The process of writing can be a tedious one for so Essays

The process of writing can be a tedious one for some, and a piece of cake for others. When the subject of a writing method is discussed one barely looks into the details of why, instead absent mindedly do them as if it were second nature. Today I'll be looking into my own flaws for once, and record a specific habit this particular indulgence has been a very hard one to not do, I'm talking about pacing. The reason for such research is to note and become aware of how it'll affect me, and for what purpose I do it. The hypothesis is that I'll be more efficient without it, and it will be nothing more than a nasty habit. I was first told of this habit by my mother who would catch me up and pacing as a child when handed a boring task, I still continue this habit as an adult and have adapted to different situations to control it. Methodology I needed a timer and a camera to do this experiment, also two essays in which I had to turn in this week (not counting this one). I was in my dorm typing on my laptop record the first, daydreaming and writing a sentence every 10 seconds or so, it was a Wednesday afternoon, and it seemed to be going smoothly ( I reserve my concentration for when I'm revising). It seemed very easy, and I was able to get done, although it was extremely slow, it felt like 4 hours . The second paper was a little harder to write, I didn't get out of my seat and eventually dealt with writers block, my work became more generic, given that I was just trying to get done, and thinking became a tedious task. As I've said before all I needed was a video camera a seat and desk, as well as a topic, in which I can easily provide for myself, the middle portion or the body of the essay was the most excruciating moment. I did both experiments one after the other and found the results to be diffe rent than what I had anticipated. Results As you can see, the results of each method look quite different from one another, and in no way are similar. I created a chart based on what I saw in the video, and timed how long I walked and what got done as a result. Time pacing Time finished 1)3:00 2)4:00 3)40 seconds 4)5:17 Total : 16:17 48:34(with pacing) 0 45 seconds(to go to the bathroom) 1:57:42 Like any other paper I seemed to be exhausted by the second one where as the first, I found my self refreshed every time I came back. I believe that I can beat this habit although I don't know if it can become useful in certain situations. On a side note, it seemed like I was wrong, day dreaming gets it done quicker, but it comes in a sloppy manner, and ALOT of rewriting is required. In conclusion it's safe to say I have a conflict when it comes to whether or not I should give up this habit once and for all. Although it's a nice way to deal with stress, the perspective of the situation also depends on whether or not it's needed. I really wish I could just dive into a paper, sit still and not move so much, pacing also seems to be triggered by music, and so is daydreaming meaning that the essay would've taken longer than necessary. Should I give up this habit or embrace it, and attempt to control it over the right situation? (E.g. creativity etc.).

Decolonization of the Filipino American Mind Essay Example

Decolonization of the Filipino American Mind Essay Example Decolonization of the Filipino American Mind Paper Decolonization of the Filipino American Mind Paper Berdahl, R. O. , Gumport, P. J. (Eds. ). (1999). American Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press. Baldazo, P. G. (March 1991). The good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly in Filipino cultural values. Heritage, 5(1), p. 6. Barringer, H. R. , Takeuchi, D. T. , Xenos, P. (January 1990). Education, occupational prestige, and income of Asian Americans. Sociology of Education, 63(1), pp. 27-43. Blair, S. L. Qian, Z. (July 1998). Family and Asian students’ educational performance. Journal of Family Issues. 19(4), p. 355. California Postsecondary Education Commission (2000). College-Going Rates of California Public High School Graduates by Racial/ Ethnic Group, Fall 1997 to Fall 1999. Higher Education Performance Indicators. Sacramento, California. Callan, P. M. , Finney, J. E. , Bracco, K. R. , Doyle, W. R. (Eds. ). (1997) Public and Private Financing of Higher Education. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. Constantino, R. (2000). The mis-education of the Filipino. Journal of Contemporary Asia. 30(3), pp. 428-44. Espiritu, Y. L.. (1992). Asian American Panethnicity: bridging institutions and identities. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Espiritu, Y. L. , Fujita Rony, D. , Kibria, N. , and Lipsitz, G. (June 2000). The Role of Race And Its Articulations for Asian Pacific Americans. Journal of Asian American Studies, pp. 127-137. Fong, T. (1998). The Contemporary Asian American Experience. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Fulgado, C. Q. (September 1991). Speaking on education. Heritage, 5(1), pp. 17-18. Gendrano, V. P. (Fall 1996). Understanding Filipino parents and grandparents. Heritage, 10(3), p. 20-21. Guillermo, E. (2002, February 5). Side-by-side: U. S. lies and broken promises. SF Gate. Retrieved December 4, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://sfgate. com/cgi-bin/article. cgi? file=/gate/archive/2002/02/05/eguillermo. DTL. Harrison, F. V. (1995). The Persistent Power of â€Å"Race† in the Cultural and Political Economy of Racism. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 59. Heller, D. E. (Ed. ). (2001). The States and Public Higher Education Policy: Affordability, Access and Accountability. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Kang, K. C. (1996, January 26). Filipinos happy with life in U. S. , but lack united voice. Los Angeles Times, p. A1. King, R. C. (June 2000). Racialization, Recognition, and Rights: Lumping and splitting Multiracial Asian Americans in the 2000 Census. Journal of Asian American Studies, pp. 191-217. Luzzo, D. A. (October 1993). Ethnic Differences in College Students’ Perceptions of Barriers to Career Development. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 21(4), pp. 227-236. Okamura, J. Y. Agbayani, A. R. (1997). Pamantasan: Filipino American Higher Education. In M. P. P. Root (Ed. ). Filipino Americans: Transformation and identity (pp. 183-197). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc. Pimentel, B. (1999, January 31). White Man’s Forgotten War. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 4, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://sfgate. com/cgi-bin/article. cgi? file=/chronicle/archive/1999/01/31/SC16131. DTL. Rodis, R. 2002, April 3). Losing track of one’s census. New California Media. Retrieved September 27, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://news. ncmonline. com/news/view_article. html? article_id=119. Roley, B. A. (2001, August 20). Filipinos- the hidden majority. