What are some of the events that caught your eye during the past week, and what are the marketing implications of those events? Discuss the strengths and the room for improvement in what you have noticed.
MKT 571 Week 6 DQ 2 NEW
Would you buy that?
Who would pay $330,000 for a virtual space station? Or $100,000 for an asteroid space resort? How about $99,000 for a virtual bank license? Players of the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game called Entropia Universe did. Those players are making money, and so are the game developers. There’s a new business model—called “freemium”—driving the economics of these games. Under this model, users play for free but can purchase virtual goods with real money. Worldwide sales of virtual goods were $2.2 billion in 2009 and are predicted to reach $6 billion by 2013. Most virtual goods are inexpensive—costing about $1—such as the tractor you can buy in FarmVille or a weapon in World of Warcraft. That doesn’t seem like much, but when you consider that game-maker Zynga’s FrontierVille had 5 million players within one month of launch, we’re talking real money! Are there ethical issues with the sale of virtual goods? What are some of these potential issues?
MKT 571 Week 6 DQ 3 NEW
Ethical/Legal Issues
We are all familiar with online courses in college? Many students are, but some traditional brick-and-mortar universities are venturing into uncharted territory by outsourcing the teaching function to online providers. Missouri State University is offering its introductory journalism class through Florida-based Poynter Institute, which is a non-profit journalism training group. Instructional outsourcing is...