What is to come...

My first semester of final year has nearly ended and i cant help but think of what is going to happen when i finish my degree in May. The recession is still in full swing so will there be jobs for us who will be leaving college? I just don't want to think that after 4 hard, long years, that i will not get a job in my field immediately. How heartbreaking and disappointing is that??? I do not particularly want to work in a regular job, not even for a while, but its what i may need to do if there are no job opportunities available in the marketing end of things. I also want to move away to live and work but at the minute that is not a possibility and money is also needed to do so and, well, lets face it, i need a few years to get that end of it sorted! The pressure is really on this year and i am actually thinking too far ahead at the minute and i am worrying about the level of the degree i will get, and it seems a 1st class honours is simply too exceptional and i just want it so bad! Ahhhhh, well all i can do is continue to give this my all, just like i have all year while at the same time, hoping that the economic situation of this country picks up sometime soon so i can get out there and start living in the real world that is oh so terrifying to consider! 

m-Commerce

m-Commerce is the use of the internet for purchasing goods and services and also for transmitting messages using wireless  mobile devices while on the move, such as laptops and mobile phones. 

Wireless technology comes in the form of Infrared, Bluetooth, and WiFi. WiFi is the most popular and is becoming a big thing everywhere and is also starting to have an effect in the business world. WiFi operates on free and unlicensed radio frequency bands and most laptops come with WiFi access in the form of a chip. WiFi has achieved highest market penetration. In the business world, WiFi networks are used in warehouse environments for inventory tracking, in hospitals for patient care and on corporate campuses for internet access. The technology of WiFi is used in hotspots to provide convenient internet access.  Obstacles of WiFi include security, availability, roaming, authentication, and signal interference.

There are lots of m-Commerce services and applications, such as information-based services, transaction-based services, and personalised services.  

RFID systems provide a powerful technology for tracking the movement of goods throughout the supply chain. There is controversy about ethical issues and privacy. If a clothes shop uses this on their items, is it going to still be on it after we purchase it?

In conclusion, m-Commerce is becoming increasingly popular and will continue to grow and grow in popularity

Is there a place for religion in modern society?

In my honest opinion, i do not think there is a place for religion is the society of today. There are a number of reasons why i am of this opinion. 

Firstly, i think that a lot less people go to mass now, especially people that are my age. On the contrary, many more older people do go, and each week without fail in some cases. However, overall there has been a decline i would imagine as religion just is not something some people are deeply into. The majority of people in this world believe in God though and yet not all of these consider religion to be of great importance in this modern society. 

A big issue that may have helped in the decline of mass-goers may be the whole thing surrounding the scandal with the priests and what went on in this country in regards to sex abuse towards children. Many people were disgusted with this and lost trust in the priesthood. Okay, thats a fair reason but why would you decide to turn your back on religion when it is not about priests, but in fact, about the God above. There is no need to begin to not believe in God over what went in among these priests, at least this is my opinion.

So to say it again clearly, i really believe that people nowadays do not see religion as having as having a place in modern society and i feel that this is a sad thing and that without faith, how can we feel safe and feel that we are being guided through all we do each and every day? 

NAMA

This blog post will be about NAMA, which stand for National Asset Management Agency. It is a body that is due to be created by the Irish Government by the end of this year and it is going to acquire property development loans from Irish banks in return for government bonds. The banks concerned are AIB, Angle Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, EBS Building Society, and Irish Nationwide. This is with a view of improving the availability of credit in the Irish economy. NAMA will buy bad loans from the banks at a reduced price maybe somewhere that it is between 50-70% of their original value. They won't be paying to much for these particular loans as the assets that are gauranteeing these loans have reduced in value. NAMA will pay 54 billion euro for 77 billion worth of loans advanced by 5 banks. 2,000 bank customers will have their loans transferred to NAMA. 

There has been many criticisms of the entire thing, both from politics and academia. I do not have an opinion because i don't fully understand everything about it so for now i am indifferent. I just hope it is for the benefit of our economy and that no silly decisions are going to be made in haste

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Asset_Management_Agency

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055644732

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0917/1224254726800.html

...and now for something completely different...

This week in e-Business we learned about the online adult industry. I was very shocked to see that this industry, the pornography industry is worth so much worldwide - $57 BILLION!!! That is astounding! There are 4.2 million pornographic websites and 372 million pages. That is a serious amount and i was really shocked. I knew it was a hugely profitable industry but i didnt think it was in the billions!


It was interesting to learn about the users of cybersex, which are recreational, sexually compulsive and at risk.


Sex has hugely shaped the internet as it exists now. Lots of advances were made. These things exist now only because they were first used in this industry. These include: streaming video, live chats, payment systems, fee based subscriptions, web cam, pay per click viewing, ad's associated with words, video on demand billing, web analysis software, and focus on usability


The ultimate question is whether porn adult content websites and pages should be made illegal. in my opinion i do not think so at all because each individual has the choice to watch this content or not. Nobody forces anyone to go onto these websites. It is already banned in certain countries but this is for reasons depending on each country, although i would suggest religion is is a big reason why. In Ireland i would say no to a ban for sure based on the reason i said, that at the end of the day it is a choice.

