Author Archive for woullardcc1

Music To Your Ears

Daniel Ek is one of the founders of Spotify, which is the leading music service and also features access to podcasts, and videos. It allows users to access songs, videos and more from all over the world. Using the basic functions, like streaming music, is free. There is an option to upgrade to Spotify Premium which costs $9.99 per month and includes personalized features where users can create their own radio stations, collections of music, and playlists. It is also available for use across different devices like phones, tablets, cars, and even TVs. It even has the ability to be integrated into social media and matchmaking apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Tinder so people can find friends and potential dates with similar music interests. They use the idea of “freemium,” where basic streaming services are free to the user with advertisements to offset the cost for Spotify. This way, users can listen to new songs without having to pay for each song. It saves the users money, and also saves space on devices because the music isn’t downloaded onto the device, it’s just streamed. It has big competitors, particularly Apple, but it still has over 100 million users and is continuing to grow. It uses many data collection techniques in order to release new products and keep users interested. Spotify has helped the world by creating a new way for people to access new music. In the past, music piracy was a pretty big issue. Spotify has helped decrease music piracy because it’s free and gives users access to top hits. It is a completely legal way for people to access music, and it in turn doesn’t hurt the music producers and singers who lose out on money when their music is pirated. With Spotify, they still get paid because of the occasional ads that play while the user is listening. Daniel Ek definitely was innovative when he created Spotify. He transformed the music streaming industry by benefiting both the users and producers.

From One Thing To The Next

Elon Musk is one of the most influential entrepreneurs of not only now, but of all time. He has been working on countless ways to make the world we win in a better place. Elon Musk doesn’t always just fix problems, but he also makes people realize how the world really should be. The first way he did that was through PayPal. PayPal was his innovative way to help people purchase products safely, securely, and quickly. This product has changed the way people are able to purchase what they want with confidence because of their ability to make sure the money only gets paid if the person paying, gets what they actually wanted.

Another innovative idea he developed was Tesla. Tesla is a car company focused on making cars that are run off batteries and from electric motors. This has changed the world of how cars work. The batteries used to make the cars have also changed the though of how powerful batteries can be and how useful they are. Mr. Musk wants to continue to work on making housing panels that allow ones house to be powered by solar energy, and make more clean, reusable energy for everyday use.

Another one of Elan’s innovations is his SpaceX company. This company is working with NASA to help get astronauts back into space. America is currently a country that cannot send astronauts into space, but Musk is working to change that. He has created new rockets that will allow up to seven astronauts to go into space. His design is based off the Apollo mission designs from when humans first went to the moon.

In the end, Elon Musk has truly changed the world by his ability to be an entrepreneur. He has made life better for humans, and will also continue to change the world by his future innovations.

From Pic to Snap

Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are the two founders of one of the biggest social media networks, called Snapchat. Snapchat is used by one hundred fifty million users per day. Snapchat has a wide age demographic because it is popular among people who are school age, college age, and even young adults. Users make a username, which is how others see them, and add them. A relatively new feature Snapchat has added is the ‘Snapcode,’ which is a quicker way to add friends, rather than by username. Users can either screenshot their friend’s Snapcode and upload it into snapchat from their device’s camera roll, or they can take a picture of their friend’s Snapcode right on Snapchat, and their friend will be added. Once people add their friends, they’re all kept in a ‘friends list.’ Then, users take pictures of themselves (called selfies), scenery, or anything else they want, and send it to people on their friends list while adding a caption. The picture can be set to be shown for a certain amount of time, or until the receiver taps it off the screen. It is like texting, only with pictures each time, and there’s a catch; the pictures disappear forever either after it is clicked off the screen or the time runs out. This was a completely new and innovative way for communication. The ability to send pictures and videos, while still chatting with a person, was easier and more fun. Also, because the pictures disappear, it added more fun because people can send embarrassing “selfies” and not have to worry about them being seen by everyone. Snapchat also made connecting with people easier because it only requires an internet connection to be able to send pictures. There was a time when sending pictures through texts costed extra. With Snapchat, people could send pictures and messages as long as there was internet connection, and there’d be no extra charge. Spiegel and Murphy were very successful and innovative with their invention of Snapchat. It added a twist to texting and made communicating with friends easier and more fun. Even today, they are constantly adding new features to the network, such as the ability to add filters to the pictures, the ability to use the ‘discover’ page to read magazines and catch up on current events in the world, and make Snapchat Stories. Snapchat Stories are pictures or videos that people put on to their Snapchat and everybody the person is friends with can see it continuously for 24 hours before it disappears. Their new ideas and changes to Snapchat continue to make the network better, more exciting, and more appealing to users, all while still making communication easy.

