Wiki/Reverse enginering

Also, in regards to the Wikipedia assignment, there have still been no changes or deletions to the information that I added.

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Wiki Continued

It is over a week later and my Wikipedia changes are still up and unchanged. It was very easy to change and I added information that I knew to be correct. However, I did add information under a different subtitle than the information should have been. I added information about the 3-D motion theater ride under the subtitle of animals at the aquarium. Overall, it was very easy to add information to the site and I think that if the information was blatantly wrong then it would have been changed, deleted or edited.

Wiki Posts

I decided to edit the page on the Mystic Aquarium because I used to work there and figured it would be easy to know if there was anything wrong on the page or if it was incomplete. In order to fix the site, I just clicked the "edit page" tab at the top of the wiki site and just added what I thought was right.

Midterm Part 2

Midterm part 1

The fields of advertising and marketing are branching out and reaching a whole new level of determining what is acceptable marketing. Before where a simple spread in a magazine was considered an advertisement, now the rules have changed and the marketers are more interested in how to get inside the consumers head to know what they want, why they want it and so they can learn how to almost manipulate the consumers into subconsciously wanting a product that they may not need or even have wanted before. These new tactics tap into the interiors of the consciousness through using psychological and emotional marketing ads that break down what and why consumers want and need certain products; as well as how they can make certain product more appealing through creating the desire.
While looking at the new and futuristic possibilities on the PopSci: The Future of site I found one piece of technology that I think could be interesting and potentially marketed to consumers around the world; the Microrobotic Fly. The microrobotic fly is a tiny robot in the form of a fly that actually weighs less than a real living fly and they can be programmed to find things like people in the rubble of a building that has been destroyed by detecting their body heat or carbon dioxide when breathing. They have the potential to save lives and it also said that they are extremely cheap and could be disposable at some point, like a onetime use kind of product. It could also be of use in situations of a house fire or a building fire because it can fight through the darkness and smoke to find victims who are trapped through the flames.
The first type of marketing that has become a top motivator for marketers is called neuromarketing. I think that neuromarketing can be used to market this product based on the fact that is can appeal to the senses in a subconscious manor. Neuromarketing is understanding why the brain thinks the way it does and understanding how people make decisions in terms of what to buy and from whom. It taps into the psychological aspect of marketing to consumers because many times, not even the consumer themselves know or understand what they want from a product. It can even be said that when using this type of marketing researchers have gathered data pertaining to the subconscious of individuals judging by what reaction they have to certain products or even certain word in an advertisement. In the video, The Persuaders, the market researcher assembled a focus group where the primary goal was to determine which words would help sell the product and what type of feelings they got from one simple word. The market researcher does this in order to gain access into the “primal” state which another researcher from the video claims is the real motivation behind buying any product. In both of the researchers search for answers, the consumers were in a way broken down from the cortex of the brain, or the thinking part, to the emotional part until he finally reached the third and final step of the process where the consumer didn’t even understand what they were supposed to be doing any more. The word he used was “luxury” and he gained more insight in the final stage of the process where the consumers were not thinking about their needs, wants, or views emplaced by society but what they truly thought deep down in their subconscious. Neuromarketing also looks to find other things that the consumer reacts to, whether it is the product itself, the color of the packaging, the shape of the box or even the name of the product. All of which have certain appeal to the consumer and the point of this type of marketing is to find the most effective and efficient method of selling it to the future consumer. I think that with the microrobotic fly, the marketers will find that at the most primal level, all human beings want to feel safe, knowing this we can all feel more secure in our everyday lives. Marketers can then use that information to appeal the product to a larger pool of consumers who want to escape from fear and knowing that they will be able to find someone in the most desperate situations will cause a desire for the product even if there really was no previous want or need.
This breach into the primal stage of consumers is connected to another type of marketing as well. Emotional branding is another type of persuasion marketers use in order to create desire and need from the consumer. The microrobotic fly can also tap into the emotions by connecting the brand with family, friends and how the fly will make them all safer and more secure. The definition of emotional branding is the way in which a product can deliver to the customer, more than the actual product itself, but what the product, company and service that the product represents. It is a way to get the consumer to trust the product and the company. Its main objective is to connect the product to the consumer on a personal level, it makes the product have an emotional pull on the consumer making them want to buy the product, at some points without them even knowing why they need/want it. Therefore, if there is a way for people to think of safety and being at ease when they think of the product so that they trust the product and the service that it represents, the marketers will have done a successful job at emotionally branding the product.
Another way to market this product successfully in today’s society is to strategically place the product throughout the media. This has been known to be very successful in the past for many products because people do not realize they are watching an advertisement. They see the product in all types of media outlets and after a while the product becomes ingrained into their heads and they realize the potential benefit of the product and soon realize they want one as well. With the microrobotic fly, this can certainly be another option of marketing to the consumers. For example, if the product is featured on the news for finding someone alive in a pile of rubble that otherwise would have died, or someone was saved in a fire all due to this small piece of programmed metal, the product is going to gain a lot of attention. People sitting at home watching the news or listening to the radio will want to learn more and more about this product and eventually want to have one of their own, just in case they ever need or want it.
With this product there is also the option of making the product do more than disaster relief efforts. There is potentially to create a game out of the microrobotic fly which they could market to a whole new audience and then use another type of marketing, “cool hunting.” There is no set definition of what is cool because what is cool is always changing. Marketers have to be on top of what is new and exciting to keep the consumers interested in what they are trying to sell. If there is a way to use the microrobotic fly in a type of game or a way so that is can find other things like keys or a lost child, then we can start marketing to teens, kids, moms, dads, people who work at the fire/police stations and more. It really could be a universal product that could be of use for anyone. The search for what is cool is really the search for what is new, what is exciting, what can people, especially teens, relate too. There is potential for the product to become a necessity for all homes to have. Because it is all programmed inside the robotic fly, it can become so many different things along with the fact that it will be cheap and affordable to most people.

