Friday, December 27, 2019

The Clash Of Soldier s Duty - 1646 Words

Angela Keyu Lu Prof. Beirich History 202B June 1, 2015 The clash of Soldier’s Duty As a soldier in the military, follow commander’s order is their duty. Regardless of what soldiers were thinking about the war, as long as they put on the uniform, they are the soldiers, they are the one that fight for their people and their country; they have to follow their commander’s direction and order. Many soldiers choose to participate in the war due to their family needs, but later, after their training period in the military, they started to build their sense of duty and have an image of what they are going to do in this war, however, they often ignore the reality hidden behind the war. Both Bloods, Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An oral†¦show more content†¦Although the marine did not tell the reason why soldiers have to kill Vietnamese, Edward believed what marine told him. However when Edward actually fought in the war, he found out that those who he killed are innocent women and children. Edward’s sense of duty is to follow the order of the commander to fight for stop the spread of communism and also to kill the soldier of offensive communism army, however in the reality, he and his company killed many of the innocent people. He mentioned how once during the war, â€Å"A little girl screamed. I went inside the door. I’d done already shot her, and she was on top of the old man. I killed an old man and a little girl in the hut by accident. † Edward want to explain to someone but everyone was there to justify his actions and said it is not his fault, however, Edward does not want to hear it and all he wants after this is to go back home (Terry 42). Soldiers are not supposed to kill the innocent people who are the elder, women, children and without weapons. Once soldiers were there in the village to fight to free the Vietnams from being attacking by communism, soldiers should protect the innocent villagers instead of killing them. However in the reality, American soldiers, including Edward, were demons to Vietnamese people because of the indistinctive attacks toward everyone they saw. Edward’s duty is to fight in the war and follow his commander throughout,

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Engineering Jobs and A Outline of Each Essay - 617 Words

Civil Engineering: Civil engineering is primarily concerned mainly with the planning and construction of different facilities (bridges, highways, buildings, dams, railroads, etc.) Civil engineering in Islam was mainly concerned with irrigation and water supply. Four different types of irrigation were developed by Muslims, which are Basin irrigation, perennial irrigation, Terrace irrigation and Wadi irrigation Computer Engineering: Computer engineering deals with the computers (digital gear). It covers the design, usage and theory of computer hardware (application) and software (information Processing techniques). One of the famous Muslim computer engineer is, Lotfi Asker Zadeh, an Iranian scientist and the founder of fuzzy logic and†¦show more content†¦As through the economy and trades established by Muslims there was a transmission of different crops and farming methods from different regions outside the Islamic world. Architectural Engineering: Structural: concerned with building structure and disturbing the load transferred in the building. Mechanical systems: control the temperature and climate inside the building, taking into consideration the air quality and humidity (HVAC) Electrical and lighting systems: to design the circuits and paths of utilities and power inside the building envelop Construction and management engineering: the responsibility of the engineer that the quality, cost and schedule meets the project plans Muslims had a great influence on architecture and have many inventions in this field, for example: Arabesque: which is an application of repeated geometrical forms founding in decorating walls. Also the Minaret, which is a distinctive architectural feature of the Islamic civilization, more specifically, the mosque. One of the most famous Muslim architects is Mimar Sinan, whom is Turkish. He is the head ottoman architect and also was a civil engineer. He was accountable for constructing more then 300 different buildings. Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering: There are three majorShow MoreRelatedEngineering Disciples933 Words   |  4 PagesEngineering Disciplines Oral Presentation Overview: The purpose of this project is to provide a better understanding of the different engineering disciplines offered at the University. Students will be divided into teams. Each team will prepare a presentation on a discipline to be presented to the class. This presentation serves as a means for students to learn, in-depth, about a major outside of their areas of interest. The assumption is that students haven’t had much information presented toRead MoreA Report On Fire Engineering1022 Words   |  5 Pageson the structural design behind steel members and its response to elevated temperatures, specifically from fire. Dr Allan Jowsey, a fire engineer and estimation manager, introduced fire engineering and the calculations required for using specific steel members. Before this event, I never knew that fire engineering existed. Although my major is chemical, I can still appreciate the thought process for choosing specific thicknesses of steel and the coatings required. Jowsey expla ined that the thicknessRead MoreFormation of Construction Contracts1252 Words   |  6 PagesTable of Contents 1. Outline of the NEC Contract a) Summary of the ethos key aims of the Contract i. Stimulus to good management ii. Variations iii. Clear and simple language b) Strengths c) Weaknesses 2. Main Option Clauses a) List of main Option Clauses b) Summary and Comparison of Option Clauses c) Recommendation 3. Secondary Option Clauses a) 15 ‘X’ Secondary Options b) Two ‘Y’ Clauses c) Discussion of ‘Z’ Clauses d) Recommendation 4. Conclusion 5. References 1. Outline of the NEC Contract Read MoreA Career With Ethics : Research Paper Outline1122 Words   |  5 Pages A Career with Ethics: Research Paper Outline 5 A Career with Ethics: Research Paper Outline Greg Stella ENG122: English Composition II Eric?Cummings 3/12/ 2016 Ethics is very important in all walks of life, whether pertaining to building a house or building a computer, it all comes down to doing the right thing. We would discuss how ethics is something that?s taught to someone by someone else and learned over a period of time while being applied to real life situationsRead MoreWhy I Want For An Engineer1171 Words   |  5 PagesEngineer Engineering has been of particular interest to me since I was an underclassman in high school. During sophomore year in high school, I participated in a program sponsored by the boy scouts of America called an engineering explorer post. The group met once a week at a different engineering firm or classroom at the Rochester Institute of Technology to learn about the different fields of engineering and their job. Through this program, I learned of my passion for civil engineering. I love solvingRead MoreEssay on assessment 3 NEBOSH1079 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿Assignment 3 1. (a) Explain, using examples, the meaning of EACH of the following terms: Motivation is the internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a job, role or subject, or to make an effort to attain a goal. An example is a student that spends extra time studying for an exam because they want a better grade at the end. (2) Perception is the process by which people translate sensory impressions into a coherentRead MoreHow Engineers Are Faced With Ethical And Moral Issues762 Words   |  4 PagesEssay Proposal Outline The following outline will help me write my essay about how engineers are faced with the ethical and moral issues of bribery in the industry. I chose this issue because it is a topic that speaks close to me. I have been put into many situations at work and during internships where I ask myself whether it is a bribe or if it is just networking. This essay will not only discuss the issue of bribery in the industry but help me further understand how to analyze certain scenariosRead MoreEssay on Unemployed Rate in Malaysia1692 Words   |  7 Pagesunemployed persons in Malaysia increased from 382900 persons in 2011 to 396300 persons in 2012. Unemployed persons in Malaysia are reported by the Department of Statistics, Malaysia. In Malaysia, unemployed persons are individuals who are without a job and actively seeking to work. For many years, manufacturing had been the strongest sector in the country and the main contributor towards employment creation until the financial crisis in mid-1997. From this period onwards, the agriculture sectorRead MoreValue Engineering (Ve) Is A Systematic Method To Improve1414 Words   |  6 PagesValue engineering (VE) is a systematic method to improve the value of goods or products and services by using an examination of function. Value, as defined, is the ratio of function to cost. Value can therefore be increased by either improving the function or reducing the cost. It is a primary tenet of value engineering that basic functions be preserved and not be reduced because of pursuing value improvements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_engineering) VE is an organized/systematic approachRead MoreComparison of Two Commercials Essay1552 Words   |  7 PagesOutline Thesis statement: When compared side-by-side, there are differences in the two. Some of these include that the Lexus ad uses predominantly the logos, or logical, appeal whereas the second uses pathos, the emotional appeal, the target audiences for both commercials, and the effectiveness of each. 1. Pathos or logos? 1. VW uses more pathos than Lexus. 1. Humor is effective tactic in advertising. 2. By using humor, advertisers make their product more memorable. 2

