool anyone here: Google has enormous international market share. Though I’m on a plane and not able to access these stats immediately, I believe that Google has approximately a 10-point higher share of search in Europe than they do in the States. I attended an online and multi-channel retail conference in London earlier this year, and Google was constantly mentioned, and never in a bad light. I am attempting to arrange a dinner in Paris later this year or early next with top French e-commerce companies, and Google is the likely sponsor, due to their relationship with the French agency that I am in contact with and their relationship with the likely invitees. Google is dominant in most countries, with their distant following to Baidu in China and the Russian example in the article notable exceptions.

In the UK, Amazon.com and eBay have also taken off after some early slips and command a dominant share of the market. Of course, they face hurdles, most notably eBay’s fraud and trust problem, but these American brands have also experienced tremendous success abroad. And there are other huge hurdles across Europe, such as Germany’s reliance on non-credit card payments and their language and cultural barriers. The European Union is still quite segmented, and pan-European plays will rarely be successful. Yet, the world continues to flatten, and American brands can have success abroad with fewer hurdles as can international brands have success in the States.

Google has had success with other products abroad, most notably its Orkut social network which has bombed domestically to its MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn brethren, yet has taken off in huge countries such as India and Brazil. So, sure, Google should be sensitive to cultural sensitivities and will face different regulatory environments abroad, but the truth is that Google has been remarkably successful internationally in large part due to the international word-of-mouth generated by their product and feature set.

What them so unique?

Needless to say, it all adds up to a lot of Google on the brain. Google, at the moment, is held up as the gold standard of software companies. They have achieved massive success and are the company almost every developer wants to work for. Ask someone in the software industry which company they want to emulate and they will likely say Google.

Obviously, if it was easy to emulate Google, everyone would have done it or would be doing it by now. The more I think about Google, the more and more I think it is going to be impossible to emulate them. Certainly you can steal some of their ideas and what they’ve pioneered and put it to use in your company, but outright copying Google is going to be near impossible.

Having touched on Google’s corporate culture, let’s look at something else that makes Google even more unique: how it grows.

One thing that has become evident to me is that Google grows in an organic fashion, unlike any other company I know of. Google develops tools that are internally useful and then releases them to the world. Google does not develop products to sell to the world. Google does not have external contracts, at least in the traditional sense, as far as I can tell.

Let me elaborate on this. Google is obviously best known for search and for ads associated with search. This is in essence Google’s one true product. It is the one feature Google developed for the outside world. When Google developed search it was no different from a small company. It is what Google has done since then that makes Google different.

Google doesn’t answer to any external power. They don’t have anyone they have to deliver a product to. There is no contract with a deadline. Due to not having any external dependencies, Google can continuously iterate over a product until it reaches a state of near perfection. It can stay in internal testing as long as Google wants and no one is going to care. See Gmail, Google Maps, etc. This then allows Google to use the perfect form of the agile process. Continuous iterations and testing and development, continues improvement. Then as Google sees fit, release the products. As they get better and better, more people use them and more money from ads come in. It’s beautiful.

How have they use information technology to their advantage?

This Competitive Intelligence Report helps you to know more about your company, your industry, and your competitors. It makes you better informed about important issues like launching a new product or service in the market. It also identifies your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market positioning.

This report is of immense help to management consultants, analysts, market research organizations and corporate advisors.

The objective and scope of various sections of our Competitive Intelligence Report has been discussed below.

Company Summary
This section presents the key facts & figures, business description, and products & services offered by the company.

Major Competitors
This section first selects the competitors based on assets, sales, focus of business, or geographic reach. Then all the competitors are profiled. For each competitor, business description is given followed by products & services and geographic segmentation.

Key Business Strategies of Each Competitor
It talks about the current and future strategies of each company. All business, marketing, financial and organizational strategies are discussed here.

Comparative SWOT Analysis
Our comparative SWOT analysis is a valuable step in assessing your company's and you competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It offers powerful insight into the critical issues affecting a business.

Comparative Financial Analysis
This section compares the recent financials of the company and its competitors. The financial performance of each segment of all the companies is also discussed here. The objective is to evaluate the financial health of the company vis-à-vis its competitors. The stock price comparison helps us in evaluating the performance of the company position versus its competitors from an investor’s viewpoint.

Conclusion – Competitor Matrix
A logical conclusion is provided to summarize the whole report. The objective is that the reader should be able to understand which company is leading in the peer group in terms of market positioning. The reader should also be able to make informed decision on the basis of positioning of the companies in the competitor set.

Who are the competitors of Google?

POPULARITY CONTEST
Many search technologies base their results on the popularity of a page, or how often it is linked to other pages on the Net. By contrast, Google, Teoma and Wisenut consider popularity but also rely on other factors and proprietary methods to determine the rank of a Web page in a given search.

Google’s system, called PageRank, identifies the link structure of the entire Web and ranks pages based partly on the number of other important pages linked to them and partly on popularity. The search algorithms themselves are closely guarded secrets, Google spokesman David Krane said. Google also taps Netscape’s Open Directory Project, an open-source directory of Web sites, for topic-based searches.

Teoma and Wisenut hope to convince Web surfers that their methodologies are even more effective. “What Teoma does that is different is that we crawl the Web and look at subject-specific topics. We are able to cluster the Web into communities and understand what are the most important pages in those communities and who the experts are in that community,” Teoma’s Gardi said. He says flatly that Teoma’s technology aces Google’s, even though it has yet to be fully launched.