Week 3 Original: Dealmoon -- Help You Make Everyday Become Your "Black Friday"

Last week, it cost me about three days to think about where to spend my upcoming Spring break on March. Since this will be my last vocation during my school years, I want to make my trip a little bit special and relax. After asking suggestions from my friends, I finally decided my destination: Puerto Rico! Sunshine and beach, isn't it the best place to get away from the coldness and snow here in big Boston area? Then what I should do was to book hotels, air tickets and cars, and prepare my trip. If you were me, which website would you go to? Tripadvisor? Groupon? Priceline? No No No, I went to Dealmoon to look for deals! Why? Because I can find deals not only on air tickets, hotels, cars, but also sunblock, sunglasses, and many things that may be useful during my trip! More importantly, I can read passages from other people who have experience in traveling to Puerto Rico, or read comments about the product I am going to buy. In sum, This website almost tells me everything! You may never hear about this website. It doesn't matter. I will introduce it to you. 

1. What is Dealmoon?

    Dealmoon.com is a website that offers online shoppers FREE PROMOTION NEWS and LINKS. It provides deals and discounts NEWS for many things such as apparel, cosmetics, travel, household items and more. Deals from Amazon, Macys, Priceline, Groupon and many other popular stores are covered by Dealmoon. Deals news are updated 24/7.

2. What is the difference from Groupon?

     Groupon is a platform that offers online shoppers direct discounts and coupons to selected shops and services. People can buy coupons on Groupon's official website and then show what they've bought to shops. In a word, people finish transaction on Groupon, instead of in the shops. Dealmoon isn't such a website. Just as I mention in point 1, Dealmoon offers PROMOTION NEWS and LINKS from various websites, including Groupon, which means, people do not buy things on Dealmoon's website, but on the original shops' websites. For example, I wanted to buy cheap air tickets from Boston to Puerto Rico, so I went to Dealmoon.com, and I clicked "Travel" to see which airline was on promotion. Then I found American Airlines was offering a roundtrip discount at $92, so if I was interested in it, I could click that link, and then Dealmoon would lead me to American Airlines' official website to get more information. 

 Travel Deals News on Dealmoon

Another important thing that differentiates Dealmoon from Groupon is, you can comment on every deal, or you can "like" it, just like what you do on Facebook. What does this mean? It means Dealmoon.com is not only a simple website that offers you information, but also a platform that you can interact with other online shoppers, make friends with whom you think you share common interests with, as well as communicating with Dealmoon.com. You can tell Dealmoon.com that how you think of the deal, what kinds of deals you want to have, and so forth. Dealmoon.com will give you reply!

3. How does Dealmoon social?
On top of Dealmoon.com's website, it shows some social medias that it uses: Weibo, Facebook, WeChat, Google+, Tweeter, Youtube. It also has a forum that integrates many aspects such as shopping, traveling, selling, chat, entertaining, renting houses, and so on. Tens of thousands of people social on these platforms everyday. Moreover, if you have a smartphone, you can download its app, which makes you more convenient to look for deals anytime. To sum, Dealmoon is very helpful in our daily life.

  

         

 


However, after I went through all of Dealmoon's social medias, I found that Dealmoon has a serious shortage, which limits it become popular in United States: its English version is not as engaging as its Chinese Version, but all deals it offers can be only used in U.S. If Dealmoon can put more efforts on socializing with local Americans, I think it will definitely have a much more optimistic future. Nevertheless, don't worry if you can't read Chinese comments, you can still use Dealmoon.com because deals are posted in English. Have fun in buying things cheaper than they are supposed to be, and feel free to make your day becomes "Black Friday!" 




Reference:
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/dealmoon-com#ixzz2t8iesTGS 

Week 2 Reading Response: The Power of The Groundswell

October 20th, 2013, Starbucks China involved in a media storm in China for its higher prices compared to other markets in the world. CCTV (China Central Television), the most powerful China's state mass media, was the one who set off storm inside network. 

BBC News - Starbucks' China pricing: Storm in a coffee cup

Price Comparison

The original idea that CCTV trigger storm was to win people's support by accusing Starbucks China of unfair price strategy that overcharging local customers for coffee. Unexpectedly, the storm went opposite of what CCTV wanted. People got angry about CCTV, which acted as the speaker of China's government, that the governors did not care about the incredible high prices of houses, medical care, and other costs that related to people's daily life, but paid attention to the price of A CUP OF COFFEE!

Two days after the news aired, millions of Chinese people connected each other, voluntarily blogged, posted on Weibo ("Chinese Twitter") and other social media, to fight back CCTV's report and to support Starbucks. Without making too much effort, Starbucks China won in this storm. According to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, the authors of Groundswell, winning in a world transformed by social technologies, this storm could be seen as a "mini groundswell," which is: 

"A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations."