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved September 27, 2002 from the World Wide Web: http://sfgate. com/cgi-bin/a rticle. cgi? file=/chronicle/archive/2001/08/20/ED194136. DTL. Root, M. P. P. (Ed. ). (1997). Filipino Americans: Transformation and identity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.. Rumbaut, R. G. (2002, May 22). Competing Futures: The children of America’s newest Immigrants. Migration Information Source. Retrieved September 27, 2002 from the World Wide Web: migrationinformation. org/Feature/print. cfm? ID=1. Sargon, E. (2001, January 19). California’s misplaced priorities deny equal rights. Daily Nexus Online. Retrieved September 27,2002 from the World Wide Web: dailynexus. com/opinion/2001/205. html. Schirmer, D. , Shalom, R. (Eds. ). (1987). The Philippines Reader: A history of colonialism, neocolonialism, dictatorship and resistance. South End Press. Takaki, R. (1989). Strangers From A Different Shore: A history of Asian Americans. New York: Penguin Books. The Filipino Crisis in Higher Education. Retrieved September 27, 2002 from the World Wide Web: ocv/berkeley. edu/~pass/crisis. html. U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (July 2002). NCES Profile of Undergraduates in United States Postsecondary Institutions (1999-2000) Statistical Analysis Report (NCES 2002-168). Washington D. C. : Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Wolf, D. L. (Fall 1997). Family secrets: transnational struggles among children of Filipino immigrants. Sociological Perspectives, 40(3), p. 457(26)

The United States Civil War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The United States Civil War - Essay Example Cultural and social historians felt that it was due to the differences between the civilizations and values. While revisionist historians believed that the issue was slavery.1 Historians do agree that the North wanted to embrace modernity thereby ending slavery while the South efforts were to preserve slavery and its agrarian way of life. Davis, the first president of the Confederate States and Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States; the Union emphasizing strict compliance to the United States Constitution and support for the Union; the Democratic Party was divided into two parties, one representing the North and the other representing the South. Both believing that slavery ought to continue, however, the North thought the federal government had the right to prohibit slavery in territories. Although the Republican Party was anti-slavery, they did not advocate putting an end to slavery but wanted to prevent its expansion into territories that had not yet become states. And the Southern states seceded from the Union and established the Confederate of America when the federal government prohibited the expansion of slavery.2 In the midst of such chaos, why did the South lose the United States Civil War Ned Harrison, a writer in Greensboro, North Carolina, who specializes in military history, thinks the fundamental economic superiority of the North; a basic lack of a military strategy in the way the South fought the war; the Southerners unskilled performance in foreign affairs; the South's lack of a dominating civilian leader; the Confederate Constitution's over-emphasis on individuals' and states' rights and failure to stress the responsibilities of the individual or the state to the federal government and Abraham Lincoln were the reasons why the South lost the Civil war.3 Abraham Lincoln's role as president of the United States during the Civil War was that of a conservative revolutionary. His goal was to conserve the Union as the revolutionary heritage of the founding fathers. Lincoln, a strategist and war leader, was responsible for the Union victory. Lincoln, a superb leadership as president, commander-in-chief and head of the Republican Party, knew and understood the meaning of freedom, the limits of government power and individual liberty in time of crisis and the problems of wartime leadership. Determined, he liberated four million slaves, and overthrew the social and political order of the South.4 James M. McPerson, professor of history at Princeton University, including the Pulitzer Prize-winner of Battle Cry of Freedom, says the Union's extraordinary leadership was the reason why the South lost the Civil War. As the war progressed, Northern military leadership developed a rational strategy for victory which destroyed the Confederate armies and their resource of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. The Union's military strategies on the battlefield completely demolished the Confederacy's ability to wage war. And the combined strategic leadership at the political level with Lincoln and the military level with Ulysses Grant, William Sherman, and Philip H. Sheridan resulted in Northern victory. William C. Davis, former editor of Civil War Times Illustrated and author A Government of Our Own: The Making of the Confederacy, says the South lost because

The Eradication of Smallpox Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Eradication of Smallpox - Research Paper Example The present research has identified that since smallpox was spread by air, it was very difficult to contain it in congested human settlements such as cities.   Not until the discovery of medical vaccination were humans able to protect themselves against smallpox. While vaccination option remained controversial throughout, there is no doubt that it greatly helped contain the disease and save thousands of lives. The improvement in sanitary conditions in cities and hygiene levels in hospitals had also contributed to controlling the disease. As statistics from Britains National Health Service shows, the first stage in the elimination of smallpox was achieved during the middle of last century, when â€Å"virulent smallpox (variola) was replaced naturally in Britain by a milder type (alastrim), antigenically identical but with a much lower mortality (1 percent). This was then gradually eliminated by increased attention to isolation and contact tracing†. However, the threat of smal lpox still persisted as sporadic outbreaks of both these variants remained till the 1960s. But through a combination of vaccination, safety legislation and improvement in sanitary conditions, smallpox was completely eradicated from Europe and America by 1970. The World Health Organization was encouraged by the success in advanced countries and attempted to replicate this success in the rest of the world. But the medical community always had hope, for smallpox was an ideal candidate for eradication. For example, the immune system of the affected individual got boosted after about. Secondly, â€Å"the virus was antigenically stable (unlike influenza); there were no carriers (unlike typhoid) or animal reservoirs (unlike malaria)†. To add to this, effective vaccines were being developed. And the medical community was also aware that robust control measures can be implemented to contain an emerging epidemic. So in the 1970s, a worldwide eradication drive was implemented. Surveilla nce-containment was the buzzword associated with this drive. This involved â€Å"trained workers searching for cases, with rewards for those who found them.

