Business innovation

One of our biggest priorities with our show is to represent diverse opinions, topics, and ideas. Because our target market is so diverse, it would be impossible for all our viewers to relate to only one host. To start, our show will have four hosts; the four members of this team. Our team is extremely diverse in culture, origin, personality, and views. Having four hosts of such differing backgrounds will help ensure that all the different aspects and perspectives of issues are being considered. Also, by having only one host, there is a bias towards what issues are ” relevant.

” Some topics that one person may not find important could be extremely relevant to others. Having four different perspectives will make sure a variety of different topics are represented As our site grows, we will hire more correspondents, including people who speak different languages. Not only will this help us connect to other countries, but will also aid non-English speaking viewers in the US.

For instance, only 15% of senate candidates in a recent study have Spanish alternatives on their websites (http://www. bivingsreport. com/2006/the-internets-role-in-political-campaigns/). Since some of our videos will deal with politics, we want non-English speakers to use our videos to get the facts about candidates. Having multi-lingual correspondence will enable us to do this. Another innovation we thought of was tot make our site more accessible tot a variety of people. The above section talked about making the site enjoyable for non-English speakers but we also want it to be accessible by those with disabilities. For people with visual disabilities, products such as ” Braillsurf” are available.

This product shows information in a text form which is either transferred to a brail bar or spoken aloud. In order for products like this to be successful, syntax and codes of a website need to be correct. To aid in the ease of people using this products, we can provide more detailed descriptions of each video so the viewer knows exactly what is happening. Also, all videos with extensive visual action will have detailed commentary to aid visually impaired users. In addition to having multiple hosts, we also decided to focus more attention on guests and viewers opinions than our own.

In ” The Resident,” the majority of videos are simply the host voicing her ideas and opinions. We didn’t want to have a forum where the hosts just talk about what they think. We wanted the majority of our videos to be interviews and discussions with everyday people. To make sure these ” every day people” were representative of our community as a whole, we didn’t just interview friends and relatives. We went out onto campuses and communities and asked anyone we encountered. This helped ensure that every view point has a chance to be represented.

Also, by having mostly interviews with other people, it gives the viewer excitement that they could be interviewed on the street at any time. Another innovation we wanted to make was organizing the videos. If a viewer is searching for a specific topic, we want the video to be easy to find. If a potential viewer visits the site and is expected to sort through hundreds of videos, we will quickly lose their attention. Videos need to be easy to navigate in order to aid viewers in their search.

We wanted to organize the videos into different categories such as politics, pop culture, education, relationships, current events, and miscellaneous. This way, if a viewer is looking for discussions about the presidential candidates, they can just click ” politics” and view all videos on the topic. Also, if a viewer found a video in a specific category especially interesting, they can find other videos in the same category they might enjoy. For example, if a Barrack Obama supporter is searching for videos about the candidate, they can simply search politics and see every political video.

After watching the Obama video they were searching for, they may find a video in the same category about a different candidate they didn’t previously think of searching. A major problem the needs to be addressed is how to market our site and create awareness. Before starting this project, I had never even heard of ” The Resident. ” There is little, if any marketing being done to promote the site. The only way to really find it is if you stumble across it while surfing Youtube. Because our target market already spends considerable time on the internet, we think this is the best medium for advertising.

One way we could advertise is by using ” SPOTTT. ” SPOTTT is a free exchange link program. You show other members ads on your site while they show your ad on their own site. This would be a free, easy way to at least get our sites name out on the internet. Another way we could advertise over the internet is by using ” Adwords. ” Adwords display’s your ads on Google. You choose your own keywords and when those words are searched, your ad will appear. Using Adwords will most likely drive more traffic to our site than using SPOTTT alone.

We can select how many different searches will reveal our ad. By picking the keywords we use, we can make sure that our ad will appear on a likely customers search page. However, every time someone clicks on your ad, you have to pay Google. A third way to advertise that might grab more attention is to put ads in school papers and community newsletters. Because much of our target market is in high school or college, an ad in the school paper would most likely be read by them. For the Towson University ” Tower light,” ad space ranges anywhere from $22.

00 to $770. 00. A free way to advertise on campus would be simply putting fliers around campus. Also, many websites and business names are chalked onto sidewalks of campuses to encourage people to explore them. While all of these traditional ways of marketing should drive traffic to our site, we also have an interest in mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is becoming increasing important with the rising use of mobile devices. For example, ” 55 million mobile consumers in USA sent 4. 7 billion text (or image) messages in December 2004, with the revenue of 4.

3 billion US dollars projected for 2006 (Gewei Ye, p. 95, 2007). ” Our website could utilize mobile marketing by sending alerts to mobile devices any time a new video is uploaded. Utilizing any of these methods would help drive more traffic to our site than ” The Resident. ” The last big change were making is using a different forum for our site. The resident hosts her show on Youtube. Because Youtube is in charge of all profiles on its site, members cannot fully control their sites. We decided to use Microsoft Publisher to create our own website and host it using Fireserv.

Microsoft Publisher allowed us more freedom in site design and features. For example, when designing a profile on Youtube, users can only choose between a hand full of color schemes and design option. With Publisher, we were able to design our own template and have various pages describing what our site offers. The website we made contains five pages: Home, About us, Contact Us, Video Topics, and Comments. On our homepage, we have a brief description of what our site offers, as well as our video commercial for out site.

On the ” About us” page, there, there is a history of how our site was created along with pictures of our four group members. The next page, ” Contact us” contains our email address, phone number, mailing address, and instructions on how to contact our group. ” Video Topics” contains 5 different topic boxes. In each topic box, there is a list of what videos we currently have. To view a video, simply click the link and you can watch it on Youtube. The last page, ” Comment” is a forum for users to post their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions for the site.

The amount of people resorting to the internet for everyday needs is increasing every second. This makes it absolutely vital for businesses to utilize the internet. By making key changes to a popular online talk show, we feel we have created a better, more successful business model. Our site will be more diverse, easy to navigate, and better marketed than current business models. Incorporating these innovations along with our motivation for success, ” Tiger Talk” will be an extremely successful business venture.