1.) One thing I found surprising while watching the film was the segment with Rappie (the man that had the marketing focus groups) was the way he went about finding out what it was that consumers really wanted in advertising and what would really convince them to buy a product. He used a three step process that broke down the members of the focus group. One word he used was “luxury”. At first he asked them what that word meant to them to try and evoke some feeling toward the word. This was the first part of the process, which was for the cortex part of the brain. Then he moved into the emotional part of the process then finally down to the primal urges. I found this really interesting because it goes down almost to the subconscious of the consumer’s wants and needs. I never realized how much effort market researchers took in regards to the internal and subconscious wants that would sell a customer a product and how they focus certain ads to certain target audiences that would most likely want that product or be sold by that type of advertisement.

One thing I learned about myself, or more accurately realized about myself and my habits, is the fact that I tune out certain advertisements but some advertisements I really am drawn too. For example, ads with catchy music or cool graphics catch my attention and I find myself more inclined to want that product or find a need for that product based on the ad. Now when I watch television and the commercials when watching my shows, I think about what exactly the marketers are doing in order to sell me and or someone else that product, whether it is through the language or through the art or visual aspect.

2.) I agree with the video in regards to the incredible number of advertisements the average consumer is exposed to on a daily basis. It has hit the point where many times I don’t even pay attention to the ads, let alone realize I am being exposed to ads at all. Things from commercials to radio stations to ads on the sides of my favorite websites even to the bumper sticker application on Facebook can at some point be considered advertisements. At this point in time, for me at least, it would have to be a very creative ad for it to stick out from the pack; and like the video had said, because everyone is trying to stick out from the clutter, there is more and more clutter. There are only so many big ideas and there are only so many new products that people actually find a need or a want for. There may be a time when advertising fades into the background and the true necessities for life are the only things that people will buy.

I think that there are way too many advertisements circulating in our society today. Twenty or thirty years ago there were less advertisements and therefore people would actually take into account what they were selling, what good they could potentially have, and if there may be of use for the product in their lives. Now, we see at least ten to twenty separate commercials when watching a single television program, not to mention the junk emails, the junk mail, the sidebar ads, ads on trucks, car, vans. There are so many that people don’t even look at them anymore as something that could potentially be a purchase, they are more like a nuisance that we have to tolerate.

In the first image the viewer sees a woman taking some photographs in the rain. However, when you zoom out from this first image, you see that the photographer is actually standing in a flood where the water is up to her waist. It would be easy to look at either of the photos and just assume what they are at face value. However, in terms of the "myth of the photographic truth" it depends on the person taking the photo to depict the message and the meaning that they want other viewers to gather from the photo. Photos in the past were always thought to convey realism because they were photographs from that time. However, it is up to the person behind the lens to tell the story through the photo.

Final

Photoshop as the medium

There are many things that Photoshop allows a user to accomplish using the program. When Photoshop is considered the medium it can be broken down into different categories of content. These are many in Photoshop including: styles, effects, paint brushes, patterns, gradients, backgrounds, files, shapes, and tools. The files can be broken down into pictures and images. The images can be broken down in to colors and the colors are made up from pixels in the photo. Photoshop as a medium allows messages such as being able to create collages of images to create pictures that never existed before; it allows shapes and colors to be blended for new and cool affects; it allows people to make new and innovative advertisements; it is like an extension of the human hand in the computer making what would have been drawn out in earlier times, digital, professional and focused.

Edited

Updates/Questions

1) How to make images more transparent so that they blend together to form a better collage image.
2.) How to put shapes, like arrows, into the photo without having to draw them in. This will make is neater and look more professional.
3.) Change the size of imported images. How to change the pixels as well as the size in regards to the size of the actual paper.
4.) Connect groups of photos with borders or some kind of separator so that it can define which part of the medium/message/content of the collage it is supposed to be.

Medium: Skype in this medium the content is the images, telephone video chat, directory, and instant messaging
Medium: Videochat in this medium the content is sound, images and video
Medium: Sound in this medium the content is sound bites, words, language

The Messages from this medium:

• contact with people
• access to phone through computer
• extension of the human eye, ear, and mouth
• takes away the need for personal contact
• no more need to be face to face to have a face to face conversation
  

Twitter is a very new technological innovation that has become very popular, especially with celebrities. It is basically a site where people update their statuses based on what they are doing and or who they are with. They also use it to communicate to other people using twitter.







Skype is another relatively new technological innovation. Users can use Skype to video chat or just to make a phone call from the computer to a normal phone and as a way of instant messaging someone who is also using Skype.



Facebook is probably the fastest growing innovation. It is a site where people can post photos, groups, events, birthdays, or any other personal or professional information that otherwise people would not be aware of or unable to get to.