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Environmental Management and Sustainable Development

Questions: 1.Why is Environment Management System (EMS) Policy Important for a Company which is certified to ISO 14001 Standards? 2.Discuss your Understanding of Environmental Aspects and Impacts and its Importance relating to ISO 14001. 3.Develop a Procedure for the Management of Legal and Other Requirements in your Steel Fabrication Business. Answers: 1.Importance of Environment Management System (EMS) Policy The ISO 14001 is an internationally accepted standard and integrated approach to effective environmental management. The standard is designed to help the organizations conduct successful businesses without running away from the environmental responsibilities. An environmental management system (EMS) is a set of management principles and tools that designs or creates administrative procedures which needs to be integrated into the business practices for maximum environmental concerns. The main objective of EMS is to achieve the established policy to protect the environment. The EMS policy is important to the companies who are certified to ISO 14001 standards as they need to integrate environment protection practices while fulfilling their environmental responsibilities (Heras-Saizarbitoria Boiral, 2012). EMS is important as it helps the organizations in meeting shareholder and customer demand. With the implementation of EMS, the efficiency can be improved and the organizations can significantly save money. As the ISO 14001 certified company is bound to integrate effective environmental management, the company has goodwill in the market. To stand up to its goodwill, EMS shall help the companies in living up to the expectations of individuals and the wider communities (To Lee, 2014). Further, if the ISO 14001 certified companies follow EMS policy, it shall create awareness for the other individuals and corporate on environmental degradation and the impact it has on our earth. EMS is proactive towards regulatory compliance that makes the business owners understand the negative impact of environmental degradation and take measures to prevent it. The ISO 14001 makes the company legally bound to win stakeholder and customer trust (Testa et al., 2014). Proposal of EMS Policy The marine industry requires stainless steel for building boats, submarines and chemical tankers. Stainless steel has 100% recyclability nature as it is not coated with any toxic material (Arushanyan et al., 2017). The most attractive feature of using stainless steel is that it does not harm the environment even if it ends up in landfills. The process of fabrication of stainless steel involves melting the steel and casting it into solid forms. The steel is then heated and treated to give the desired finishing. Lastly, it is sent to the marine industry so that they can weld and join it to get desired shapes. EMS Policy The marine industry is committed towards reducing the environmental impact towards a sustainable development in Singapore. The maritime industry needs to comply with Maritime Legislation of Singapore and implement all environmental laws and regulations (Nea.gov.sg, 2017). Relating to the fabrication of stainless steel for building boats, submarines and chemical tankers, the marine industry commits the following- To care for the environment by reducing the environmental impact from shipping activities to promote green shipping in Singapore. To pursue the policy of three Rs- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle in managing solid waste from the fabrication of stainless steel-hazardous waste and metal scraps. To comply with The Clean Air Act of 1971 and limit the air pollutants such as dust, oil mist, fumes of lead, manganese and other toxic elements from welding operations (Nea.gov.sg, 2017). To comply with Water Pollution Control and Drainage Act and not dumping waste generated from fabricating steel into water bodies that would damage the marine life. To comply with Singapore Noise Regulations and installing silencers for controlling noise while fabricating stainless steel products. To restrict the exposure to welding fumes as nickel causes allergic reactions leading to chronic bronchitis and other lung diseases (Nea.gov.sg, 2017). 2.Environmental Aspects and Impacts Before understanding the environmental impact and understanding, the concept of product, service and activity shall be stated. A product is the physical offering that is made in the market. The environmental aspect could be level of recyclability at the end of lifecycle or excessive packaging on a product. Service refers to the auxiliary services that play a key role in supporting core activities such as maintenance, heating or cooling. According to ISO 14001, environmental aspects are defined as the elements in an organizations products or services or activities that can link with the environment. According to ISO 14001, the environmental impacts are defined as the change, positive or negative that result from an organizations environmental aspects (Thiede et al., 2013). The aspects such as radiation, water discharge into the land, noise generation can have certain environmental impacts such as air pollution, water pollution, air pollution, ozone depletion and others. Aspect can be divided as direct and indirect. The direct aspects are the ones that are associated directly with the products, services and activities of an organization. However, the indirect aspects are the ones that are associated with the non-industrial companies such as customer controlled aspects. Understanding the environmental aspect and impact is important to ISO 14001 as an organization certified for it needs to keep a register for environmental aspect that is updated and modified with the activities, products and services. Evaluating the environmental aspects and impacts is necessary as only the significant ones need to be followed. The EMS of an organization needs to be framed based on the environmental aspects type, nature and complexity (Thiede et al., 2013). Environmental Impacts for Disposal of Hazardous Waste and Metal Scraps Hazardous wastes are poisonous by-products from manufacturing or fabrication of certain products from the industries. The waste may be solid, liquid or sludge in nature as it may contain dangerous pathogens, chemicals, or heavy metals. As Singapore is a highly developed nation, the industries need to dispose tons of hazardous waste products regularly. Anything from a small chocolate wrapper to radioactive waste can cause damaging impact on the ecosystems. Hazardous waste can be characterized based on certain properties such as corrosivity, reactivity, toxicity, ignitability, acute toxicity, explosive and infectious property (Thiede et al., 2013). All the hazardous waste needs to be controlled under Environmental Public Health (Toxic Industrial Waste) Regulations 1988. The footprint left by hazardous waste can poison the water bodies affecting or killing the aquatic animals like fishes, frogs and others. The hazardous waste also harms the plants and restricts their growth. Therefore, reduction in plant life can cause natural food supply for humans and animals. The National Environment Agency (NEA) is the regulatory body for managing hazardous wastes in Singapore. The hazardous chemicals need to be controlled under The Environmental Protection and Management Act (EPMA), Environmental Protection and Management (Ozone Depleting Substances) Regulations and The Environmental Protection