Author Archives: Yashpreet Bhangal

Potential Risks

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There are several risks that may arise when using social networking sites which users may tend to ignore. These are described below.

Identity theft (IT) – IT is one of the major concerns related with social media. So much information is provide by the individual on these platforms that it is obvious to guess the rest of the information, which leads to identity theft which is further used to commit cyber crime such as fraud.

Sexual Predators – Once again due to disclosure of a lot of confidential information on the webpage, sexual predators are one of biggest concerns faced by social media website. As an individual could easily hide their true identity and target young vulnerable children who are not capable to distinguishing if an individual is legit or a sex predator.

Stalking – Staking is something which raises alarm again and again and is something which is faced by social media website on a regular basis. As individuals cannot see if anyone is looking at their personal information such as pictures or videos it makes it so much easier for a stalker. Even though the majority of the big social media website are providing a lot of facilities to privatise your personal profile there will always be slight chance of stalking.

Unintentional Fame – This is also very lethal form of harassment. This kind of situation occurs when the picture, video or piece of music created by an individual is sent around on social media websites without their consent. As a result of such harassment many young teenager have committed suicide. Once again social media websites have provided the user with the facilities to report such contents which can be cause such circumstances and miXXers will do the same on its site.

Employment concerns – Personally I believe social media platforms and employee do not mix together. This is an issue of many organisation and their employee. This issue has been raised and talked about numerous time by academic research. A lot of individual have lost their job due to uploading inappropriate information regarding working, personal information or information about desecrate circumstance about certain individual, inappropriate images or videos and many more.

Online harassment – This is something which is commonly seen in teenage groups, where teenage are victimised because of their physical appearance , ethnic background etc. This is an extremely serious issue as it can lead to fatal circumstance, this also leave negative impact of social media platform as they are created to keep in touch with family and friends socially rather than for bullying and harassment. (Wikipedia.,2015.)

Privacy Concerns – Privacy of confidential information about an individual has always been a major concern for many year. Due to the fast improvement in the technology and availability of data, this concern is increasing as an individual can share large amount information about their themselves or other without even realising via single click.

According to Acquisi and Grossklags (2007) privacy choices are affected by incomplete and asymmetric information which is defined by ‘bounded rationality ‘. In addition ignorance is rationalised (rational ignorance) because users may consider that truly learning about and understanding privacy implications and acting on that knowledge would actually outweigh the benefits of ignoring the risks.

A lot of personal information such as date of birth, contact details, employment and education history information is broadcasted in Facebook which can easily be for unlawful purposes.

Individuals are sharing their current location via Facebook chat. This can be extremely dangerous as teenager or pre teenagers can leave their current location on which can result in stalker or sex predators follow them and the result of that could be fatal. Here the ‘Valence Effect’ outlined by Acquisi and Grossklags (2007) can be seen to be in effect as a behavioral anomaly as users over-estimate that there will only be a positive effect.

This is something which has been highlighted via a board of member at the university. University students taking pictures of each other or members of staff and uploading them online without their consent.

Invasive privacy agreement is something which always catches the attention of law abiding citizens. This agreement means that an individual is agreeing that all the information which they upload on the website such as their confidential information including pictures and videos are property of the service provider, which seems a bit odd.

There are thousands of agencies which are standing in the queue to retrieve confidential information regarding individual, in order to understand individual behaviour better. Recently, Twitter has admitted that they were scanning the telephone numbers of their customers in order to understand their behaviour better without their consent. This shows there is a lot more going on behind the scenes without your knowledge. It hints at another behavioural anomaly from Acquisi and Grossklags (2007) that users are ‘over confident’ in their knowledge and ability to actually protect their privacy. There are no technologies easily available to users that lets them delete all confidential information about themselves from internet. (Wikipedia.,2015.) There is also essentially a Privacy Paradox (Zafeiropoulou M 2013 et al) because though users may say they are not willing to share information on these sites in practice they still do it. This helps to highlight that despite the dangers that may arise in using these sites, even when aware of them users still usually decide to use them.

