Title: Twitter vs. Facebook: A Tale of Two Sites

Twitter and Facebook came about within the last decade. Facebook is the number one social networking site, and Twitter is second. Both sites allow people to interact with their friends by sharing photos or messages. Twitter specializes in the news and entertainment, and Facebook leans more towards communication with people you know. The main difference between these two is that Facebook has over a billion users, while Twitter has around 200 million. Facebook also generated a larger revenue in 2012. Even though Facebook is clearly more popular, Twitter continues to compete with them. Twitter buys Vine after Facebook buys Instagram. The competition will continue on since both these sites continue to gain more users.

Facebook recently created two search tools for news organizations and marketers to use. One of these tools will enable news companies and marketers, to type in keywords such as ” NFL” that will bring up public posts by users that relate to the search.  The other tool will enable them to look at anonymous data that is posted through private posts.  Through the use of these tools businesses better understand what interests users, thus, allowing them to create better advertisements.  The main reason why Facebook created these tools was so they could surpass Twitter as the leading platform for online public conversation. Although these tools help Facebook gain popularity with businesses, many users dislike these changes in privacy policy.  I  believe that these changes will end up hurting Facebook because many people liked Facebook as it was and if Facebook keeps changing policy continuously; they will begin to decline in popularity.  While Facebook should adjust to what is popular,they must also keep some of the things that got Facebook to where it is today.

New sources of social media have been sprouting over the years and have become a popular way for people to communicate. Since the rise of Twitter and Facebook, companies have been competing to be the best. Both incorporate communication in different ways. Twitter can be seen more as a information/news network while Facebook “functions as the yellow pages for the internet.”  While Twitter has an enormous community of 200 million monthly users, it stands no chance against Facebook’s 1 billion. Granted that Twitter came to be a few years after Facebook, it still has a chance to become a formidable competitor in the social media world. Both rely heavily on advertisements to expand their revenue and growth as a company. Facebook has incorporated Instagram, a photo-sharing app, which has generated a much larger fan-base. On the other hand, Twitter has recently purchased Vine, a short video-sharing app, which has also drawn in a plethora of new users.

Recently, HTC a major competitor in the smart phone market, reported it’s first major quarterly loss. HTC has always fallen short of the two top competitors, Apple and Samsung, but has always stayed positive in net pay. Apple and Samsung competition have left all other smart phone producers to fit for survival in the marketplace. On the other hand, Samsung has had a great quarter. This increasingly good quarter may be due to a new advancements in Samsung smartphone memory chips. HTC is falling under and as history shows, it is almost impossible to come back from this quarterly loss

Since the top dogs, Samsung and Apple, are ruling the phone market, other smaller companies are struggling to survive. HTC has been relevant in the phone business but its efforts to remain so could likely prove to be insufficient. In this article, we read about Samsung striving in the business because their competition in the memory chips has declined. On the contrary, HTC reported their first loss in net pay and usually only one quarterly fall is enough to mean that the company is pretty much over. Mr. Dediu said, ““In the phone space, you hit one bad quarter and you are out.” Are there exceptions? Of course, my phone is an LG phone, LG being one of those exceptions but based on statistics, I do not see HTC continuing. Being that China has several companies rising at a significant pace, HTC will probably fall completely. I am no prophet, this news is not a secret. Several HTC workers have already left. They, too, recognize a sinking ship when they see one.

Every news channel has been keenly covering the government shutdown. Anybody who needs something done that requires governmental attention has their eyes glued to any news source. With all this hooplah around the shutdown, Wall St. fears there are bigger issues in play. The largest of all being the debt ceiling. The government could run out of money as soon as October 17. In fact, the Treasury would be left with only $30 billion in cash. For a country like the United States, that spells disaster. Consequently, the US must raise the debt ceiling or risk a historical default on its debt. The most viable solution being discussed by speculators is evoking the 14th Amendment, which would allow President Obama to tell the Treasury to keep borrowing. Although some Democrats fear this may bring about threats of impeachment from the Republicans, it is something that is necessary. For now, the government has a light responsibility. However, November 1 looms ahead and that is when Social Security payments, military paychecks and various other obligations come into play. According to several sources, November 1 is the hard deadline for Congress to come to terms with the debt ceiling. If nothing is done, the US economy along with the global economy would be sent back into the shackles of a major recession.

Article: Wall Street Uneasy in Face of Government Shutdown

The government need to step up their game and figure out what they are going to do. This is not the first government shut down but it causes people to worry about the future. According to NY Times, “House Republicans passed legislation over the weekend that would keep the government operating only if funding for President Obama’s health care bill is delayed for a year and a tax on medical devices is permanently repealed. The Democrats who control the Senate have said they will not agree to those conditions.” Because of the disagreement government decided to shut down. Even though the shutdown would be relatively insignificant, “many strategists say that the outcome of the debate over the shutdown is important because it will set the backdrop for the battle over the debt ceiling.” This disagreement would just mean they are not making progress on the debt ceiling.

Ever wonder what makes marshmallows so fluffy and voluminous? After mixing the ingredients of sugar, starch and gelatin, the candy is heated at 241F. Next the gooey mixture is forced into a tube where it will begin to form its shape; when the candy is in cylindrical form it is then cut into the perfect bite size pieces. At this point, the candy is delicious, but still not at its fluffy size yet. Finally air is being pumped into the marshmallow giving its soft fluffy texture.

“Samsung, which is benefiting from its status as a leading maker of semiconductors as well as smartphones, said it expected to post operating profit of 9.9 trillion won to 10.3 trillion won, or about $9.2 billion to $9.6 billion, in the third quarter, up from 8.06 trillion won a year earlier. ” So basically, Samsung is railing in a huge profit due to the rising consumer demand of smartphones. But due to the battle of between HTC and Samsung, HTC is taking a big hit , while Samsung is soaring in the air. “HTC has also suffered from internal discord, and a series of executives have quit the company in recent months. “They are suffering a drop in sales,  due to the battle between HTC corporate executives. According to some executives, once you drop in sales, its almost impossible to rise back up. So with new technology on its way, battles arise among competitors, drawing one company out and one company to the top.

Title #1: Twitter’s Biggest Risk? Losing You

Twitter has been a major social media site since it came out. It’s all thanks to the millions of monthly users that Twitter has been kept alive, but what would happen if all the users just stopped using Twitter? For starters, all the ads on Twitter would be useless, so company’s would stop sponsoring them. So in order for Twitter to keep gaining revenue, they need to increase amount of users, therefore they aim to gain more users in countries such as Argentina, France, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South America. Thanks to popular people, mainly celebrities, people join Twitter to know more about their lives. If one day, a new social media site comes along and steals all the tweeters away, Twitter will die just like Myspace.

Title #2: The Numbers Behind Twitter

Twitter gains many new users everyday, but their rise in profit isn’t big. Twitter had loss $79 million in 2012, but they also gained $317 million. Majority of the revenue Twitter gets are from advertisements.  About 85% comes from ads. The reason for Twitter suffering losses is due to their lack of advertising is other countries other than the US. Revenue gained from outside the US is only 25%, therefore Twitter must expand more globally to keep the company alive. Unfortunately Twitter’s attempts to expand internationally were unsuccessful, but they must continue to expand in order to prevent themselves from going out of business.