and Management (Hazardous Substances) Regulations (Nea.gov.sg, 2017). Stainless steel is prepared using the Electric Arc Furnaces process and the Basic Oxygen Furnace process. While handling the machinery and equipment directly, the workers may be directly exposed to asbestos insulation in rolling mills, steel furnaces, cranes, boilers, tanks and moulding boards. The fibres released from the machinery get accumulated in the lungs thereby causing mesothelioma cancer. The indirect aspect of asbestos exposure is also witnessed in manufacturing ceiling tiles, liner boards or floors that were originally eliminated in the process (Asbestos.com, 2017). The Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources in Singapore prohibits asbestos pollution in the environment (Nea.gov.sg, 2017). Singapore generates heavy amount of metal scrap. It is a common by-product in the metal fabrication process to produce stainless steel products. According to the Pollution Control Department, the traders are not allowed to import or export hazardous wastes such as metal scrap or metal slag that contains heavy materials like lead, nickel, mercury and cadmium (Exporters.sg, 2017). The import or export of such hazardous wastes is considered as an offence under Hazardous Waste (Control of Export, Import and Transit) Act. The organizations or individuals shall be liable to legal penalties. In case of individuals, they must be imprisoned for two years or pay a penalty of $100,000 or both (Exporters.sg, 2017). In case of corporate, they shall be liable to pay $300,000 (Exporters.sg, 2017). Metal scrap can be recycled to reduce the impact on the environment as it is less energy-intensive. Ferrous and non-ferrous metals from local industrial, commercial and construction sectors in Singapore are collected for recycling (Nea.gov.sg, 2017). Metal scrap leads to loss in economic benefits. With the recycling activities, the metal scrap recycling can produce new products such as television, smartphones and other products. By reusing metal scrap, the pollution can be minimized (Thiede et al., 2013). 3.XYZ Ltd. Procedure for Management of Legal and Other Requirements in Steel Fabrication Business Revision No.: 1 Date: DD MM YYYY Prepared by: Approved by: Revision History Revision Date Revision Amendment Clause 01/03/2017 00 Initial Release Purpose This procedure described the identification and updating legal and other requirements applicable to the environmental aspects of XYZ. Scope This procedure applies to all relevant legal and other requirements applicable to the environmental aspects of XYZ and its contractors and suppliers. Definitions EMR- Environmental Management Representative EMS Committee- Environmental Management System Committee Reference Documents LR-01Register of Legal and Other Requirements Responsibilities Environmental Management Representative (EMR) The EMR shall work in collaboration with member of EMS Committee to maintain the Register of Legal and Other Requirements, while ensuring access to relevant staff and requirements as listed in the Register. EMS Committee The EMS Committee is responsible for establishing and reviewing the Register(s) of Legal and Other Requirements. Upper level Management The upper level management approves the Register of Legal and Other Requirements. Departmental Manager The departmental manager is responsible for informing the member of EMS Committee to make any changes as relevant to the department and ensuring access of the same in the department. Procedure The EMS Committee needs to identify the relevant and applicable legal and other requirements to the environmental aspects of steel fabrication in XYZ. The member of EMS Committee must maintain a Register of Legal and Other Requirements while ensuring availability and accessibility of adequate information. The information in the Register(s) shall include the following but not be limited to: Title of legal / other requirement; Description of legal / other requirement; and Licenses / Compliance Records Required The register(s) shall be updated every 3 months or in case of availability of relevant information. The members shall regularly update information from the websites: National Environment Agency (https://www.nea.gov.sg/) and Singapore Statutes Online (https://statutes.agc.gov.sg). The EMR needs to ensure that the updated copies of registers are available to the employers. The hard copies such as technical memoranda and code of practices need to be controlled by the EMR. The soft copies of the same can be provided on the website. Records References Arushanyan, Y., Bjrklund, A., Eriksson, O., Finnveden, G., Ljunggren Sderman, M., Sundqvist, J., Stenmarck, . (2017). Environmental Assessment of Possible Future Waste Management Scenarios.Energies,10(2), 247. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en10020247 Asbestos.com,. (2017).Steel Mill Workers - Mesothelioma Asbestos Exposure Risks.Mesothelioma Center - Vital Services for Cancer Patients Families. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.asbestos.com/occupations/steel-mill-workers/ Exporters.sg,. (2017).SINGAPORE Waste And Scrap Metal Member listings - Exporters.SG.Exporters.sg. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.exporters.sg/categories/130800/member-Waste-And-Scrap-Metal/page1.html?cty=SG Heras-Saizarbitoria, I. Boiral, O. (2012). ISO 9001 and ISO 14001: Towards a Research Agenda on Management System Standards*.International Journal Of Management Reviews,15(1), 47-65. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2012.00334.x Nea.gov.sg,. (2017).Code of Practice on Environmental Health.Nea.gov.sg. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.nea.gov.sg/public-health/food-hygiene/code-of-practice-on-environmental-health Nea.gov.sg,. (2017).Collectors, Traders and Local Recycling Facilities.Nea.gov.sg. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.nea.gov.sg/energy-waste/3rs/collectors-traders-and-local-recycling-facilities Nea.gov.sg,. (2017).Control of Asbestos in Singapore.Nea.gov.sg. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.nea.gov.sg/anti-pollution-radiation-protection/chemical-safety/hazardous-substances/control-of-asbestos-in-singapore Nea.gov.sg,. (2017).Environmental Protection And Management (Hazardous Substances) Regulations The Schedule.Nea.gov.sg. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.nea.gov.sg/anti-pollution-radiation-protection/chemical-safety/hazardous-substances/environmental-protection-and-management-(hazardous-substances)-regulations-the-schedule Nea.gov.sg,. (2017).Hazardous Substances.Nea.gov.sg. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.nea.gov.sg/anti-pollution-radiation-protection/chemical-safety/hazardous-substances Testa, F., Rizzi, F., Daddi, T., Gusmerotti, N., Frey, M., Iraldo, F. (2014). EMAS and ISO 14001: the differences in effectively improving environmental performance.Journal Of Cleaner Production,68, 165-173. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.12.061 Thiede, S., Seow, Y., Andersson, J., Johansson, B. (2013). Environmental aspects in manufacturing system modelling and simulationState of the art and research perspectives.CIRP Journal Of Manufacturing Science And Technology,6(1), 78-87. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2012.10.004 To, W. Lee, P. (2014). Diffusion of ISO 14001 environmental management system: global, regional and country-level analyses.Journal Of Cleaner Production,66, 489-498. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.11.076

