Idea: Article Aggregator

The web contains many services that provide informative/educational articles. There are services for news articles, health articles, sports articles, game articles and so forth. They all provide good information and people using those services most likely receive the information they are looking for. However, the information is so vast that people simply don’t have time to skim through everything or begin a intensive search for something.

The idea to solve this problem is an article aggregator. It is a service that gathers articles depending on what the key words are. In other words it acts as a filter for all those articles online with everything not fitting the keywords being dropped out. The uniqueness comes from the idea of combining different article service providers and then presenting the filtered results to the user. An analogy is hotels.com which contains thousands of hotels around the globe in which people can easily choose based on the cost, location, rank and reviews of other users. Essentially the previously listed criteria are just filters, which act very much the same way as the criteria set for an article search.

Example: A man wants to find articles related a certain company that he follows in the stock market. Normally the process would be to be go through different sites and read the articles written about that company. With the article aggregator the man can just type the name of the company and specify for instance the type of article being searched for like this “company:apple”. This would initiate a large scale search over various financial article providers and bring back the results into one clearly viewable page. Clicking on the article link, it would take the user to the actual article.

Improving the Idea

The article aggregator needs to incorporate some sort of ranking system. When a user searches for articles, the articles ranked the highest should be displayed first. The ranking is done in the article aggregator service. After the person has read the article, he/she may report back with a ranking on the aggregator site. The ranking could be based on a 1-5 star type ranking system with the average representing the rank status of the article.

Perhaps making a general article aggregator might be too cumbersome. Defining the user group could help. If the user group was stock traders, then they would be interested in company news and any information on future prospects. Finding different services displaying these types of articles would narrow the viewpoint down and make the idea feasible.

With a more defined user group, the service should provide something extra. Google provides a translating service which could be used to translate company reports and news to the users own language. To this day investors are met with the dilemma of not having equal information of a different market simply because it is not as accessible as it is to someone for whom it is their home market. To make this more transparent a service that gathers market news from different countries and presents in a local language provides an invaluable service to investors.

The Market

News aggregators currently are composed of sites that use algorithms to group similar articles together. When a user navigates to one article, it is easy for him/her to find another similar one as they have been grouped. Currently there are some news aggregator services. The main ones are Drudge Report and Huntington Post. Huntington Post uses social media primarily to spread information to its users. Also it brings its content through email newsletters.

Idea: Well-being Adviser

Currently finding good health information is limited to the web, which is full of texts that are either true or not. There are some services which may offer good information, however they lack the essential integration of other services to them. For example the service could be connected to a network of doctors.

The idea is a well-being adviser implemented as a mobile client that retrieves data from an online server. With this service a user can retrieve possible treatments, closest treatment services, pharmacies, contact details of professionals, make reservations. Thus, the service unites different services together to make the process simpler.

For example, a woman, who might feel stressed out by her busy schedule could open the service and search for stress relief; this would yield possible treatments such as a massage, a 20 minute jog or walk, suggesting a healthy meal, or something different. The service would also yield information on the condition and its possible risks. Choosing the massage treatment, the woman would be led to a selection of places offering the service. From there the woman could choose a treatment facility and book a treatment from this service.

Improving the idea

Considering the trans-media aspect, the service could attract audiences from different angles. As the service is online offering its services through the web and through mobile interfaces, the service can target these audiences through health related communities by providing valuable information and asking for user feedback. Large health related online blogs can be argued as one form of media. Creating a blog for the service would also bring visibility. Getting a presence there would allow an enthusiastic user group to be reached. Newspapers can contain advertisements targeting the customer group. Articles can be written to magazines to allow a good overview of the service.

Putting aside trans-media, the service’s user group needs to be defined more. The media service could be customized to active females in their late 20’s. Or the user group could be old males whose need for medical services increases as age increases. These user groups allow a better theme to be evolved. Providing an email newsletter focused on the user group would enhance the connection between the service and user. Providing some sort of feedback mechanism that is designed for the group might makes them much more likely to send that feedback.

Looking at other health services like health.com, the central focus point is providing health content to its users. The well-being adviser service idea needs to focused more. Perhaps too many services in one is not the most effective method. Instead the service could link to other services that provide those services. When searching for health related information, the service could suggest only the treatment options with links to other providers for further information. Providing a lot of information about all kinds of sicknesses is already another service.

Refining the concept even more, the service could provide treatments that are for example in the case of the female user group: beauty parlor related treatments. For the male user group the service could provide stores selling protein, carbohydrates or other nutrition; gyms close to the area; a restaurant with a pool table; and others.

