The importance of business of streaming and digital services

Hello again, dear reader(s).

I’m sure that just like me, you are almost done seeing everything that Netflix, Amazon or Crunchyroll can offer to you, right? Yeah, I’m starting to running out of options here. But if there’s one thing that we can’t complain is that thank God that streaming services are a common thing now.

Imagine if we were having this pandemic in 80’s or 90’s. I’m not saying that we wouldn’t survive because back then we didn’t have internet or streaming services, but, man, we would be bored as hell just reading the same old physical magazines and watching the same old stuff on tv.

I love video games and I used to play a lot. I still play it, but I just don’t have the time as I did back then. Video games did not change that much since the Atari days, back in the 80’s. I mean, you still use a joystick, a cartridge (or disk) game to play the game and that’s it.

But what really change after all these years is how you can acquire your games to play. Today we don’t need to rely only on cartridges or discs, but we also can play these same games by downloading then. We don’t need to get out of our houses to buy a game, we can buy the game at the internet and the play it in our video game system. And believe me, When we can’t go out like before, having the option to pay for the game play it at your home, is one of those things that can save a soul.

For a long time, the debate between physic games and digital games have been great, because people are afraid that digital only games can disappear from the digital market, and that is a really good point, but I think it’s also good to have options. Even with services like iTunes and Spotify, people can still buy CDs and even Vinyls to listen their favorite bands. I understand having physical copies as a way to preserve history, and I’m totally down with that, but to abolish digital games, is out of question, specially now with Covid-19.

Business as services such as Netflix and Youtube are essential in this day and age, even more now with moments like this, that we are not able to leave our houses. And I really think, for the better or worse, that streaming services are here to stay and they are going to be the normal. Of course, there is this endless debate about what we own versus what we rent with digital services like these. But I think that as the same way that a disc or paper can vanish with time, so digital things that does not have a way to do a backup.

But I can say for sure that I can’t go back to the walkman or discman days because I listen to a lot of musics. I can’t imagine how many discs or tapes I would have to carry inside my backpack.

Is business ever going to go back to "normal"?

I miss a lot of stuff. I miss college, I miss my friends, I miss my routine, I miss the metro (not the supermarket). The only thing that I don’t miss, is waking up so early as I have to do to arrive in my class on time. I’m a creature of the night, so I’m always sleeping late. And when I have to study, I study better at night. Although I have more “free” time to do other stuff, I am not well enough to be “useful”, but I am starting to adapt to this new routine, while I really miss my old routine.

My reality is now the same reality of milion, if not billions, of people that had your life on “standby” because of Covid-19. And I know that once a cure, vaccine or even a treatment appear, things will go back to what we used to have. But the question is… is it, really? I mean, maybe this time that we are having is a good time to reflect about our life and our routines.

Is it okay for us to still living like we were before? Working to death in offices like we did before? Spending more time on work than our houses or with our family? I’m not saying that we should only work on home office, I already said before that we are ready to do home office work because we are ready to adapt, but that doesn’t mean that we only have to work from our homes or houses. Too much of anything is always bad. Being in quarantine for a month is bad, as bad as it is bad staying one month away from home/family because of the work.

People are discovering that for some jobs, working at home SOMETIMES is not a bad thing. People are discovering that for some jobs, working at the office is way better. People are discovering that that reunion does not have to be made and only an email can be send to everyone. People are discovering that our work life can be better and yet be effective to the company. We can have more times for ourselves and still be a good worker for a company. 

Covid-19 is something that is affecting everyone in the world, no exceptions. I can’t wait for the day that a vaccine, a treatment or cure will be announced, but we are having time to see our priorities in life, we are having time to understand and see what kind of life we are living as humans beings and we are seeing that we can make changes to change our lives for better.

The world cannot be the same as it were before, we can’t be the sames as we were before. our jobs and our obligations cannot be the sames as it were before. Not everything is working as it were before, but somehow we are still surviving, right? So, maybe we can make adjustments and fix what is definitely going wrong. We have to work, but we also can have a good life while working.

Generation Y and Consumption

The Generation Y grew up and with them the consumption of everything has also changed. It is common knowledge that 9 out of 10 use their smartphones to look for a personal service customization. That's basically who we are, we like to be "special", we like to see promotion that are made "exclusively" for us and that's fine because business in general are taking huge advantages of that.

Youtube, the website that everyone uses to see their favorite youtuber, or to see that funny video or that DIY (Do It Yourself) that teaches how to assemble a new bed, it is a free website and you don't have to pay anything for it, but you have to have an account and they know what you consume at their website, and with that, the advertises that you see before the video are geared towards you. Youtube is not the only one who does that. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter… name any “free” app that works like a social network and you will see that the advertises that you see, are like “made” for you.

I still remember one day when I was talking with my best friend through Facebook (at the time, it was cool to use Facebook, ok?) that I was planning of leaving my parents’ home and rent a place for myself. What happened a few moments later? Yep, A lot of houses and apartments to rent started popping up at my screen. And I still haven’t looked for anything yet. Scary, right? But I bet that you, my dear reader, has experienced something similar, right? Yeah, I thought so.