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Symbol as an Integral Part of a Humans Life

Despite the fact that a man is a creature that possesses certain independence, people have always felt the need to socialize. The author of the article â€Å"Symbols. The basic Element of Culture† Leslie A. White has made an important contribution to psychology as a science, interpreting the nature and the meaning of a symbol in people’s lives. However, the article raises certain questions that still need consideration.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Symbol as an Integral Part of a Human’s Life specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Leslie’s method to investigate the problem could be described as both the experimental one and the one involving certain theoretical work. Leslie both gathered the existing facts about the role of signs in people’s culture and gave the examples based on her own experience as a scientist. According to the article by Leslie A. White, symbols indicate that à ¢â‚¬Å"it was the symbol which transformed our anthropoid ancestors into men and made them human.† These are only people that have some to using symbols to express their ideas. However, the symbol is something more than a mere sign that can be interpreted only in one way. There is a certain distinction between them. According to Macionis and Clark (69), A symbol is anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by the members of the culture. A whistle, a wall of graffiti, a flashing red light and a fist raised in the air all serve as symbols. Thus, he claims that symbol is something that can be well understood by a certain group of people, while the people not belonging to this very social group would either take these symbols for something else or consider them meaningless. That is what makes a difference between a symbol and a sign which is always the same for the representatives of any culture.Advertising Looking for essay on philosophy? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The evidence that Leslie drives concerns her own experience and the examples that the psychology already has driven explaining the nature of symbol. These are the cases of people deprived of the ability to use symbols during the process of socializing and what it has driven them to. One of the characteristic features of a symbol given in Symbol. The Basic Element of Culture is that it is acquired as the â€Å"thing† the meaning of which is bestowed by those who use it. It is not something settled, and nor is it supposed to have one and the same impact on all people. L. White also emphasizes the fact that symbol is rather a notion than something that is to betaken as an object. It can be an object, a color, a sound or even an odor or a taste. In spite of the fact that author takes the symbols rather as a notion than as an object, some researchers take it even further, expanding the meaning of a symbol to the whole cult ure. Culture is symbolic. The significance of culture lies in the meaning people give to symbols or things or behaviour. The meaning is not inherent in the symbol but is bestowed by the cultural significance. (Andersen 56) Andersen drives an example of the American flag, which is basically a piece of cloth with the pattern on it, but for the people this is the symbol of democracy and freedom. So a symbol is something that people have to be taught. This is not the intuitional knowledge that can come with the experience, but a certain notion that has to be learned. As Lesley emphasizes, it is only a human being who can understand and interpret a symbol. A man and only a man can be taught to understand symbols and their meanings. Lesley drives an example of a child who has been deprived of both the ability to hear and see and the ability to have symbolic contacts with people. As the girl was examined by doctors, they found no human traits in her behavior at all. That means, that these are the symbolic contacts wit the others that make the basis of a human.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Symbol as an Integral Part of a Human’s Life specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This sad fact can be explained by the theory of a symbol. As Kendal has noticed, Culture could not exist without symbols because there would be no shred meanings among people. Symbols can simultaneously produce loyalty and animosity, and love and hate. They help us to communicate ideas such as love or patriotism because they express abstract concepts with visible objects. (50) The way symbols can change as they pass through the cultures is a subject for another research. For example, swastika that used to be the symbol of sun in the ancient times and bore the meaning of good luck, prosperity and wealth, was further on transformed into the symbol of fascism, which has changed people’s attitude to the sign once and for a ll. Macionis and Benokraitis (31) expressed the same idea. The symbol is something that is firmly connected to the culture, and the diversities that are presented in the different cultures can lead to the different understanding of signs. These are only people who can be taught to understand and use symbols. To sum up, the culture of a human presumes the use of symbols as the notions that may underlie a certain thing, or a person or a process, or an action. It is not the idea itself, but its roots, the way to express an idea. What Lesley is trying to convey in her article is that the modern culture is a bunch of symbols that have been developed into an ordered system. They are used in the daily conversation, as well as in the sphere of arts. Symbols can be found in the professional spheres, and the use of them presumes that this layer of society has already developed it into a specific culture of theirs. Symbols are constantly following us throughout our entire life. Our task is to decipher them and to receive the information they carry. They are used as containers for information, and the way they will develop will mark the development of the mankind itself.Advertising Looking for essay on philosophy? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Works Cited Andersen, Margaret L., Howard F. Taylor. Sociology with Infotrack:  Understanding a Diverse Society, Casebound. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. 2007. Print. Kendal, Diana. Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. 2008. Print. Macionis, John J. Nijole V. Benokraitis. Seeing Ourselves: Classic,  Contemporary and Cross-Cultural Readings in Sociology. 8th Ed. New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall. 2009. Print. Macionis, John J., Juanne Clark, Linda M. Gerber. Sociology. Toronto: Pearson Education Canada. 1994. Print. This essay on Symbol as an Integral Part of a Human’s Life was written and submitted by user AncientOne to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Ancient Maya Essay Essay Example