Helicopter Experiment: Speed of Fall

Helicopter Experiment: Speed of Fall Hend Darwish Research Question: At what speed will the helicopter fall by adding more paper clips to its base (the bottom)? Variables: Independent Variable: Amount of paper clips Dependent Variable: Speed Constant: Same Helicopter Same Timer Same height (2m) Hypothesis: My hypothesis is that the more paper clips added to the base of the helicopter, the speed will increase. I think this will happen because gravity will pull the helicopter down and the opposite force (air resistance), which is acting on the wings will get weaker because the wings will fold upwards. This will cause less for the air resistance to act on which will cause the speed to increase. Method: For our helicopter lab, we first measured two meters on the wall so we have will drop the helicopter at the same place. Then, Eliah will drop the helicopter and Holly will time how long it takes with the stopwatch. We repeated this step for three mores tests and with two, three, four, five and six paperclips attached to the base. Then, we found the average speed of each paperclip and recorded our results into a graph. To make our test a fair test, we made sure its the same person timing and dropping the helicopter. Also, we always dropped the helicopter from two meters. For our safety, we made sure that we are in an empty space so we dont bump into anyone or the paper helicopter doesnt go on someones head. Also, we made sure that we are not next to any chemicals or flamed Bunsen burner so when we pick up our helicopter, it wont catch on fire or be covered by any chemicals that could harm us. Apparatus: 1 Paper Helicopter Stopwatch 100cm ruler 6 paperclips Diagram: Data Collection: Amount of Paper Clips on a Helicopter The amount of paper-clips on the helicopter Time taken for the helicopter to fall a distance of two meters (s) Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Mean Speed (m/s) 1 1.38 1.68 1.31 1.45 1.38 2 1.22 1.40 1.19 1.27 1.57 3 1.13 1.40 1.30 1.27 1.57 4 1.16 1.0 1.09 1.05 1.9 5 .96 1.30 .84 1.03 1.94 6 .63 .53 .81 .65 3.08 Data Processing: Table of Amount of Paper Clips Affect the Average Speed of the Paper Helicopter The amount of paper-clips on the helicopter Time taken for the helicopter to fall a distance of two meters (s) Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Mean Average Speed (m/s) 1 1.38 1.68 1.31 1.45 1.38 2 1.22 1.40 1.19 1.27 1.57 3 1.13 1.40 1.30 1.27 1.57 4 1.16 1.0 1.09 1.05 1.9 5 .96 1.30 .84 1.03 1.94 6 .63 .53 .81 .65 3.08 To get the mean, you have to add the three trials together then divide it by three. For example: 1.83 + 1.68 + 1.31 =4.37 4.37 / 3 = 1.45 To get the speed, you have to divide 2 by the mean of the three trials. For example: 2 / 1.45 = 1.38 2 / 1.27 = 1.57 Data Presentation: Conclusion: According to our graph our hypothesis was correct: The more paper clips added to the base of our helicopter the more the speed will increase. Our data corresponds with the line of best fit really well up until our last data point which was 6 paper clips and was 3.08s. It is much higher than all the other points, I think this one particular piece of data is unreliable because it dose not correspond to the rest of the data as well as the graph. This may be because our timing methods when timing the last one was different then the rest of our graph. To make sure that this would be an accurate experiment, we did three trials for each paper clip(s) and then calculated the mean and speed. Evaluation:      Ã‚   Our Method was reliable and extremely accurate because for each amount of paper clip, we had three trials so we could create an average speed. Also, we used the same person for timer and the dropper of the paper helicopter. If I could re-do the experiment, I would have made the height higher, such as 3-4m so we could have more accurate readings.

