How to use social media in product development

Our first assignment is based on a famous social media -- facebook. We must remember that, facebook is not only the platform where to put our application, but also a platform where we can take advantage of to realize our customer-driven product development. I want to introduce my shallow understanding about how to use social media in product development.

Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content".It includes Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking. Comparing with traditional media, social media has accessibility, recency, interaction and dynamicity. So for product development, especially for the development of consumption product, social media is a new tool to realize the strategy of customer-driven product development

The purpose for people to use the social media in product development may include:
Deeper and wider communication with customer.
Positive effect in Marketing Effectiveness and public relations.
Low cost in effective communication.
Finding new products to satisfy customers' needs and potential needs.

The traditional media (radio, TV, newspaper etc) mainly focus on the last stage of the product development, like advertisement, marketing etc. The application of social media can runs trough the whole progresses of product development, from communication and capture, to product design and
products experience and testing; from product marketing, publish and information feedback, to after sale service.

Following is some examples about social media in product development.

Threadless
Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store. Members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online; the designs are then put to a puclic vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an online store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit.

Dell IdeaStorm
Dell IdeaStorm is a website launched by Dell to "gauge which ideas are most important and most relevant to" the public. After registering, users are able to add articles, promote them, demote them and comment on them. As articles are promoted, their score is increased, allowing Dell to rank which suggestions and requests are considered most important by the website's users. the PC with with no OS preinstalled and linux OS preinstalled comes from uers' advices and votes.

Lenove DesignMatters
Similar to Dell IdeaStorm

Open innovation of P&G
P&G publish it's innovation needs through it's website Connect+Develop, to collect originality and innovative technology and products. This let the development strategy depend on outside innovation instead of inside innovation. In 2006, 35% of the innovations of new products of P&G in market come from outside. In 2000. this persentage is only 15%.

In our assignment, We may not have enough time to do a survey to collect new ideas. We come up with the idea by ourselves. But our ideas are also based on the social media. As users of Facebook, twitter etc, we observe our friends and even "strangers" in these SNS. We collect and analyse information about them to figure out what kind of services these people need. Then we propose our own ideas. And in the progress of development, we can also make use of social media. We can put our app trial in the facebook, and ask people to try and feedback. In this way, we can complement our own product and offer better services to people at the same time.

We need to make sufficient use of social media. I believe it's a gold mine. =]

ENJOY WHAT I AM DOING

I never regret that I have choosen CS3216. Even this module takes me much much much much more time (I do not overstate)than any other normal modules. I enjoy this module very very very much. Because I like what I am doing. I am not wasting time, I am learning with the fastest speed which I have never haven before.

Firstly, I want to talk about the rate of progress of my facebook assignment. I have a very good team. Since last Wednesday, we have began our work. All of us work at least 7 hours a day together(exclusive the time we work separately). Everyday, I am thinking about what we should do next; to finish our assignment, what we should learn and whether our application is really useful for other people. But we still face many problems. The biggest problem is that, we all have no experience to organize a whole application, from organize people to organize the structure of the application. Sometimes, we feel lost. For example, at the very beginning, after we have decided what we will do, we do not know where to begin. We do not know what we should learn first, what we all need to learn, what can be divided into several parts and each of us can learn only one part. We do not know how to divide the work and how to do the web design and database design. Until now, our improvement is very very slow. But I can feel that we are going into orbit slowly. After we are in orbit, I believe we can do faster and better.

Some of my friends advise me to drop this module, because it takes most time of mine, I have no time to go shopping or talk deep into the night with them. Thank you for their caring. But I don't think they really understand me, understand the potential of people. I really love IT, love software, love web, love programming. For them, it's hard to imagine a person can love these, especially a girl. But I know what I am doing, and I love what I am doing.

Actually, I don't feel that this module is very hard. Nothing is hard if you spend enough time, use the right method and have a positive attitude. Everyday, when I come back from COM1 around 4 a.m., I am too tired to do anything but sleep. However, I feel very happy.

Hope every group enjoy this assignment and let's learn from each other =]

Augmented reality

In my last blog, I introduce something about PTAM. For somebody may not understand what the use of PTAM is, What the use of Augmented reality is, here I show you some vedios about the big companies' plans of Augmented reality. So you can feel Augmented reality is the developing direction of the future.



I believe most of the things in this vedio can be true in the future.



What a beautiful life!!



This is the concept produce of microsoft. It lets the real people's behaviour react with the virtual one. There is similar usage in the film Avatar.





This guy is a genius!!!Prarnav Mistry from MIT.

WHAT I THINK REALLY COOL

Ha, I just want to introduce some app which I think is really cool~~

Has anybody know what PTAM is? PTAM is the abbreviation of Parallel Tracking and Mapping. It's a camera tracking system for augmented reality. Augmented reality!! It sound excited, right?? After seeing the following videos made with PTAM, you must agree with me O(∩_∩)O~

Actually, I don't know how to do it too. I just want to learn it. =]

WHAT I WANT TO LEARN FROM CS3216

This is a hard but good question for me. =）

If we want to do every project of this module perfect, a lot of knowledge is needed: computing, arts. business. Maybe includes how we arrange our time and how we work with other people. All these things must be skilled. We have only one semester, we can only learn very limited knowledge. The other knowledge we must learn outside this module and some of them must be learnt through our whole life. So knowledge is not the most important thing in this module. The most important thing for me is Passion and cooperation.

Cs3216 offers me a platform to learn and work with people who has the same passion as me.

I am very interested in software. But I do not very like the traditional teaching method. It's very ineffective. In traditional way, We are told what we need to learn, and we are forced to learn it. After exams, we forget everything. We need a pleasing and effective way to learn what we need to learn and what what we want to learn. (Here, what we need to learn means what ourselves really realize we need them, not what professors think we need). Only in this way, we can use what we learn wisely and passionately.

The teaching method of CS3216 is different from the traditional one. It gives us sufficient freedom to decide what we want to do and what we want to learn. And the students taking this module I believe are the people who are most passionate in software. I want to experience and learn this passion with professor, TAs and classmates.

The other thing I want to learn is cooperation. I always believe cooperation is the most important thing in everything. I have never cooperated with artists and businessmen. But for a people, who want to do really great software and who want to let as many people as possible to use it, like me, I must cooperate with different kinds of people.

I always feel very confident for myself. This time, I believe I can learn a lot and do my job well. I never give up.

Happy New Year