Ancient Maya Essay Essay Example Ancient Maya Essay Essay Ancient Maya Essay Essay Ancient Maya Essay Matthew Pitcher Mrs Meligrana Ancient Civilizations June 8th, 2011 Pitcher1 The Ancient Mayan civilization stands out from other ancient civilizations and is great because of its outstanding achievements and developments. The Mayans are still known to this day for their exceptional architecture, medical discoveries, astronomy, and military tactics which were very successful. In this essay I will explain what the Mayans have achieved to make themselves considered great, why they are great, and why they overcome many of the other ancient civilizations. Mayan astronomy has been considered one of the most complex of mankind. Of all the worlds ancient calendar systems, the Maya and other Mesoamerica systems are the most complex, and accurate. Calculations of the 260-day and the 365-day Maya cycles is almost exactly equal to the actual solar year in the tropics, with only a 19-minute margin of error, which is almost scary to see how precise they were. Mayan Astronomers used shadow casting devices, and observations to trace the movements of the sun. the stars and planets in order to observe, calculate and record this information in their chronicles, as they call it . From these observations, the Maya developed calendars to keep track of celestial movements and time. Something never seen before by any other civilization in history, truly amazing, and we still use the 365 day calendar today. Another reason why Maya is great is because of their form of numbers and arithmetic’s, the first civilization to constitute math and numbers in everyday life. Maya mathematics constituted the most sophisticated mathematical system ever developed in the Americas. Pitcher2 The Maya counting system required only three symbols: a dot representing a alue of one, a bar representing five, and a shell representing zero. These three symbols were used in many different combinations, to keep track of calendar events both past and future, and so that even uneducated people could understand when needed for trade and commerce. That the Maya understood the value of zero is remarkable most of the worlds civilizations had no concept of zero at that time. By far one of t he most fascinating achievements of the Mayans was there methods and development of their beautiful architectural buildings and designs. Whether their temples, complexes, buildings, homes, sidewalks or causeways (which were built by hand cut lime-stone), and the first civilization to construct sidewalks for pedestrians. A Maya city from the Classic Period usually consisted of a series of platforms topped by masonry structures, ranging from great temple-pyramids and palaces to individual house mounds. These structures were in turn arranged around open plazas or courtyards. Maya architecture is characterized by a sophisticated sense of decoration and art, expressed in beautiful carvings and wall paintings, unlike any others. Throughout the Mayans 2000 year history, their unique warfare tactics turned out to be very successful for their civilization. Unlike most other civilizations, instead of a head to head close range battle, the Mayans built an army of spearmen and arrow shooters to kill the enemy. Long range war tactic was there specialty and it worked. They killed their enemy before their enemy could reach them, using the land and surroundings they built trenches and barricades to Pitcher3 fool and surprise the enemy, along with bells and whistles to distract the enemy to let fellow soldiers know the enemy is on its way. Also, the Mayan armies did not use horses or chariots in battle much like the other militaries did. Unfortunately for their enemies, the Mayans were keen on taking prisoners†¦ for the express purpose of sacrificing them on a temple altar, in front of the entire tribe. The belief was that by eating the heart of an enemy warrior, you could gain a some of that warrior’s strength. Medicine to the Mayan people was very important, a balance between religion and science, much like we see today. They healed wounds with human hair, fixed fractures, and used casts. Very skilled dental surgeons using different materials to fill teeth when one suffered from a cavity or chipped tooth. Also used â€Å"Obsidian† blades to perform surgeries, Obsidian blades are still used today in many North American hospitals. They cut cleaner so wounds heal faster and with less scar tissue. Finally, the Mayans created the first artificial pain killer for humans. The advancement the Mayan civilization had the medical field before any other civilizations is remarkable and should be noticed. The Mayan civilization deserves the title as a great Civilization because of these outstanding achievements and special ways. Scientifically and mathematically they were genius. Their architecture exceeds the look of any other civilization, and their tactics for building a military and a city is overly impressive. I am not so sure modern day life would be the same without the greatness the ancient Mayan civilization. Webster, David . The Fall of the Ancient Maya, Thames Hudson Ltd, London, 2002 Ayache, Michelle, The Ancient Maya, digitalmeesh. com/maya/history. htm, 2005 Robert, J, Sharer, The Ancient Maya, Stanford University Press, 2006 Shirley, Jordon, The Mayan Civilization, 2001

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Summary of Kenyas Economy essays

Summary of Kenya's Economy essays Kenyas economy is quite diverse. Even though Kenya is one of the fastest growing countries in Africa, its economy has not developed much recently. Agriculture is its largest mean of revenue. Kenya exports several different kinds of produce, and in return receives machinery and equipment. Unemployment is very common because of the slow economy. Even though Kenyas economy has been slow, it still serves as a trade country today. Historically, Kenyas economy has been based on farming, herding, hunting, and trade. But when Britain took over Kenya, a world capitalist economy was introduced. The economy then became based upon the export of agricultural products. European farmers settled in Kenya because of the fertile soil. Their presence boosted the economy. From the early 1900s to the mid 1950s, tea, coffee, and sisal became the dominant exports. Kenyans were encouraged to produce commodities to sell at local markets to boost consumption and production. During World War II, Kenya started producing products that were formerly imported. Even though European farmers left after Kenya gained independence, agricultural exports continued to expand dramatically. Kenyas overall economic growth rate was 6.8 percent, one of the largest growth rates in Africa between the years1963 and 1980. Kenyas economy weakened during the 1980s mainly due to consequences of a rising trade deficit. The government was forced to turn to the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund for economic assistance. Kenyas economy had been strong and booming, but now they were forced to turn to the international community for help. As you now know, Kenya exports and imports a wide variety of products. The main exports are tea and coffee, although other agricultural products such as dairy products and eggs are also exported. Imports are comprised of ...

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Why Illegal Immigrants Must Follow the Law Essay