The Market

Health.com is a similar service providing health information for people. It contains new health topics on its front page every day and a large amount of information about health for the user to search through. Examining the site reveals different ways of distribution of the content on the health.com website. One of these is gifts. People can send gifts to their friends providing a good feeling to the sender as well as presence to the Health brand. The company also sends newsletters allowing them to reach audiences with new information. Magazine issues are sold to people through the website. Health.com uses social media also. It has a twitter page http://twitter.com/goodhealth and a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/healthmag. This shows health.com uses various means of media.

Reaction Report to Kozinets, Robert V. E-Tribalized Marketing?: The Strategic Implication of Virtual Communities of Consumption

Summary

The theme of the article is virtual communities and marketing to these communities. The article discusses different types of virtual communities online and the type of members these communities have. This is important to understand how consumption information is broadcasted online and what consumers are saying about the product or service. Understanding these will allow marketers to better target their customers and increase sales. It is also interesting because it demonstrates a shift of power to the consumer from the marketer.

The main point the article is trying to make is that marketers should begin to discover the different types of communities existing for their product, how to reach them and begin to engage in those communities. They should start to form bonds with the insider and devotee users in those communities.

Theories and Methodology

The main theory is the virtual community marketing (VCM) theory, which labels database marketing as old and inefficient, and introduces a new method of marketing for marketers. The discussion enlightens on loyalty, retention and attention theorizing that the scarcest commodity in the information age is human attention.

Reaction and Analysis

I felt this article was effective in bringing forth VCM. The idea behind marketing using social media is fairly common; however, the detail to which the author of article brings this method provides clearness and interest into this topic. I haven’t considered the pareto rule in online communities, though it makes perfect sense that the insiders and devotees of virtual communities form 20% of the 

members and possess the most influence in that group.

This article teaches the fundamental aspects of doing marketing online. The new approach isn’t the classic cook, bake and serve rather a more lets mix the ingredients together and see what comes out while in the process forming a connection between the consumer and the producer.

Reaction Report to Moisander, J and Valtonen, A. Qualitative Marketing Research: A Cultural Approach

Summary

The first chapter focuses on how people use products and services to form some sort of cultural meaning to their life and identity. This is interesting as it shifts focus away from how people respond to marketing incentives. This theme is important as it brings forth a different viewpoint to approaching the consumer by looking at how the user can demonstrate his/her identity better through the use of a particular product.

The main points in this text are to introduce the cultural marketing and consumer research; discuss the consumer, producer and product marketing constructs; and inform why cultural information is needed in order for successful marketing.

Theories and Methodology

Chapter 1 main discussion is concerned with marketing discipline and marketing knowledge and how they are a part of creating a consumer’s reality, which in turn is argued as social culture.

The concept of culture is discussed. Culture is defined as “systems of representation through which people make sense of their everyday life”. The perspective that culture is a integrated system of norms and values is left out of the discussion. Culture is something created, renovated and challenged in the process of social interaction. 

The process of creating this interactive culture is discussed through the consumers, marketers and the products and brands perspective. The marketers 1) shape products according to expectations and 2) create new needs and wants for consumers. The products and brands that marketers use as vessels that reach the consumer are discussed as cultural artifacts that posses meaning. The consumers 1) act as receivers of these artifacts of meaning and 2) producers of even greater meaning to the artifacts. Consumers may modify the product further to represent them even more.

Chapter 1 does not discuss explicitly a certain research method, however does suggest through the presented case studies that marketers should identify groups or so-called tribes and form links or bonds with them through newspapers, books, chat lines, diffusion lists or net forums.

Reaction and Analysis

Moisander and Valtonen provided an intriguing discussion on how essentially value is formed for the consumer. If some artifact represents the consumer in some way, it is of much value to that consumer as it is a part of his/her self identity. To me the reaction I get is that value proposition is being redefined or altered. When it once was that a certain product provided you some value which was applicable on a more general level, now it looks to shifting to more specific value. 

For example a BMW in earlier times and still today can be linked to a consumers values of reliability and luxury, however the changes coming forth may make BMW to reconsider its value proposition to specific different groups: eco-friendly group would value small emissions and perhaps a color symbol on the car, a youth rock group might want a black car with a large guitar on the hood.  It is up to the company to figure out with which groups they wish to make contact and begin the pursuit of attracting that group with its cars that display meaning.

The article taught me a lot. Even though it is apparent that presence of companies in social media has increased and feedback from users is almost like second income to the company, the marketing approach has not been very clear to the consumer. This article sheds light on the different components that make up the process of creating interactive culture. It is generally thought that consumers are the receivers and the producers are the givers. However, consumers are becoming more and more producers themselves.

Four Sight Promises

Understanding different members of the group is important. As an exercise everyone in the group was required to recognize their four sight type. It turned out that my graph represents a check mark implying my type to be "Realist".