What is happening now about this kind of advertisement is something that will never disappear and I have to tell you that this is going to be even “worse”. Or better, depending on the case. The companies are profiting more because people are actively buying stuff that they want (want is different from need, but we’ll get at that later) because of this kind of advertisement.

The problem of all that is, are we, the consumers, ready to handle that? My answer is no. Most of people are not ready to be exposed to that kind of advertisement, the one that goes directly into their heart for them to confuse want for need and buy the item anyway. I don’t know if kindergarten teachers or even high school teachers are ready to handle that, how to pass that knowledge to students in a good and informative way.

Maybe this is something that we, future parents, are going to teach our children? “Hey, don’t click in that ad. Don’t click in that banner. No, your penis will not grow up if you take those pills.” What teachers and professors can do right now is to teach how people can choose between the things they need from the things they want. Maybe that is a good start to handle the new way of doing advertising.

Social Media, the new soul of the Business

Remember that time when big business and companies only had to worry where to spend thousands or even millions of dollars to run their advertisements be it on radio, newspapers and even TV? I tell you, those were the days. Because at that time, it was only one way of connection. They could only send the signal (advertising) and we consumers only had the right to receive it, to consume it. There was no way to interact with that brand other than buying it or calling them, but who would call them, right? Well, that has changed drastically.

The Internet 2.0 has arrived, and with that, the consumer has now the power to enter in contact with the brands that they love (and hate, of course). Big companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s know that they have to follow the internet trends to stay relevant. Otherwise, their rivals in market absolutely will be where they are not.

Of course you just can’t be “there” following wherever your consumer goes. As I said before, you have to make yourself, the brand, relevant. When I say “relevant”, is not just posting an advertise and leave it there, as if it was just a banner. People will talk, and you have to interact with people, be it your consumer or not.

And you better have a good team of people to handle that, because the big your brand is, the bigger is likely for you to have problems with that, because you are big and sometimes, you get what we call it a “Hater”. And if your team is not ready to handle that, well… you almost can say goodbye to your brand.

But worse than have a hater, certainly is when you are not capable to operate your social media, and to recover from that is almost a miracle. As PCMag says in their article, “19 Massive Corporate Social Media Horror Stories”,  Heinz Ketchup was once foolish enough to let a domain name lapse and have it taken over by someone who populated the site with pornography. Anyone who scanned the QR code on the back of thousands of Heinz bottles found themselves looking at X-rated bits and bytes, rather than delicious ketchup. Heinz apologized to the man in Germany who found the problem; the porn site (known as FunDorado) offered the guy a lifetime membership.

At their article you can read how important it is to know how to handle your social media, and most important, the people that work for the brand, because they are also the face of the brand. In a way, it makes sense, because you certainly don’t a person that is against the feminism working in a pro feminist business. That simply doesn’t work well for any of them (the brand and the person).

Just as real life conventions, people and brands should know how to act politely at the internet and social media. As an old saying goes: If you say what you want, you are going to hear what you don’t want to hear.”

Business and Coronavirus - We are ready to adapt

It is known that Millennial Generation, or Gen Y, started to change how the market and industry see business environment when they started to make part of business universe. Forget the bureau, the big offices - the Gen Y likes to work wherever they like and that is good not only for them, but for the business owners as well. Although there are those at the high chain of command that doesn't like this kind of idea, now, with Coronavirus, it seems to be a good idea to adopt more the idea of home office.

Coronavirus needs no introduction. We all know it very well and how fast it is growing all over the world. The best way of not spreading the virus? Staying at home, be he or she a child, a student, or even a worker - yes, even a worker. Thanks to the advance of the internet and the idea of home office, this is something that we all are willing to do, but think a little bit how would that work during the 80's, 90's and even during the 00's. It simply wouldn't work. At that time, people really needed the physical space to do their jobs. But that is not the reality anymore.

Of course, I know that a medic still have to be at the hospital or clinic, police officers still have to be on patrol, and physical stores still have to have people to sell items. But the idea here is not to be outside home to avoid the dangers or avoiding the chance of infecting other people. With that, the idea of home office will grow even more. In Brazil, for example, between 2016 and 2017, the numbers of persons working from home grew up to 16,2%. Between 2017 and 2018, the expansion was bigger, 21,1%, according to IBGE.

While I’m not trying to say that we all should work from home from now on and forever, I believe that sometimes we can do the work we are supposed to do, but way better at home. I know that are benefits working in business environment such as immediate feedback, in real life social network and negative points working at home such as solitary confinement, some technical issues and the possible lack of discipline. The idea here is to find the perfect balance between those two, because since the beginning, the Gen Y is being prepared for that and the Gen Z will be even more adopted than the previous generation.

Imagine if the Gen Y didn’t tried to push and create new way of doing work and doing business as we know today. That surely would have created problems for the world market and if as right now it is not great the it is, I am sure that would be even worse without the home office trend. Maybe, when Coronavirus is controlled and things start to go back to what were once, people will see home office with another eyes.

The Observer

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