Week 1: How the Web Has Changed Marketing Strategy

Materials:

• Consumed introductory materials.
• Begin to dive into course materials and understand the framework for assignments and deliverables.
• Read first 50 pages of textbook, understand Business Model Canvas.
• Read “Does the Internet Make You Dumber?” (I really, really hope not.)
• Read “Do You Trust This Face?”
• Watch clip of Katie Couric & Bryan Gumbel discussing the “series of tubes” that is the internet.  (Wow)

I was able to complete all of my learning objectives for the week.  I really enjoyed the readings and video clip.

"Do You Trust This Face?" by Alex French, GQ, December, 2008

I had an interesting experience the other day that brought to mind the “Do You Trust this Face?” article from GQ. The experience really reinforced to me the ways in which Facebook has changed the way we approach the internet – and what it has made possible in doing so.  Earlier this week, I signed up for an account with Airbnb.com, a service devoted to helping strangers rent their room/apartment/house to other strangers for short term stays.  In order to establish my identity and have the site confirm me as trustworthy and legitimate, I had to provide my Facebook and LinkedIn information, which were then cross referenced to prove that I was who I said I was, that I was a legitimate, real person, worthy of renting someone’s apartment. The fact that I was willing to give up my privacy and share with other members a sense of who I was in “real life” to legitimize myself online was interesting to me. Would a site like Airbnb work without exchange of cross-referenced personal information? The more I thought about it, the more I thought that yes, if I was going to rent my house to someone, I would like to see their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.  Really made me think about how these services have changed the way we do business, approach strangers, and market our services. Airbnb has found a unique way to bridge the awkward issue of letting a “stranger” stay in your house – creating an interesting market space that may not have been as possible or approachable without social media.