Consequences of Exploration for Europeans and the Indigenous Peoples

In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean bearing the name of the Spanish Crown in hopes that he had landed in the Indies of Asia using a direct sea route. Though that is not where he landed, his â€Å"New World† was a place of great wealth, new materials and crops, new source of labor, and new land for the European nations. The consequences for the native people of the Americas were much worse with devastating death tolls, enslavement, new diseases and racist attitudes towards them. Though it would not be fair to say that the Europeans did not share in negative consequences or that the indigenous people did not gain any advantages. The greatest negative consequences for the Europeans due to the European expansion are a devastating economic revolution, and the introduction of the venereal disease Syphilis. Once the Spanish began to mine the precious ores of America the wealth of Spain underwent a major transformation. Demanding one-fifth of all profit, the Crown became immensely rich and this showed in their influence on the rest of Europe, seeing that other countries now lacked the material wealth of Spain. Throughout this time of great wealth the population rose steadily in Spain. With population increase, came an increased demand for food and merchandise. Spain had expelled a large amount of their skilled farmers, workers, merchants and businessmen during the Inquisition when they cleansed their country of the Jewish and Muslim people. Along with the demand in Spain, the demand for Spanish and European products in the Americas also became hard to keep up with. With the ever-increasing influx of silver bullion the prices in Spain began to rise and the inflation quadrupled the prices of everything within thirty years. In 1556, Martin de Azpilcueta Navarro, a Spanish canon lawyer, writes about the influx of American silver as the cause of the inflation. We see by experience that in France, where money is scarcer than in Spain, bread, wine, cloth, and labour are worth much less. And even in Spain, in times when money was scarcer, saleable goods and labour were given for very much less than after the discovery of the Indies, which flooded the country with gold and silver. The reason for this is that money is worth more where and when it is scarce than where and when it is abundant. Along with this, the Spanish king Philip II spent more money on outside enterprises to worsen his countries debt. When needing to pay his debt to other countries, he also paid in silver bullion spreading the inflation to the rest of Europe. The discovery of the Americas led Europe to inflation and increased prices and Spain to almost complete debt by the seventeenth century. Besides silver and gold, the native people of the Americas passed Syphilis on to the Spanish who came to settle there. In five year time, Syphilis had spread to Russia from the European Atlantic coast. Though it could not be proven, Syphilis is thought to have originated in Espaniola because no evidence of Syphilis exists in Europe before 1493. These open sores, boils, and aches in the joints caused excruciating pains to many Europeans due to this quickly widespread venereal disease. The only proven effective way to treat Syphilis was from drinking the boiled bark of the guaiacum tree which only grew in Espaniola. Though no exact numbers were calculated for Syphilis it could not be compared to the death tolls that the European diseases left on the Indian populations. â€Å"In a period of 130 years, something like 95 percent of all Native Americans died of disease. That number is far greater than experts (until recently) had ever suspected. The Native Americans who survived the plagues were, of course, completely demoralized and depressed by this tremendous loss of their loved ones, of their lifestyle, and of their ancient culture. â€Å"(Bib 2. ) The 95 percent population loss of the Natives was staggering compared to probably one percent death caused by Syphilis. Thus though Syphilis was a negative consequence of European expansion it proved minor compare to the Indigenous peoples loss due to European disease. Besides new crops and animals the indigenous people were introduced to new religions, medicines and ways of life that helped better themselves. Christianity was introduced to the indigenous people thanks to very ardent Catholicism from the Spanish and Portuguese. These Christians taught of love, equality and a heaven after death for those who acted well on earth. For many indigenous people this religion called to them and they were converted. Those who did not convert voluntarily were either forced to convert or killed. The native people actually became very passionate about this religion and even followed religious doctrines more closely than the Spanish conquistadors. The natives began to spread peace and love as a bigger doctrine than territory fighting which shows how religion was a positive outcome from European expansion. New technology and medicine helped more effectively cure the local people and brought new light to the topic. In Pre-Colombian times the Indian populations would come to the ailing and stay by their side through illness thus probably catching the illness themselves, the Europeans taught to isolate the sick and better medicines to treat them. The lives that new medicines saved in the Americas is immeasurable but probably still do not compare to the lives lost from European diseases. New technologies such as guns, steel and sailing equipment helped build stronger weapons than the ones previously possessed by Indians, and a new material from which objects could be made. Very strong steel could be used to make protection from swords and swords themselves thus fortifying indigenous peoples' ability to make weapons, protect themselves, and hunt. Many thousands of things brought from Europe helped make indigenous life better such as candles to light the night and paper so writing and language could be better developed. Though much understated there were many positive outcomes from European expansion to the indigenous people of the Americas and even a few negative outcomes for the Europeans themselves. More often than not, when talking about the European expansion into America, the Europeans seem to get much better rewards from their expansion. And they actually did. They reaped much higher rewards from their conquest of the Americas than the indigenous people, yet it cannot be forgotten that both peoples' had multiple sides to their gains and losses due to European expansion. Bibliography Quotes: {draw:frame} 1. â€Å"Why were Native Americans so vulnerable to European diseases? (article). † Articles on how to feel good more often and get more done. Web. 10 Oct. 2009. http://www. youmeworks. com/why_native_americans. html. Galloway, J. H. The Sugar Cane Industry An Historical Geography from its Origins to 1914 (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography). New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. Print. American Indian past and present. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2008. Print. Other Info: â€Å"Spanish colonization of the Americas -. † Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 11 Oct. 2009. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Spanish_colonization_of_the_Americas. â€Å"Native Americans in the United States – European colonization. † Spiritus-Temporis. com – Historical Events, Latest News, News Archives. Web. 11 Oct. 2009. http://www. spiritus-temporis. com/native-americans-in-the-united-states/european-colonization. html.

