Facebook gets its new face

          Widely loved by many social-network users, Facebook is now going to have its new face with fresh and well-organized user interface which was their main business driven factor earlier days. According to the Executives, the newly designed Facebook will launch in next few weeks which about 70 million worldwide users will be using it from now on.

          This decision was due to its over-crowded users posting millions of profiles, and due to its quite disorganized design, users couldn't get the information a hundred percent clearly. Therefore, the new design's main concept is targeting simplification. All the functions of the current Facebook - personal information, photos, the news, and comments will probably have different tabs or pages respectively, making users to clearly define their information.

          Facebook has been criticized for being more like MySpace lately for having few ads and banners on the web and creating the messy kind of look because Facebook had been well known for its neat and well organized interface. That's why the new design team had set up to solve this problem. - "differentiation"

          This project was based on a part of the $20 million investment from Microsoft last October. Due to its rapid growing - U.S. membership has jumped 71% since last March - the new design must keep up with potential customers as well.

          I think the main concern for this dramatic change is this: Now, the designers have to listen to the users, not the users who have to follow what the designers have already made. Because of its powerful force of users, Facebook must listen to their users carefully and adopt what they really looking for as much as possible. Also, redesigning does not guarantee that it's being differentiated from other similar service providers. When the firm creates a new feature or function, it should be seriously considered the "what if" factors as well. In that way, I believe they can create the "win-win" situation for both parties. Sometimes people do not need too many things. They just want to see and do what they really need to do; not the side dishes you think they would also like to enjoy.

Vella, Mett. "Facebook's Big Facelift" Business Week. May 14, 2008.
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/may2008/id20080514_205389.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+%2B+design_top+stories

20601008 - 10th Entry

Rivals LG, Samsung Cut Cross-Purchase Deal

Samsung and LG is long-time rivals in electronics industry. However, they recently have agreed on a cross-purchasing deal to aim in surviving the fierce competition in the global market for flat TV screens and panels. Lee Sang-wan, chief of Samsung Electronics mentioned that they will supply their 52-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) panel to LG Electronics from July. He said “As the supply and demand imbalance will be eased, thanks to the operation of the second phase of the eighth-generation line."

60,000 sheets of production capacity from the line is expected per month. Previously, Samsung Electronics has been refusing calls by LG Electronics to provide larger-sized panels making a tight supply in the industry. But as market situation is getting rough, Samsung will decide by July in purchasing 37-inch panels from LG Display. Although panel pricing and the technology gap is still remained as some technical matters experts are looking forward of the decision. If it goes well, as experts hoped, the Korean TV manufacturers will be in a advantageous position to compete their Taiwanese rivals.

Deciding Cross-purchasing has long been disputes but the bilateral tie-up will help Korean firms to widen the market gap with their rivals in Taiwan and Japan. According to industry estimates, Samsung buys a ambined 60% of its 32-,37-,40-,46 and 52 inch LCD panels from Taiwan-based suppliers while LG Electronics buys a combined 34% 32-,37-,42-,27 and 52-inch panels. Because the global flat TV demand is estimated 100 million this year, the Korean and their Japanese rivals (Sony, Sharp) have been competing mainly in U.S and European markets even thought there are concerns over profitability by aggressive price- cuts. The Taiwanese panel suppliers have been enjoying the increasing orders from LG and Samsung because they both wanted more market share in the global market. Samsung have also engaged in specific discussion with LG Electronics and LG Display to cross-buying unfinished LCD panels or cells and a decision will be made in the coming months.

In my opinion, I think cross-purchasing deal for Samsung and LG would benefit our domestic firm’s profitability and will be a good step to weaken their rivals from other nations. Before Samsung & LG had bought panels from Taiwanese to compete each other it only benefited Taiwanese firms to grow and rise to a position where they are able to compete with conglomerates of Korea. Because competing fiercely with their own nation’s firm will only give advantage to firms in other nations. I’m positive of the way Samsung & LG are cooperating to become the world’s greatest provider of LCD market.

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/biz_main.asp?CategoryCode=123

20620042 entry # 10

HP's Innovation in experimenting area

I read an article about HP's innovation in experimenting area. Generally, many corporations are progressing many research projects by inputing a lot of money. But most of the research projects don't have enough consequences. HP's new director of research labs, Prith Banerjee, considered these blind spots and cutted the scale of research projects. Originally, there are $150 million budget and 150 research projects, and he cutted the scale to 20 and maintain the budget. According to his interview, he considered the effectiveness of research projects. Sometimes the scientists don't consider the consiquence and just use the money in their research. Also, they didn't approve the interference of management.
The new director now engaged both research team and management. Through these changes, he expect that the techniques of HP will inprove rapidly. But perhaps he has to overcome many obstacles. At first, scientists don't like any inference in their experiments and often react negatively. Also, headquaters don't know much about research project. Secondly, cutting of research projects may result in the absence of core technology in the future. Although many of research projects spend huge money and the effectiveness is too low, there can be many possibilities. But I agree on the viewpoints of HP's new director.
In Korea, companies have high technologies. And some companies like Samsung or LG lead the global market.
But there are many sunk costs in research programs. Korean companies traditionally think little of engineering students. So, students hesitate to go engineering colleges and it can be great risks to korean technology. For example, Samsung considers engineering students as bluecollars and pay very little money to them. There are no countries in the world that despise these engineering students. I think it makes great distance between scientists and management in Korea. Most of managers don't have engineering skills at all and they just supervise performance of labs. Tf we want to be a advanced country, we have to throw away these concepts. And management should have special skills in engineering. I think it can be solved by enducating students both engineering and management. It's time to change our stereotypes and advance our viewpoints to the world.

Author: Aaron Ricadela
Title: HP Labs' Latest Experiment: Itself
Date: April 17, 2008, 5:00PM EST
Page: 1

reference:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_17/b4081072888929.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+%2B+design_innovation+strategy
entry #10 20700067

Naver Under Siege in Antitrust Debate

NHN, the operator of the most used portal sites in Korea "Naver," is now charged with 227 million won in antitrust fine to the Fair Trade Commission. The FTC also stated NHN's monopolistic behavior in the Internet market, having more than 70 percent of the Internet search from Korea.

This first action by the FTC to rule over NHN for its monopolistic operation with Naver might facilitate further investigation of the government agencies to carefully analysis NHN's business progress until now. Having a huge amount of fine to pay and the government's observation from now on, it is possible that what used to be a creative decision making process might be slowed down after all.

Many other competitors have envied the success of Naver and put NHN on a lot of criticisms for having such a huge share in the Internet industry. Consequently, for many Koreans, when they open up the web browser, the first web page to appear is most likely Naver. The portal provides useful information including basic news to weather forecast, links to articles and blogs, and most importantly, a huge amount of knowledge database called "Ji-sik-in." One of the major criticisms NHN has been receiving is that they do not open up their datebase of Naver to other search engines unlike Google or Yahoo.

Of course, the company eagerly took an action insisting they will bring this to the court for the unfair charge against them. According to the article, NHN stated that since the Internet does not have any kind of barriers to entry, their success on Naver cannot be a monopolistic action.

In my opinion, having this kind of regulation over Naver is just a part of other competitors' jealous lobby to the goverment regulation because Naver is surely one of the best web sources where the information it provides is mostly accurate and productive. From basic new search to its blogs, photos and more, people are benefiting from the portal every day. Also, unlike other portal service providers, Naver is user-friendly, which means it's easy to use and not messy. I hope that instead of blaming NHN for its so called "monopolistic" behavior, other competitors would do the best work they could to compete fairly and equally with Naver.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2008/05/123_23976.html

20620042 entry # 9