Reference:

Acquisi and Grossklags. What Can Behavioral Economics Teach Us About Privacy?, Digital Privacy: Theory, Technologies and Practices Auerbach Publications (Taylor and Francis Group) pp. 363-377 (2007)

Wikipedia.,2015. Privacy concerns with social networking services. Available from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_with_social_networking_services#Privacy_Concerns [Accessed on 23th april 2015]

Wikipedia.,2015.Privacy issues of social networking sites. Available from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_issues_of_social_networking_sites [Accessed on 23rd april 2015]

Zafeiropoulou, Aristea M., Millard, David E., Webber, Craig and O’Hara, Kieron (2013) Unpicking the privacy paradox: can structuration theory help to explain location-based privacy decisions? In, ACM Web Science 2013 (WebSci ’13), Paris, France, 02 – 04 May 2013.

SWOT Analysis

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This is a SWOT Analysis for our site

Strengths:

  • It can be accessible from anywhere around the world
  • Potential for Discounted Tickets to concerts
  • Potential to meet/chat with artists
  • Secure Way of Purchasing tickets
  • Help new Talents gain Fan Base
  • Records Label can scout talent easily

Weakness:

  • Investing Personal saving
  • As it is a new business people not trust it when launched
  • Difficult to monitor if illegal content is uploaded

Opportunities:

  • Global expansion, record label across the global would like to stop talent
  • New DJ and musicians are always in making
  • Their is room for new innovative services in the music industry that are still to be explored.

Threats:

  • Record label might not want to become part of new business
  • It is a web based business, so it is easier for competitors to program similar functionality on their webpage

Porters Five

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Porter Five analysis

Threat of new Entrance: Threat of new entrance is really high as at the end of the day as it is only a piece of program, so anyone can hire a programmer or a web developer in order to produce a web service which can easily compete with miXXerS. In order to avoid that happening and maintain our customer base miXXerS will carry on updating new features and exclusive offers to the website and try get as many users, musicians DJs and party producers as possible to become part of such a multi cultural platform so it will be harder for our competitors.

Threat of Substitute: Threat of substitute is low to medium as we do not actually have direct competitor. There are webpage floating on internet which provide similar service such as MeeMix, Last.FM, Pandora and Worldsings but they do not integrate events as part of the site. Fans will also be able to buy tickets to concerts online with as well by using Paypal which means their confidential information is also secure.

Bargaining Power of Fans: It is low, as the fans will be able to buy ticket to go visit their favourite DJ at lower prices on this platform.

Bargaining Power of DJs/Musicians: It might high if there is a new entrance because they might have different business examples providing all the services at cheaper rates but for the moment It is also very low, as this is the platform which they require in order to boost their experience and fan base.

Rival vary Among Existing competitors: it is also low as mentioned earlier on their aren’t any direct competitors who are offering exact same service at us, so it will be easier of the brand to create its awareness and gain a fanbase.

PESTLE Analysis

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We found that the PESTLE Analysis strategy is useful in the development of miXXerS:

Political: In order to run the social media lawfully, the brand has to follow the electronic commerce regulation 2002 (Gov.uk.2013).

Economic: The UK has the 6th largest economy in the world. After the financial crisis hit UK in the face in 2008 today UK continue to struggle. Before the financial crisis the GDP growth rate was around 3% but recently it is only 1.79%. Currently, the law abiding citizens of united kingdom are still struggling but slowly started to recover from credit crunch. We believe social media platform such as Networx7 would be extremely beneficial for musicians, DJs and party producers currently based in UK or anywhere across the globe, as they would be able to see who is getting more rating on social media and spot the talent which will make their life so much easier. (EconomyWatch.2013.)

Social: As this is social media platform and it tends to target a wide range of audiences across the globe with  numerous ethnic backgrounds, it is essential to provide the user with an option to translation the whole webpage into their mother tongue in order for them to use the website to its full potential. With the help of this platform, DJ’s from different country can collaborate their music and create something unique and distinctive which is not only beneficial for them as an individual but also beneficial for record labels. Recent statistics shows that 97% of the people listen to music several times a week (Social Statistics.2015), which highly emphasises the point that this website is going to be very beneficial not only for DJ’s but also for music lovers. This platform is going to break through all the social factors and bringing all music lovers whether they be music producers or simply music listeners together through music and musical events.

Technology: As it is going to be an online social network, it is essential to take technical factors into consideration. As this website is going to be operated all over the world it is essential for us to make sure the countries have facilities such as internet and broadband to make sure that they can use this website to its full potential. Differing technology legislation in in countries should also be considered before launching the services. Encryption for passwords and secure system socket layer protocol will also be implemented in order to project passwords from hackers. As a virtual piece of program that means miXXerS will not have to invest in new technology for very long time as the program will be compatible for with future hardware for long period of time. In addition the site must remain a mobile first site. A contingency plan is also going to be implemented in case of disaster.