Business Model Re-Engineering: Myspace

————————————————- Business Model Re-engineering MySpace Date: November 4, 2011 ————————————————- Word Count: 3742 Introduction Nowadays, increasingly more industries, especially the media sector, are facing a continuous change. In the case of media, this is mainly a result of steadily developing digital technology. Even though a company’s business model might have been successful for many years, it suddenly can start to become weaker. The media market is quite competition-driven and hence a competitor with a new business model might alter the industry almost instantly (Business model re-engineering, n. d. ). In such a competitive market, the â€Å"strategy [†¦] is about being different. † (Eisenhardt & Sull, 2001, p. 116). This statement perfectly implies that companies and their products need to be so unique with such a well thought-out and innovate business model that they can create a competitive advantage. However, this adaption of the business model in an ever-changing media environment turns out to be quite a complex challenge, since now many companies face a decline of customers and revenue. A good example for a business model that could not survive the changing media environment in terms of online social networking is the one of Myspace. Consequently, I am going to propose a re-engineering of its business model. In this paper, I will focus on the problems of the current business model and carefully analyze the context of the market in order to propose a refreshed model that will help Myspace to survive and to compete more successfully in nowadays’ social networking market. Myspace needs a business model that provides value to its customers, guarantees a competitive advantage, as well as collects revenue (Teece, 2010). Myspace Myspace. com, which was founded in 2003 by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson (Piskorski, Chen, & Knoop, 2008), is an online social networking ervice that is now owned by Specific Media LLC and singer Justin Timberlake (Specific Media Acquires Myspace, 2011). Specific Media LLC is a media company which sells advertising online with a technology that aims at targeting specific customer segments (Specific Media LLC, 2011). Specific Media LLC, however, has not been the owner of Myspace for long. In June 2011, the company bought Myspace for about $35 million and as part of the deal pop star Justin Timberlake took an ownership stake (Specific Media Acquires Myspace, 2011). Before, from 2005 until 2011, it was owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (News Corporation to Acquire Intermix Media, Inc, 2005). From 2005 until 2008, Myspace was the most popular social networking website in the world, as measured by the visitors. But the number of 75. 9 million visitors per month in 2008 dropped to 34. 8 million in May 2011 (Gillette, 2011). Problems Is Facebook Myspace’s biggest problem? Since 2008, Myspace has been continuously losing members which was at the time when it was overtaken by Facebook (Mack, 2008). Myspace has been gradually losing its users which can be expressed by the declining members and visitors of the website. As from February 2010, the visitors decreased by 43. 3 per cent (Arrington, 2011) and the members shrunk by ten million within one month at the beginning of 2011 (Stafford, 2011). This decline brings along a dramatic loss in revenues which are solely generated by advertising (Enders, Hungenberg, Denker, & Mauch, 2008). Facebook has now about 25 times more users than Myspace (Stafford, 2011) and it seems that members migrated from Myspace to Facebook, but there is other reasons for the failure of Myspace, mainly in terms of innovation. Myspace was performing really well at the time of News Corp’s acquisition and it barely had any competitors. However, with the rise of its first great competitor Facebook, the former leading social networking site had to confront one of its severest lacks: innovation! At the very beginning, Facebook entered a niche market, namely the one of college students. Firstly, it was available to Haravard students, then more and more universities wanted to join Facebook and today, almost everybody is using this social network, no matter if college student or not (Piskorski et al. , 2008). Today, around 600 million users enjoy keeping in touch with people all over the world via Facebook (Cauwels & Sornette, 2011). Facebook managed this great success because it was innovative. New features have been added all the time since it has been launched, hence people were involved and kept coming back as a result of new innovations such as the ‘news feed’ at that time (Stafford, 2011). While Facebook managed to be innovative all the time, Myspace failed to adapt to the market and did not add new features as Facebook did. Additionally, Myspace did not allow third party developers to create new features such as applications (e. g. Facebook – FarmVille etc. ), they rather kept everything behind closed doors. Therefore, Myspace lost the competition of controlling the market at the time between 2006 and 2008 and consequently it became boring (Stafford, 2011). Even though Myspace had certain features, they did not all work very well. For example, members were able to create their own backgrounds either themselves or they could download an existing design from many providers who specialized in creating Myspace profile designs. This feature turned into quite a mess, problems, and confusion regarding certain profiles. The whole competition resulted in a confusing mess and one could not be sure on what Myspace was focusing. Not only because of the customized user profiles but also because of some other flaws in the site’s design, Myspace was confronted with security issues. Results were spyware (Hesseldahl, 2006), phishing, and spam (Webb, Caverlee, & Pu, 2010). Another security fear was regarding the profile content. Users were concerned about trust and privacy and even law enforcement officials claimed, â€Å"MySpace is used by sexual predators to lure teenagers† (Dwyer, Hiltz, & Passerini as cited by Schrobsdorff, 2006, p. 5). The last problem I want to focus on is the revenue model. As previously mentioned, Myspace operates