From College Thoughts, To a Whole New World.

Mark Zuckerberg is the inventor of Facebook. Facebook is a social media platform used by over a billion people each day. People use the site to post statuses, pictures, links, and anything else they want. It can also be used for instant messaging other users, playing different games that are on the site, and for shopping. People make group pages where others can post items they want to sell, and now there is even a tab called “The Marketplace” where people post items for sale. Users shop the Marketplace, and the items that are shown are based on a certain mile radius from the shopper’s location. It makes buying and selling easier than sites like eBay because the items are close and easier to access. Mark Zuckerberg never dreamed Facebook would turn into what it has today. He originally started the idea for the website at Harvard University with his college roommates. It was intended to be a site for the university so people could search others who go to their school, find out who are in their major or classes, and, of course, make friends. After it took off at Harvard, it was opened up for use at other Ivy League schools. It continued to flourish until it expanded throughout the country and, eventually, the world. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and all of its ability has made a huge impact on the world. It gave people an entirely new way to communicate. People can communicate with people across the world, which was hard to do before because international calling and texting was difficult and expensive. It is available in about one hundred languages, which also helped to connect the world. People can connect and share pictures with all of their friends and family at once rather than having to send it to each individual person. It makes disclosing news faster and easier. Facebook definitely impacted the world and makes it feel a lot smaller since it is so easy to connect with others. Another trait that makes Facebook so influential is that it is constantly changing and being made better. The Facebook massages now have the capability to make phone and video calls to others on the site. Everything the user needs is accessible all within one site rather than having to use multiple apps and websites to send texts, make phone calls, and make video calls. Mark Zuckerberg is still heavily involved in his company and continues to strive to make it better. He is a true entrepreneur who is invested in, and is passionate about what he created and intended it to be.

From Text to Images, Social Media

What do we do when we’re sitting down and have nothing else to do? Well, most of us pull out our phones and connect to the world of social media. One of the most popular social media sights is Instagram. Instagram was developed by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom. In this app, one simply uploads a picture and their “followers” can see and “like” their photos. This simple, but revolutionary idea changed the way people view themselves and how social media is displayed. Before this, most social media was text. Now, social media has evolved to pictures and Instagram is now the third most used social media application per month. Overall, Instagram has changed the world of how to post and interact with others over the internet. Both of these people took entrepreneurial insight to revolutionize the industry the way they did.

The Men Behind the Pin

Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp are the two masterminds behind Pinterest. They wanted a way for people to be able to show collections of things they were interested in in some sort of interactive way. Pinterest is a form of social media where people can search pictures, craft ideas, cooking ideas, beauty trends, and much more. The unique thing about Pinterest, though, is that posts, called “pins,” can be saved and organized in different boards. When someone finds something they want to keep, they can save it to an existing board or create a new board. Boards are just like folders and are unique to the creator. They have a name and hold all of the pins the user puts in to them. Then, if they are looking for a new hair style, they can go to their “hair” board, find the pin they want, and show it to their hairstylist to try to recreate on them. Pinterest is useful because pins can be saved and the user can look at them months later. All the time we find tricks and pictures online that we perceive as interesting and want to save, but a few weeks, even days, later, we forget what it was or where we found it. Pinterest takes the struggle of losing the ideas away because the pins are organized and easy to go back to months later. It also allows users to connect with friends and family. If the boards are public, users can become friends on Pinterest and then look through one another’s boards to see if there’s anything in them they may want to save on their own board. People like Pinterest because it is a way for them to escape. They search things that make them happy and save the pins to look at later. They can fantasize about DIY projects they want to do and new makeup trends they want to try. It is a way for people to connect with one another and see what others are interested in. There is no slander or harassment capability, it is just there to relax, have fun, and see what makes those around us happy. These men created a new, fun way to share interesting ideas and tricks all in one place.