Legal: There are many Legal issues which needs to be taken into consideration while working online or offline using social media. Issues such as:

1) Third party Content: Anytime an individual is uploading any sort of content including images, videos, music, text needs to be compliant with copyright law. You should have right to post third party content.

2) Content Ownership: who owns the information and media which has been uploaded on the website. Have you read entire terms and condition of the social media website before uploading all your confidential information. When you delete the information about yourself, is it actually delete or is it still property of social media website.

3) Criminal Activities: If a piece of text or a multimedia files has been a potential source of criminal activities online.

4) Information about an individual: Such information on social media could be a potential source of information to third party organisation without an individuals consent. (Ossian.K.,2012)

Environmental: Environmental issues are not applicable as their isn’t going to any waste disposal or recycling procedure taking place.

Reference:
Ossian.K.,2012.Legal Issues in Social Networking.Available from:http://www.millercanfield.com/media/article/200120_LEGAL%20ISSUES%20IN%20SOCIAL%20NETWORKING.pdf [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

Social Statistics.2015.How often do you listen to music. Available from:http://surveys.pro/statistics/how-often-listen-to-music.htm [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

EconomyWatch.2013.he Economy of the UK, GB, British Isles. Available from: http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/united-kingdom/ [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

Gov.uk.2013. The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002. available from:http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2013/introduction/made [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

The Life of a Typical DJ

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“I found out networking was a big key to any success” – Laidback luke

“I spent a lot of time in my early years in the music industry dicking about with my website and stuff like that, because I felt it was important, whereas I would have been better served by just focusing on making music, and soon I could have afforded someone else to handle the website for me. It took me about 10 years to work that one out.”

These quotes clearly illustrates that there is “Something” missing. Something which could be very beneficial for the DJs who are currently in the industry and those who wish to become successful DJs in future. They clearly desire an online platform where they could create their own network of followers with their talents, rather than investing tones of money into producing and releasing an album.

Platforms such as miXXerS would definitely provide the DJs  the boost they are looking for and help them gain enough fans which will follows them and help them continue their carrier in future. DJs are always learning and mixing new vibes, trying to bring and mix music from different cultures together and also keep up with new music and trends. miXXerS is a platform which will not only help them gain a fan base  also help them get business and musical and moral supports from their peers. At the start majority of the DJ do gigs for free and loose a lot of money in that process as they are trying to create a fan base and they have to undertake these tasks in order to make connection to the community which will help them spark their carrier, so in order to avoid that dj’s can simply use networX7 in order to create fan base and do gigs and gain funds.

“As a full time DJ I had to suffer and sacrifice a lot of things… I had to quite my job in order to do the gigs because I wasn’t getting enough time. “DJ Gareth Emery

This clearly shows that there is definitely potential in this field and once you have create a large enough network of people or followers you are going to reach success in shorter time.

Taylor.K.2014. The Life Cycle of a Career DJ: From 1 to 25 years. Available from: https://blog.soton.ac.uk/networx7/wp-admin/post.php?post=233&action=edit&message=6 [Accessed on 22nd of april 2015]

Honeycomb of social media

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This is something which really caught my attention! Definitely something worth considering while designing functionality for social media websites.

Screen Shot 2015-04-22 at 21.59.05

Kietzmann.J,Hermkens.,K.,McCarthy.,I.,Silvestre.,B.2011.Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Avaliable from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681311000061[Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

Can Social Media be Dangerous?

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Social media are taking over every aspect of life. Young teenagers and older people are on social media and are well connected. Top educational and commercial organisation are heavily involve with social media. Educational organisation use social media to promote/ advertise and create a fan base and commercial websites are used in order to promote their products, provide customers with vocational deals and offer and to advertise. Social media such as facebook are used a lot by university students for group assignments and to socialising, but everyone seems to forget that every coin has 2 sides to it. While people are using social media to its full potential and gaining benefits from it, there are also people who have suffered heavily because of social media.