on revenues from advertising. Especially under the ownership of News Corp, the main focus was on generating revenue. It seemed that Rupert Murdoch solely focused on revenues and nothing else which is a great flaw for a social networking site, as it needs to focus on the onsumers. In 2006, Google pledged to pay News Corp as many as $900 million over three and a half years and in return Google was allowed to provide search services and advertising on Myspace (Piskorski et al. , 2008). For Myspace’s customer it seemed that the site was full of too much unorganized advertising, hence the website appeared unp rofessionally (James, 2009). The previously listed problems of Myspace are mainly problems of the time when Myspace lost the competition against Facebook, and reasons why Myspace is not successful anymore. With regards to the Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder (2009), I will focus on the problems based on the following elements: Value Propositions, Key Partners, Revenue Streams, and Media Channels. The element of value propositions â€Å"seeks to solve customer problems and satisfy customer needs with value propositions† (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2009, p. 16). I consider this part to be Myspace’s greatest problem regarding the issues of trust, privacy, spam, spyware, and phishing. Furthermore, the lack of innovation was one of the major problems why Myspace lost that many users who constantly want to experience something new. With its lack of good and new features as well as its unclear point of focus, Myspace was not able to deliver value which would result in customers continue to use the social network. From my personal experience, I can say that Myspace faded into obscurity which can be backed up by the low number of users now, compared to the time of 2006 when Myspace was at its peak (Snyder, Carpenter, & Slauson, 2006). I was a Myspace user around 2006 as well, when I was 15 years old. It seemed to be a meeting point for teenagers and for me it was not any different from the German social networking site ‘Schuler VZ’ except that it is international. However, as time went by, I decreasingly used Myspace as for me it always was too confusing and it could not compete with the German social network. Besides, I got spammed with advertising, random men (who were not at my age) thought it was a dating service, and it simply became boring. Therefore, I can state that Myspace’s biggest problem is that it is not valuable enough for the users. Theory Firstly, I will focus on the value propositions as all the other elements, I chose to focus on, follow up on the value propositions. When looking at value propositions, I would like to consider the three types of value propositions according to Anderson, Narus, and van Rossum (2006), namely ‘all benefits’, ‘favorable points of difference’, and ‘resonating focus’. In the case of Myspace, it certainly would not be enough to â€Å"simply list all the benefits† (Anderson et al. , 2006, p. 2) since there are too many competitors in the Internet environment that share most of the benefits and values. The ‘favorable points of difference’ approach is promising in so far that it distinguishes the valuable points that the competitors do not offer. However, I believe that Myspace does not present many highly valuable aspects over their competitors and therefore it would be most convenient to concentrate on the ‘resonating focus’. With this approach, I will focus on â€Å"the one or two points of difference [†¦] whose improvement will deliver the greatest value to the customer for the foreseeable future† (Anderson et al. , 2006, p. 4). In connection to that, I will of course need to study the greatest competitors with regards to their value propositions in order to highlight Myspace’s most valuable points of difference. Furthermore, I will need to research what customers expect from online social networking, what they value about Myspace, and what they generally find lacking in the social networking environment in order to develop ideas for a possible niche market. Additionally, for this customer value research, I will need to conduct research on focus groups with regards to problems mentioned in the previous section (safety and innovation). Furthermore, the design is an important aspect of the value propositions as well. As I previously stated, the old Myspace design was quite confusing which resulted in safety problems. Hence, a new design is needed which is unified for every user, yet attractive and which does not allow bugs. Secondly, in relation to innovation, I will need to look at the Key Partners who will be part of the re-engineering of the Media Channels as well and concerning revenues. Through Media Channels, the company can communicate with its customers and deliver the value propositions (Osterwalder et al. 2009). Especially in the online environment, awareness can be raised with the help of other key partners. For example, you can share content from one website on another. Not so long ago, Myspace introduced connection opportunities to Twitter and Facebook (Myspace introduces mashup with Facebook, 2010) and also youtube allows sharing videos on myspace. Myspace’s connections to Facebook which will al so help to generate user-specific streams according to the user’s Facebook profiles. However, Facebook for example, does not allow a connection to Myspace. Accordingly, Key Partners are needed that would help promoting Myspace. Moreover, the former revenue model which only consisted of advertising, has proven to be quite annoying for the users, hence Myspace needs Key Partners who will not only make the website more appealing but also help to make revenue. Hence, research has to be done on Key Partners who are willing to help financing Myspace as well as who would be interested to offer for example applications (which then help the Key Partners as well). As I said before, Myspace faded into obscurity. For this reason, I will also need to look at other media channels such as campaigns and marketing strategies in order to bring Mypsace back to people’s minds. In that relation, research needs to be done on what marketing strategies worked for successful social