Internet 101

If you turn on the computer and fire up Google Chrome, Gmail, Facebook and a bunch of other websites that help us with our daily lives only to not get connected, I'm sure a few choice words exit your mouth as they do for many of us.  

In recapping the first week of my MKT 595: Internet and Interactive Marketing class we started at the very beginning - How the Internet Works.  For most people who are connected online they could not even begin to explain how it works.  I don't necessarily have much more of an understanding than most but here's a little tutorial you can throw this around at a cocktail party and sound like an IT wiz.  

Internet: A global network that links computers through an IP address. 

IP address: A unique identifier that links one computer to the other on the Internet (network).  

Domain Name Service: The process of translating IP addresses to domain names.  As humans we'd much rather remember Facebook.com than a bunch of numbers.  Telephone numbers are hard enough these days.  

World Wide Web: The WWW is an application that actually lays on top of the Internet and is a series of interlinked documents which we better refer to them as web pages.  

Web Servers: Servers that host web pages.

Web Browser: Software that is used to view web pages like Microsoft IE, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox.  

This may solve your next Internet crisis but hopefully makes you feel a little more aware of how things work in our ever connected online lives.  

Remembering 9/11

Last night was the first night of my Accounting 555 class with Dr. Mark Frigo.  I have to admit Accounting wasn't one of my favorite undergraduate classes and aside from budgeting and monthly allocations I haven't had to work with T-accounts for years.  

Thankfully I've heard nothing but positive things about Dr. Frigo and after last night's class I can tell he's truly one of those teachers who cares and wants to make learning the information fun.  I'm really looking forward to his class this quarter.

More importantly though was how he kicked off the orientation.  Prior to arrival, Dr. Frigo sent an email dedicating our first class to Todd Beamer, Kellstadt MBA Class of 1993 and Hero of United Flight 93.  Todd is one of the passengers who fought to take control of the aircraft from terrorists.  
Sharing something as tragic as this is never easy to do.  However, I commend Dr. Frigo for  living the motto, "We will never forget."

Walgreens Launches Loyalty Program

Say it's finally so!  As I perused my Facebook news feed over lunch I came across a post from Walgreens announcing their new loyalty program, Balanced Rewards.  I'm sure most people could care less but I may have flashed a little smile.  

One might ask why does this make me happy?  For one, I'm thrilled that I'll now start to accumulate free money when I have to purchase those "must haves" like toilet paper and shampoo which are frequently from Walgreens.  I mean who wouldn't want to be rewarded when you literally pay money to put trash in garbage bags to be thrown out?!  

All joking aside, Walgreens is a retailer who's made leaps and bounds in the social space and it's great to see a loyalty program being integrated into their social efforts.  When I opened my Walgreens app on my iPhone sign up consisted of entering a zip, phone number, and DOB while the rest of my registration info pulled from my existing profile.  The best part is that unlike other loyalty programs who may have been first to market, you don't have to have another key fob on the ring.  Much like Starbucks, Walgreens has incorporated a barcode that can be scanned right from your smartphone.  

The one downside of the launch is that it appears the program has not rolled out into their stores yet.  On the flipside, kudos to Walgreens for generating the buzz early.  I'll let you know if my smile comes back in store in 10 days.