Wei Yun Lim's Blog Entry #2

I think I've made it quite clear from the beginning- I've always wanted to work in publishing, with a focus on e-publishing. However, on Tuesday, we were at an internship meeting where we were all told that we should try to keep an open mind and learn more about all the industries, and boy, am I glad that I went into Targetcast with that mindset. From the website and from what I had imagined media buying and planning industries to be, I had thought that Targetcast was going to be a much more formal, rigid environment than it actually was: I was expecting power suits and ties, not business casual. Colette and Heather were both really friendly, and willing to entertain any of our questions. I never realised how much thought goes into the advertisements that we see (or don't see, for those of us with ad blockers) online, and how much planning goes into what time they are placed and who receives them: I knew that there were algorithms that tracked your browsers with cookies and showed you advertisements relevant to you, but I did not realise that people would take into account the time of day and number of times an advertisement was viewed. I know that I'll definitely be thinking twice about completely ignoring ads the next time I see them.

Another thing that did astonish me was the amount of math that goes into media planning and programming. While I always did think that statistics would be involved, I never knew that it would be to such an extent. I'm so glad that I actually did Higher Level Math in high school now: who knew that it would some day come back to haunt me? I also found it fascinating how they mentioned that traditional and new media were now merging. Whether Pandora and Spotify count as radio or Internet advertising is definitely a valid question. I feel as though some day the lines between various media forms will blur so much that it will no longer be practical to make any form of distinction. It will definitely be interesting to see how the industry changes to reflect that. Professor Jarmon said on the first day of class that we should take every opportunity to learn; I'm really glad that we were exposed to a media planning and buying agency with such close proximity, and I can't wait to learn more about communications as a whole.

As for my research on Amazon Kindle, images of the new Kindle Fire have been leaked on the Internet. Truth be told I'm dubious about anything that is 'leaked' nowadays. I can't help but feel like it's just another marketing ploy, to build up hype and speculation for the product. However, here are the new pictures, and I think it looks rather fancy.

One thing's for sure: they are targeting a different market from the Kindle Paperwhite with this product. The Fire seems to be competing with tablets such as the iPad, whereas the Paperwhite was more of an e-reader. Though the Fire's specs apparently target a cheaper market than an iPad. Perhaps they're trying to explore blue oceans by tapping into a market of people who don't need an iPad, but who want something more than the Paperwhite? We'll see. I'm definitely excited. 

(Ten bucks I'm going to end up with a new Kindle by the end of this semester. Maybe I should have chosen something slightly less tempting.)