networks such as Facebook and also what media channels can help to basically re-introduce a media product like Myspace. Assumptions & Best Practices Review First of all I need to mention that Myspace decided in 2010 to focus on music and entertainment (About Myspace, 2010). However, for now I will only consider online social networking sites as websites that focus on music and entertainment are not Myspace’s greatest competitors. Of course, I will need to take Facebook into account as Myspace’s greatest competitor and as today’s most popular social network which was the most visited website in June 2011 (Smith, 2011). Facebook first started in a niche market of college students and it got awareness from the very beginning. It did not use any special advertising campaigns to become popular but the promotion was rather by word to mouth (Mitchell, 2009). The popularity has then been covered by newspaper articles and television which reported on the success (Ibid). Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook as a unique and intimate website and constantly added new features that kept the site interesting. Facebook is far more innovative than Myspace and therefore the members keep using it and promote it by word-of-mouth advertising. Similarly to Facebook, Twitter was initially successful in a niche market. At the beginning, primarily computer- and technology specialists as well as bloggers used Twitter for example to promote their blogs (How did Twitter become popular? 2009). Twitter could convince with its simplicity and real life experience. Real life experience in so far that people twittered news from certain events such as the Mumbai attacks or recently the uprisings in Tunisia as different to regular news channels (Ibid). The best practices that made Twitter and Facebook successful and popular are therefore word-to-mouth advertising and t he Internet itself. Word-to-mouth advertising only worked because of the convincing and interesting designs and usability. Both platforms are innovative, as they have been creating new features that make them enjoyable, flexible and interesting (The Success of Twitter, 2011). Those best practices worked for Myspace as well – in the beginning. However, the task now is to remake Myspace aware to people’s minds and the goal is that the users actually keep using Myspace because of the new design and value propositions. I would suggest sending a short and catchy email to the Myspace users which shortly introduces them to the new Myspace. Users might want to get to know the new Myspace and then tell people about their good experience. Additionally, since Myspace is focusing on music, an advertising campaign might help to make new bands aware of Myspace’s ability to promote their work. Facebook uses an aggressive innovation approach, meaning that it comes up with new features that users initially might not like but after a while they cannot imagine Facebook without those new features anymore. Furthermore, Facebook constantly adapts the privacy settings in order to meet the customers’ needs with regards to safety (Blodget, 2010). Innovation keeps Facebook interesting and worthwhile to continue using it. Another highlight it offers for their users are applications. Many software developers create applications for Facebook which make the site not only more interesting and entertaining but also help to generate revenues (Stone, 2007). With the help of key partners, Myspace can get help for its design as well as applications that help to make the site interesting. What is more, key partners help financing; hence Myspace would not only be dependent on advertising revenues. As users find the amount of advertising quite annoying, Myspace can focus on less but personalized advertising. Those steps would help to make Myspace more innovative and it can easier meet the users’ needs in terms of design, safety, new features that make it worth to use. Research Proposal – Method Myspace needs change! More specifically, Myspace needs a re-engineered business model. The previous statistics show that the numbers of Myspace users decline gradually. If this decline continues, the once most popular social network (Bains, 2009) will soon be almost unknown or at least unused. However, with further research on my previously stated ideas based on the problems of Myspace in relation to the Business Model, I will be able to help Myspace creating a new and innovative Business Model that will help to avoid further declining user numbers and to create competitive consistency in the environment of social networking. In order to study the value propositions carefully, I will conduct qualitative research. Only with qualitative research I will be able to gather in-depth understanding of the reasons why people do not use Myspace anymore. I can gather such information in two ways: through interviews and through an online research community. With the help of a qualitative research interview I will gather the facts as well as analyze the meaning (Kvale, 1996). As a result, I will be able to understand the values customers need as well as the reasons and problems which caused the failure of Myspace. By using an online research community, Myspace can put â€Å"the customer at the heart of [the] marketing strategy† (Simon, 2009). Such research communities allow efficient and deep qualitative research online. In such a community, members can discuss certain aspects such as new features and designs, and Myspace can adapt accordingly. Besides, a qualitative research online will probably bring more results since people rather take the time to discuss issues online. However, the qualitative Interview will also be needed because it is an additional in-depth analysis with face-to-face communication that enables immediate follow up questions and answers with high reliability. The qualitative research of both forms will be base on current or former Myspace users and also on general social network users in order to determine the general arget group’s values. Questions for both kinds of researches will for example include what they currently like about Myspace, what they do not like, why they use Myspace, or why they (stopped) using Myspace, what they