In the businesses sector organisations are attracting many customer by advertising on social media, but there are organisation who are suffering a lot because of this. For example news channels. Currently the news are feeling under threat as social media are becoming the platform and primary source of news. Even though TV is still the most popular form by which individuals are retrieving news the figures also clearly shows that online social media is catching up with news channels, which can be seen as a hazard by new channels (Quartz.,2015). Whereas social media could be used to promote a business it can really affect the reputation of the company. In 2012, a Korean american women who visited Papa Johns in New York discovered that the sales assistant identified her as a “Lady chinky eyes” she tweeted about this experience and local newspaper published that as a news. Within a few days the news travel from one part of the country on to international level which resulted in giving an organisation bad reputation. (Park.j.,Chaa.M.,Kim.H.,Jeong.j.,2012).

Social media can be very harmful for individual as well as they waste hours daily on social media “socialising”. Privacy is another issue which has been highlighted via many academics and individuals on social. Privacy is definitely something worth considering for individual and social media designer of future. Social media platform do have the potential to reveal confidential information of individuals without their knowledge. uploading inappropriate images and status about work placement can also get individuals in a lot of trouble, some can even end up loosing their jobs. Social media platforms have been blamed repeatedly for cyber bullying over the course of years. Once again uploading images or personal/confidential information regarding individuals on social media can be extremely heartbreaking. Teenagers have committed suicide due to these incidents in the past.

A lot of fake information is also floating around on social media so if you read something, do not believe it immediately. People can use platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in order to create fake profile to harass people. Certain cases can been confirmed where social media website were to conduct social engineering tasks in order to hack confidential information of the organisation. Cases related to music industry as also came forward when the song which was not released yet was published on social media website, which is currently effecting the music industry a lot.

Nevertheless the choice is yours on how you want to use the social media, it can be a great way to social and share information but it could also ruin your life if not used appropriately.

References:

Quartz.,2015. The unstoppable rise of social media as a source of news. Available from: http://qz.com/388418/the-unstoppable-rise-of-social-media-as-a-source-for-news/ [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

Park.j.,Chaa.M.,Kim.H.,Jeong.j.,2012.Managing Bad News in Social Media: A Case Study on Domino’s Pizza Crisis. Available from: http://www.academia.edu/2428819/Managing_Bad_News_in_Social_Media_A_Case_Study_on_Domino_s_Pizza_Crisis [Accessed on 22nd april 2015]

What is Social Media?

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Social media, Social media, Social media!!!!

What is this social media and why everyone is always talking about this. Social media is a website, an application or a platform where people can share contents which included pictures, video’s, musics, share similar internet, exchange information on certain topics. Social media is a platform where people feel connected with each other, even if they do not know each other personally. There are hundreds of social media website floating around on internet but there are only few which has literally “broke the internet”. Social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram  seem to be like limbs of human beings these days. It has no limits. Recently this platform has been used by many organisations across the globe in order to keep close contact with their customer, so customers feel more connect to the organisation. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are like top of the agenda for many global business as they can interact with individual from anywhere across the globe without inconvenience through these platforms.

Board members of top organisations, consultants are always looking for new social platform which could be used by their business in order to gain more profit. Having so much information knowledge and interest in social media there seems to very little understanding regarding the term “Social media”. With the help of this post i would like to gain attention of my peers who are working on similar project regarding the different between social media and related concept on web 2.0. In order for us to fully understand this concept, we will have to travel back in time when the foundation on social media was laid in 1979 and a big thing called “social media” was created on top this foundation 10 years later. The first social media website was known as “Open diary” which was created in 1990s. Due to the tremendous change in the speed of internet and popularity in the concept of blog writing, in 2003 a social platform name “myspace” was born.

Let’s talk a little bit about web 2.0 now. web 2.0 actually came into existence in 2004 around the same time Facebook was born and this is where the confusion took place. Term web 2.0 was used by academics and researcher in order to describe new ways of utilising the world wide web. This was an era where application and programs weren’t just created by individual but the whole community took part in the process in order to make continuous improvements. Blogs and wikis are the best examples of web 2.0 are often confused with “social media platforms”. In order to use web 2.0 an individual doesn’t have to go through any special training and there aren’t any specific update which are require to use this facility but functionalities such as AJAX, Adobe and RSS are requirements for using the service to its full potential.

Kaplan.A.,Haenlein.M.2009.Users of the world, United! The challenges and opprotunities of social media. Avaliable on : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681309001232, [Accessed on 10th april 2015]