Why Illegal Immigrants Must Follow the Law - Essay Example These illegal immigrants have made America their home and many have raised families in this country. It is therefore necessary for them to be law abiding so that their stay in this country is not ended abruptly through deportation or if they are convicted of a crime, they do not end up serving time in jail. Whether their status in the United States is legal or illegal, it is their duty to abide by the law of the land because these laws have been passed to ensure that there is order in society. Illegal immigrants, no matter what their background is, should ensure that they abide by the law for the purpose of keeping order in society. Abiding by the law is very important because if the large number of illegal immigrants would were to get involved in illegal activities, then there would be a radical increase of the crime rates in the United States. This would make it very difficult for the law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and county level to contain crime and the order whi ch has been a part of the American society since this nation was created would be destroyed. Illegal immigrants should therefore follow the law to the latter as they found it and should avoid any activities which will put them on the wrong side of the law. This will not only ensure their own security but it will also ensure the security of all the people in the nation as a whole. Many immigrants in the United States are in the country illegally and because of this, they must be very careful not to break the law because this will bring the attention of the law enforcement agencies on them (Katel, 393 – 420). Breaking the law would be to their disadvantage because it would lead them to either serve time in a prison or get them deported back to their home countries, defeating their purpose of coming to the United States to improve their lives. I believe that the fear of deportation should be enough to make the illegal immigrants abide by the law so that they can keep their posit ions, although illegal, within the United States secure. However, the United States also has a duty to treat these illegal immigrants with the respect they deserve because whether we like it or not, the majority of Americans are not native to this land. America was founded as a refuge for those who were running away from persecution for their beliefs or for people who wanted to make better lives and have a new beginning, and that is the reason why America is said to be a nation of immigrants. Since most Americans hail from immigrant families, they should not look down upon or discriminate against the illegal immigrants because they also are looking for opportunities the same as their ancestors were. Furthermore, discriminating against illegal immigrants only drives them towards breaking the law through committing illegal activities in order to make a living. A major incentive for illegal immigrants to follow the law and not to commit any crime is for the purpose of preventing the ri se of a negative public opinion of them. This will enable them to rehabilitate the image of illegal immigrants being opportunistic people whose main purpose is to earn a living without any consideration for the welfare of the people of the country in which they have gone to work (Scarborough, M). Their following the law will enable a building of good will towards them from the American public and will deprive their critics of the argument that illegal immigrants in the United States are a security threat to the nation and that there is a need for them to be deported and stricter measures have to be put in place to ensure that there are no illegal immigrants in the country. The good public opinion will also ensure that there is social harmony in the country and not the aggressive debates

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Vodafone Group Plc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Vodafone Group Plc - Essay Example The availability of the cheap credit made it very easy for people to finance car loans. Thus people ended up spending much more than they were earning. This led to an over flow of cars on the road. The increased demand also forced manufacturers to spend more on capital expansions. However as the world saw this demand was not real demand but in fact only an inflated market. The financial hit to these automobile manufacturers was therefore very severe. The developments in the financial sector also directly affected another industry. The real estate sector was without doubt the most affected in the recent economic crisis. The large amount of were mortgages taken out on properties which were worth much less than, led to a terrible crash in the housing market. When the market corrected itself and reached equilibrium it was a bit too late for the financial gurus who had missed the apparent signs of what was to follow. The telecommunication industry was another industry which was severely i njured by the financial crunch. The affects on the telecommunication industry however were relatively different as compared to the other two sectors discussed above. This is because the affect on the telecom sector was not a direct affect but rather a trickle down affect. The industry suffered from a general slowdown in business and lack of available credit to sustain the capital costs the industry had incurred in the periods of growth. The reduced consumer spending due to lack of jobs and increased competition from competitors also results in major setbacks to the telecommunications industry. Therefore we can say that the telecommunication industry was a victim to its own fast growth. The increased competition amongst the industry led to reduced profit taking opportunities for players and thus lower profits. Telecommunication Industry The telecom industry for the year 2010 was steady even if there was no great growth. The industry was suffering from limited consumer base in the las t couple of years. However new niches have appeared in the market which can be targeted by smaller players. Moreover the turmoil in the market which was very common in 2009 was slightly reduced. Many smaller companies were being closed down or were being bought off. This trend was greatly reduced in the last year. This does not only show that there is still demand for new telecom products but in fact the market is more diverse than ever before. Therefore opportunities are present from large networks with long reach and smaller networks with specialized products. Another reason to this revival is the reduced emphasis of the industry on replacing older technology with newer versions. This is also in part due to the sluggish market conditions. A very good example is of the NT6X21AC line card. To predict the future of the telecom industry is right no not possible. This is because more than economics factors this is actually mostly dependent on technological factors. The recent progress brought about in the telecom industry by gadgets such as iphone and android can be a life saver for the telecommunication industry. This is because the telecommunication industry is finally getting consumer’s money for using the internet services. If this trend continues, the smart phones would turn out to be the laptops of tomorrow. This would however depend

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Regional distinctions in 17th and 18 century colonial society Essay

Regional distinctions in 17th and 18 century colonial society - Essay Example Regional distinctions in 17th and 18 century colonial society There are major differences between the 17th and the 18th centuries, in various fronts. A similarity in the economic front between the centuries is that the economy was agriculture dependent. The labor force in the 7th century was mainly indentured servitude comprising of white servants while this changed in the 18th century to slave labor, with African who were imported. In the social stratification front, the Southern planters were on the top of social class with large crop farms and the small farmers with less land coming in second. The Europeans were at the top of the social cadre, with the Native Americans and the Africans following in that order. The wealthy whites could hire the poor Europeans for indentured servitude, while the Africans belonged predominantly to the slave class. Colonies were formed based on religious beliefs, with the growth in religious freedom being higher in the 18th century than it was in the 17th century. The regions of New England and the Middle coloni es were less economically prosperous compared to the Chesapeake Bay Colonies and the Lower South. Organization of the labor force was such that there was more freedom for laborers in the New England and the Middle colonies, as opposed to the other two regions. This labor force freedom was more in the 18th century more than in the 17th century. 2. How Tobacco cultivation shaped the maturation of colonial society in the Chesapeake 1620-1775. The introduction of tobacco as a stable crop occurred in 1613. The decision to cultivate Tobacco as a staple food shaped the maturation of the colonies by introducing slave labor to replace the indentured servitude that was being utilized before in cotton farming (Eric, 107). Tobacco became the basis of the southern economy, since the introduction of became more economical than the contraction of the white to work for a fixed period. This saw the enactment of slavery law of 1641, which allowed the farmers to own slaves. Social stratification was t he basis of production of indentured servants, since they would come from overpopulated European areas with poor people. The rich lived in spacious tracts of land, where they could hire the poor whites to work on their farms. However, servants were more economical to use since it was cheaper than the cost of obtaining slaves. Therefore, the labor force was made of more indenture servants and a few slaves. The demography had less indentured servants because they died more, creating an allowance to own more slaves who were overworked to death in some regions such as the Caribbean, while those on the American colonies were bred to perpetuate the slave population. The economy of the south later changed from depending more on tobacco to relying on cotton, rice and indigo (Eric, 92). Slaves replaced the indentured servants by the end of 17th century and early 18th century, as the indentured servants became more and more scarce. 3. Major differences in British North America, between17th an d 18th centuries. There are major differences observed in British North America, between the 17th and the 18th century. Accessibility of slave is one of such differences. While in the 17th century the accessibility of slaves was a tough task for the British colonialist in the North America, it became quite easy in the 18th century (Eric, 22). This changed the use of slaves where the most used Indian slaves in the 17th century were replaced by the African slaves who became the major source of labor in the 18th century. Another major difference between the centuries is the racial attitudes. In the 17th century, racial attitudes were more flexible as compared to the 18th century (Eric, 283). In the 17th century, the African slaves