generally value about Myspace, and their opinions about the competitors such as Facebook. For good measure a detailed research on the competit ors and their best practices is essential. This can be done by further online research on the competitor’s strategies in order to find out what could work for Myspace as well. Plan The following table provides an overview of the estimated time and costs for this project – subject to modifications. For now, I will conduct the research for three weeks, meaning that for example that the online community will be run for three weeks. Part| Time| Costs per hour| Costs per day| Creating online community(5 employees)| 8 hrs| EUR 10 (x5)| EUR 400| Leading discussion online(10 employees)| 3 wks (120 hrs)| EUR 8 (x10)| EUR 9600| Analyzing online community (10 employees)| 2 wks (80 hrs)| EUR 12 (x10)| EUR 9600| Developing questions for both onliny community and interview (4 employees)| 8 hrs| EUR 12 (x4)| EUR 384| Interviews (5 hrs per day)(10 interviewer)| 3 wks (75 hrs)| EUR 12 (x10)| EUR 9000| Evaluation Interview(10 employees)| 2 wks (80 hrs)| EUR 12 (x10)| EUR 9600| Total Costs for staff:| EUR 38584| Further costs: Possible travel costs (for interviewers):ca. EUR 300 Equipment (for Interviewers – recorders etc. ):ca. EUR 400 Technical equipment for online community:ca. EUR 10000 Total Costs:ca. EUR 49284 The additional costs might not apply if the equipment already exists. All prices are including value added taxes. Reflection In this paper I laid the foundation for a re-engineering of Myspace’s Business Model. Back in 2006 and 2007 I was a member of Myspace as well. However, I never liked this social network much since it was confusing, annoying because of all the advertising and I did not feel safe using it. Overall, it did not really work out. Now I am a Facebook user and I totally forgot about Myspace. Apparently, other social network users feel the same way which can be expressed by the declining number of Myspace users. Myspace became quite unpopular, fewer and fewer people visit that site and Facebook out-competed Myspace fast. Therefore I analyzed the problems that resulted in the failure of Myspace. The main overall problem is innovation. Myspace failed to add new features in order to make the platform interesting and worthwhile to keep using it. Myspace totally faded into obscurity wherefore it is essential to re-engineer at the media channels. Also, Myspace did not allow third party developers to help designing the page and add for example applications which not only would make the network more entertaining but also help generating revenues other than advertising. Instead, members were able to design their own profiles. This feature, however, resulted in an overall confusing design and safety problems. Safety problem arose from the bad software as it was easier to install for example spyware. Myspace could not meet the values that the customers need. Aside from bugs such as spyware, spam and phishing, users experienced a great lack of trust and privacy in that online network. To sum it up, I focused on the re-engineering of the following parts of the Business Model Canvas by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2009): Value Propositions, Media Channels, Key Partners, and Revenue Streams. All parts of the business model are connected though. That is why I analyzed all parts with regards to the others. My idea is that Myspace needs to be innovative. It can do so in analyzing both the values of customers and the best practices of the competitors and then adapt accordingly. With this method, Myspace can add new feature that will surely meet the customers’ desires. This is connected with a new design and key partners. Key partners can not only help with the design but also with innovation by adding applications that make Myspace more interesting. Furthermore, key partners would create another method of generating revenues. Then, Myspace would not only depend on advertising revenues and can reduce the annoying advertising to unostentatious, user-personalized advertising. After its changes, people need to be made aware of the new Myspace. This can be done with a short and catchy email to Myspace members who will then positively experience the re-engineered Myspace and spread the word. Additionally, television and Internet advertising campaigns might help to bring Myspace to the people’s minds. I am convinced that those methods and the further research, suggested in form of qualitative interviews, qualitative online community research and qualitative research on the competitors, would help Myspace to survive the competition in the online environment of social networks as well as stop a further downfall. References About Myspace. (2010). Retrieved November 1, 2011 from Myspace http://www. myspace. com/pressroom/2010/11/myspace-introduces-mashup-with-facebook/ Anderson, J. C. , Narus, J. A. , van Rossum, W. (2006). Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets. Harvard Business Review. Arrington, M. (2011, March 23). Amazingly, MySpace’s Decline is Accelerating. Retrieved October 29, 2011 from http://techcrunch. com/2011/03/23/amazingly-myspaces-decline-is-accelerating/ Bains, L. (2009). Facebook Overtakes MySpace as Most Popular Social Networking  Site. Retrieved November 2, 2011 from http://www. switched. com/2009/01/27/facebook-overtakes-myspace-as-most-popular-social-networking-sit/ Blodget, H. (2010). Ignore The Screams–Facebook's Aggressive Approach Is Why It Will Soon Become The Most Popular Site In The World. Retrieved November 2, 2011 from http://articles. businessinsider. om/2010-05-17/tech/29991115_1_ceo-mark-zuckerberg-facebook-s-pr-innovation Business model re-engineering. (n. d. ). Retrieved October 27, 2011 from AMR International http://www. amrinternational. com/services/corporate_and_business_unit_strategy/business_model_re-engineering Cauwels, P. , Sornette, D. (2011). Quis pendit ipsa pretia: facebook valuation and diagnostic of a bubble based on nonlinear demographic dynamics. Retrieved October 30, 2011 from Cornell University Library http://arxiv. org/abs/1110. 1319 Dwyer, C. , Hiltz, S. , Passerini, K. (2007). Trust and Privacy Concern Within Social Networking