The world has changed a lot since social media appeared. The groundswell is a movement that "can't be tamed." CCTV wasn't aware of what was happening in this movement, that the power controller has been shifted from traditional media to people that always connected. The reason that CCTV trapped itself in the storm was that CCTV failed to clearly understand its relationship with people. However, relationship is "the principle for mastering the groundswell." As Li and Bernoff says, 

"In the groundswell, relationships are everything. The way people connect with each other -- the community that is created -- determines how the power shifts." 

However, CCTV didn't take "relationships" seriously. Although tens of thousands of people left comments on its official Weibo, CCTV gave NO FEEDBACK AT ALL. In this storm, CCTV disconnected itself from its audiences, ignored people's opinions, and refused to talk to the groundswell. Hence, the failure in the storm was not surprisingly. 

Li and Bernoff strongly believes the importance of listening and talking to the groundswell. The authors mention the powerful force of word of mouth in Chapter Five, saying that "your brand is what your customers say it is." Let's take a look at the storm I discuss above, why do Chinese people help Starbucks China, a foreign brand, fought against CCTV? The answer is: the reputation of Starbucks China is good among its customers. 

Starbucks China has strong social media marketing strategy in China: it creates its own community, it has its official site, it puts touching ads online, and what's more, it communicate with people via social media. The photo below is the official Weibo of Starbucks China. Being the most powerful social media in China, Weibo offers an important platform for people to communicate. Starbucks China does well in Weibo. It has almost a million followers, and it "listens and talks to" people here. 

Starbucks China's Official Weibo

In a conversation, there must be one side that is talking, and the other side that is listening; both of them are equally important to an organization. Starbucks China makes good use of Li and Bernoff's theory and it successfully engages with the groundswell. If CCTV understands the power of groundswell and respects groundswell's principles, I think it will not lose in the storm in the future.

Week 1 Original: "LINE" Up the World, Free Chat Together!

Are you still sending messages to your friends, your family, and your colleagues by texting or email? Well, Line's debut shocked the world. It changed the way we communicated with each other. 

“Hello World, We Are LINE!” This was the first greeting that Line said to its worldwide customers.  Shortly after it came out, the number of users increased greatly from 47 million native Japanese users to over 230 millions worldwide users. So what is Line? Here is a short video to give you a brief concept of Line.

"We are LINE USA!"

Isn't it fun, my friend? As shown in the video above, we know that Line uses a lot of stickers to attract people from all over the world. Line believes that "expressive stickers convey more than words."  "We hope Line can become the common language in the world," says the Chief Executive Officer of Line. 

       Stickers are very popular on Line

So why Line becomes popular around the world? Let's see how convenient Line is and how smart the marketing strategy it uses. My own experience can be an example. When I was in the study abroad program in Europe last summer, my American friends always told me that their phone bills were incredibly high due to the oversea communication fee. Additionally, the signal was so poor that they seldom called their friends and family. However, they could always see that I was on the phone or sending voice messages, which made them curious about me. Yes, I was using Line. All the text messages, phone calls and video chats were FREE! And all I need was a

smart phone. Line didn't just save my money, but also save my time. Its pretty stickers were not just for fun, but also very useful. For example, I could send an "eating sticker," a "party sticker" and a "happy face sticker" instead of typing words to tell others that I was having fun at a long table dinner with my group mates. During the project discussion time, I even set up a group chat, inviting my group mates to discuss our group project on Line because we went to different places to do researches.

Tens of thousands of stickers can be chosen to use

Using free apps such as Line is a trend. Users do not need to worry about which network carrier they are using because they can use Line freely even without a Sim-card. Moreover, Line is very easy to use, even grandpa and grandma can learn how to use it in 10 minutes. If you are too lazy to type, that's fine; just press a button, hold it, and talk; when finish, remove your finger, then a voice message is sent. Want to share your favorite photos to your friends? Sure! There is a "Timeline" function on Line. You can post everything you like on Timeline just like using Facebook -- but Line is more private and safer. Being a social media application, Line can let you add whoever you like, and block whoever you hate. An interesting function of Line is "Shake it!" This function allows you to add friends by accident. By accident I mean the system will help you find another person who is shaking his/her phone somewhere in Africa when you are shaking your phone at your home, then Line will "line you up" with that person, and you can make a decision that whether to be friend with that person or not. It is fun, isn't it? 

LINE: Use It Anytime, Anyplace!

There are still a lot can be talked about Line. Line is not only an app simply for chatting, but also for entertaining and social. It is growing fast, and become more and more popular. Meanwhile, more and more functions are added on Line, such as searching, billing, shopping, and playing games. Last year, Line finally entered North America market, which is very different from any other markets in the world. Let's see how far Line can be in the coming future.

Business models and strategies

 

Reference:
http://www.inside.com.tw/2013/08/21/line-event-2013