The whole social networking end of things...

Let's face it, the majority of people who participate in social networking are concerned with Facebook. It currently has more than 300 million users worldwide which in my opinion, is HUGE. That shows how much of a craze it is. So many people are addicted to it and i am probably included in this too as i check my profile several times a day!!! I mean, it hit the world at some speed, it was an instant success! I would reckon it is the most recognised social networking website worldwide currently. Practically everyone knows the name and that is amazing. It is a great thing for boredom (and everything in between...) with its endless list of things you can do on it. Personally i dont know what i would do without it, and that is the honest truth.

Recently blogs have become popular too seeing as 34.5 million weblogs are being tracked. These include personal and corporate blogs. Now if you have an opinion on something you can immediately blog it in your own personal blog! It is great! I like how you can follow certain bloggers and read what they update each time. Businesses have taken on using blogs too and it is good because they can then update their blogs onto their own business websites so people can read them there. The number of blogs worldwide is massive and i love the idea of blogging so i wont be giving that up just yet haha

Bad weather, college work, blogs and fun times in London

All is well on my end. Nothing unusual exept i am still lying under a huge pile of college work, as much as that is so so so annoying. However, now the country has returned to its usual self by giving us rain again. Today it was horrendous. I. Hate. Rain. Just to let you all know that irrelevant fact.

Although i am looking forward to this weekend when i am going to London to meet up with some friends from my year abroad. It will be so much fun! I was only ever in the UK once and i was young, so going to London should be pretty good! Cannot wait to see all my friends from abroad again! :)

So...... we have been given the task in our e-Business class to follow certain blogs, so i am currently looking for potential candidates hahaha. Twenty Major became my first. I enjoy reading the posts on that blog :)

Anyway, back to work now - blog hunting!!

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is essentially the process of designing and updating a website so that it is likely to show up in organic listings for relevant user queries.

The basic idea of it is that there are 3 key things that need to be done carefully to ensure that your company appears in the organic listings of a search engine, e.g Google. These are:

1. Identify target key phrases

Hints to look for here would be the things potential customers would type in and also what queries have already been conducted

2. Include key phrases in the web page

However only include once only in these places: in the page title, in a heading, in regular text, and in bold text.

3. Get links to the site

Ideally, companies should aim to get links on many pages and from reputable sites with similar themes.

There are certain things that are considered as definite no-no's. These are:

- Avoid hidden or invisible text

- Do not do any keyword stuffing

- Do not page-jack

- Do not get involved in "link farming"

I find this area quite interesting as it is generally all about Google, as the biggest and most successful search engine. The actual topic content is good. It is quite useful to learn these things on this topic as i may need to undertake SEO one day!! At least now i know all about it and i found further reading on it too on Wikipedia (as reliable as ever).

We also learned about the so called "black listing". This is where companies under go certain things to try and get to number one on Google but they are caught out and are black listed for a certain time period. In this period, if a user types the company name into Google, no result will appear. I liked learning this because it is good to know what happens if you try and do the above mentioned no-no's.

e-Business

This blog post today will be about one of my modules in college, titled e-Business. I find the module quite interesting. The content appeals to me and does not make me bored in any way, which is a good thing because some classes bore me to tears!!!

At the minute in this class we are learning about interesting things related to Google, like how to get to number one on the Organic Listings. Its very interesting because it is something i always wondered about!

Basically we have so far covered a general intro to e-Business, which included definitions of e-Business itself and some of the advantages it can bring to a company amony other things too. It was a nice, east topic so i have no complaints! It slowly took us into the whole world of e-Biz!
The definition we had was that e-Business is "the use of computer networks to improve organisational performance while increasing market share, improving customer service, and reducing costs".

We also have covered detailed theory on digital marketing which is a topic i like also. As i mentioned before, i love learning about how to get to the top in a search engine.

We have lab classes each week for one hour and we have so far done such things as creating a Google Analytics account (which means we can follow our fellow classmates and be very nosy!). We have had a look at Google Trends and also Google Adwords.... As you can see we focus on Google a lot. That alone is interesting! We have to do certain assigned blogs for this class too.


I look forward to the remaining weeks of this module (all 10 or so of them!)

First week back at college

This week i began my fourth and final year in my course, which is a course in Marketing. I study in Dundalk IT in Ireland and i also live in Dundalk town itself. It was quite strange being back, at first, seeing as i done my previous year (my third year) in Germany. I only came back around six weeks ago, so i am still settling back in. It is just an odd feeling that i am back here and not in Germany. I got really used to studying in that country and i will need some time to adjust to things back in Dundalk IT. I will be settled back in very soon i am sure.. Also i am sure this year will be tough but i will welcome the challenges with open arms! :) I love my lecture so far. My favourite is e - Business which i am in now! We have to set up a blog for the lecture!