Conclusion (Final Post)

The Encourage Me application is intended to lift people up in stressful times during their lives. Know a time when you are especially stressed out? Mark it down through the optimizer application and you will be blasted with a text message of encouragement from a famous inspirational person of your choosing.

I may never produce the Encourage Me application, but knowing that there are useful technological techniques at my disposal makes me realize that the application’s existence is more feasible than I had originally suspected. In the beginning I thought “Hey, this is a cool application idea but I don’t even know how I would make it”. I don’t know coding or anything (yet) so I guess I still can’t really make it, but I do know that with using things like cloud computing, databases, social networking, and much more can easily birth this thought into reality.

I also felt that comparing my idea with other existing products was a realistic skill. I think most times, one wants to pursue a dream regardless of what exists because one believes it is an original thought, however, in most cases that’s definitely not true. For example, when I wanted to make an invention for this project, I had to throw out dozens of thoughts just because someone else had been clever and faster enough to have made it already. It was really a reality check.

It was even more of a reality check when I began to find ideas that were really similar to my idea. Even after funneling down my ideas to the most original, not-yet-invented concept similar projects still existed. For example, applications like IStress that desired to help people through message blasts provided the same uplifting service, despite the content differentiation.

Additionally, other non technology based assignments such as analyzing the style of technology bloggers has benefited me in a way I didn’t expect. I realized that many bloggers had the same sort of blogging style, but the ones who stuck out the most were the ones who had their own flare and originality to blogging. For example, I analyzed a blogger that specialized with technology production and demand in the Philippines. Yes, it’s not the most glamorous topic, but it does draw a pretty large audience do to it’s specialized nature.

In conclusion, I think that this project made me realize that technology is not scary and it is not something that is all about wires and batteries. There are social, psychological, and economical elements which need to be taken into account when producing a product that appeals to a wide audience. From the necessity of the product to the delivery and advertisement for the product, there is much to be done in addition to creating the code and technology for a simple application.

Lecture post: Data Bases

           The Encourage Me application is intended to lift people up in stressful times during their lives. Know a time when you are especially stressed out? Mark it down through the optimizer application and you will be blasted with a text message of encouragement from a famous inspirational person of your choosing.

The application can benefit greatly form the use of databases. Although I stated in previous posts that the program would retrieve information through search engines, categorizing as much information as possible in a database may work as well. However, it may be arduous to obtain all the information I need an put it in a database.

For example, if the entire program relies on recalling information from multiple online websites which present quotes of famous people, then I would be able to provide a fast service that supersedes the search-engine step which may take additional time. Rather than hoping I can create a process where the user is able to select a famous person, have the information retrieved from a website, and deliver the particular quote in a format, I can simply have all I need in one quickly searchable database. 

The downside to this is that if I want to create the database I'm going to have to input a LOT of information on many people since my target audience consists of a wide variety of people who are inspired by different people. Although I could always just limit who they could be "Encouraged" by, I don't think it would make the application really special if the user couldn't get all they wanted out of it.

Pro Blogger Critique

My URL: Dayzayzay.blogspot.com

Blogger URL: http://www.kabayantech.com/

The blogger is Abiel Abuy who filipino-american that is interested in technology advancements in the Philippines.

This Abuy's blog covers "tech Start-up in the Philippines, gadgets reviews, tech tips, analysis and opinions", his blog is mostly like any other technology blog but he concentrates more on the advancement of technology in the Philippines. For example, the point of his blog is to let Filipinos as well as Filipino-Americans about what is hot and new in technology, where they can buy it, how they can buy it, and for how much they can get it for. He also discusses the market in the Philippines and how it affects technological advancements. His blog itself is a great tool to use for anyone who is interested in finding new technology within the borders of the Philippines which can include traveling business folk or immigrants. A technique he uses is incorporating photos and listing out different pieces of technology methodically, rather than explaining each idea all together. I think this technique is used a lot by people, and it really does work. It's visual and gets to the point for explaining to the reader what is happening.

Lecture Post: Cloud Computing

The Encourage Me application is intended to lift people up in stressful times during their lives. Know a time when you are especially stressed out? Mark it down through the optimizer application and you will be blasted with a text message of encouragement from a famous inspirational person of your choosing.

Cloud computing is important for my application because, although it is not an application invented for storing items, online storage on the "cloud" is essential. This is due to the necessity of inputting personal information from the user; who they want to be encouraged by, what times they want encouragement, etc. Because the user needs to store information online, they are essentially adding their data to the cloud.

Additionally, the usage of cloud storage for the company is also a necessity. This is because the Encourage Me application can pool in quotes and information from other websites on to a place in a cloud for storage. Doing this will allow the application to essentially have its own online database for quotes, storing a lot of information without slowing down the system unit.

Furthermore, the user of the Encourage Me app can take advantage of cloud storage by allowing users to insert information about good points about their day in order to encourage them to reflect optimistically about their lives. Although storage would be simple like like that of creating a blog post, it would still be useful for this application.

Competitive Analysis

     The Encourage Me application is intended to lift people up in stressful times during their lives. Know a time when you are especially stressed out? Mark it down through the optimizer application and you will be blasted with a text message of encouragement from a famous inspirational person of your choosing.

Live Happy 

URL: http://www.signalpatterns.com/iphone/livehappy_std.html

Overview: Live Happy is an application you can get from the App Store on iTunes. It is an application which promotes happier well-being and lifestyle changes which can increase happiness of the user. My application, Encourage Me, is similar to Live Happy because they both promote happy lifestyle by letting the user receive positive reinforcement. For example, Live Happy has an option called "replay happy days" which allows the user to see things that happened in their past that put a smile on their face. Similarly, my application also sends positive messages to uplift the user through encourage words. 

     However, when it comes to the details, these two apps are not all that similar. For instance, live happy requires the user to input a lot of information such as photos, personal anecdotes, and goals in order to have the application function to its best extent. While on the other hand, my application simply requires the user to input their role models and the time period they wish to be encouraged.

iStress

URL: http://www.psiappsinc.com/
Overview: iStress is an application which you can also purchase at the App Store on iTunes. This application is similar to Encourage Me since it also promotes positive living and a happy attitude. It does this by giving the user stress-relief techniques and information on relaxation. iStress differs from Encourage Me though since its target audience is specifically users who take psychiatric medication, and it is more medically aligned. 

Although both applications are both beneficial to people who need to be encouraged and/or cheered up, neither are extremely similar to Encourage Me. Live Happy is an application that promotes lifestyle changes and requires a lot of user input and iStress is a relaxation applications which is meant for users who take medicine. My application is simply a pickmeup for anybody in need for a bit of encouragement from people they find important.

Lecture post!

Entrepreneurial Idea Overview:

The Encourage Me application is intended to lift people up in stressful times during their lives. Know a time when you are especially stressed out? Mark it down through the optimizer application and you will be blasted with a text message of encouragement from a famous inspirational person of your choosing.

Lecture

     System units are certainly important when it comes to this app. Since it's electronic and communicates with other devices it is going to need to be controlled and created by a device with a system unit in order for other devices with system units to be contacted by it. For example, I can create this app on the computer and build the program for smart phones like iPhones and Droids.

     Computer forensics is important for my application since I will have the phone information of my customers and email information (if they choose to subscribe to my application's email blasts) so in order to keep their privacy after the application is eliminated, it is important to destroy the hard disk drives immediately after.

     I think Computer forensics is really important for my project. Especially since if I add in an option for payment to my product I will need a way to delete credit card information of my customers. This will help me prevent getting sued and people's identity thefts as well.

Lecture Post

The Encourage Me application is intended to lift people up in stressful times during their lives. Know a time when you are especially stressed out? Mark it down through the optimizer application and you will be blasted with a text message of encouragement from a famous inspirational person of your choosing.

As previously stated, Encourage Me is an application. When making this application, I will use Facebook to update people who "like" the Encourage Me app's Facebook page by periodically posting about new famous people added to the Encourage Me quote base. I will also use Twitter to do this as well. I think it would also be useful to have people tweet @ the Encourage Me twitter to see positive and negative feedback.

Positive and negative feed back is the most important aspect of the usage of social media for Encourage Me. Although it is not 100% accurate, it is pretty good since it is free research I can use to improve my application. Additionally, it could show me what people want from the application and what they think is frivolous.