Friday, November 15, 2019

Tracking Developments in Media Industry

Tracking Developments in Media Industry Abstract These days the media business is witnessing the next structural transformation in its business model. Due to the reduction of revenues[1] from printed media and advertisements, industry giants are looking for other ways for penetrating additional revenues. The traditional strategy of cost reduction that was previously widely applied does not seem to be sustainable. On the contrary, most key players in the media world see the biggest opportunity in the invention of new models which will contribute to the boost of revenues. To a large extent media executives agree that monetization of online content is the decision they should go for more insistently[2]. One of the reasons why online monetization is a financially attractive way of growth is that, it has zero marginal cost, and as opposed to print media, revenue increase will not induce proportional increase in costs[3]. Another advantage which online news have compared to the traditional printed media is that they can provide news in r eal time regime which is extremely important in this particular industry as â€Å"news is very costly and at the same time highly perishable product†[4]. So far there have been some attempts of online monetization like the Kindle and micropayments but these strategies cant balance the all the losses that the industry bears because of the before mentioned reasons. Up to date, unfortunately for the industrys decision makers, choosing the right model for online monetization was not the only challenge they had to face. Challenges like search engines, which are generating their content and giving it out to customers for free, are not easy to overcome. In fact, bloggers and social networks like Facebook and Tweeter could be considered as posing similar risks for traditional media companies. However in chapter 4 we will see that the attempts of transforming these risk bearing factors into opportunity and getting some kind of revenues from them has started, which logically should lead us to some type of â€Å"business to business† model which will become beneficial for both parts. In this thesis, because of different reasons[5] I will not claim to have found the ideal model for content monetization, but rather will present several alternative models for monetizing online media content, and whats more important, will discuss the most successful models employed thus far which are applied by leading players in the industry. I will compare their features to each other, analyze their advantages and disadvantages. I will also look empirical data of results of each model to give the reader a better sense of each models financial success and the importance of online content in their business, to have better understanding what role content monetization might mean for these news providers. Besides I will help the reader to have knowledge about the obstacles which should be taken in consideration by stakeholders, if they want to find the best match pay model for their news web-site. 1. Introduction Throughout its history the media business, which is one of the most dynamic and fast-developing industries, has passed through many development cycles, each prone to tremendous changes in terms of strategy, structure and model it operated with. The reasons of these changes in different times were different processes taking place in parallel, e.g. advances of post-delivery system, facilitating transportation and logistics around the world, various technological innovations etc. However, without any doubt, the emergence of the Internet and the subsequent development of digital media is the greatest change of at least last two decades. It has once again revolutionized the whole industry dramatically, more than any previous development. Currently we are witnessing a transformation process which might become a ground for the conceptual change of the whole media industry. â€Å"Due to the reduction of revenues[6] from print media[7] (one of the reasons of this is decreased circulation of print newspapers, Exhibit 1) and online advertisements, industry giants have started to explore new ways to restructure their portfolios of income, and how to make their readers pay for the information they get online†[8]. The latest financial crisis played a role in accelerating this process. The downturn of revenues pushed the media companies to sharpen cost cuttings first of all indicated by the massive layoffs of the staff. However as many industry experts like freelance photojournalist Mike Fox believes, massive layoffs itself is not a sustainable strategy for the future[9]. The same view is shared by management consulting firm Booz Company in their research about the media industry. They admit that cost cutting is an imp ortant tool for managers, but in order to stay capable of growing in the long run, companies cant focus only on the expenditures side of their income statement.[10] Media executives are still optimistic about the future. As the survey in the same research from Booz Company shows, â€Å"most of the respondents (nearly 70%) believe that their companies are financially healthy. The which even higher to 80 percent when it comes to the opinion of integrated players (Exhibits 2), and surprisingly just one forth of the surveyed executives expected they would meet the end of recession with a deteriorated situation (Exhibit 3). Moreover, more than half of media executives (57%) believe that they still hold the wheels to control situation despite financial crisis and think that with structural trends developing in the industry they can outperform the negative results of economic downturn. Print executives are even more optimistic, this opinion is shared by 67 percent of them†. Booz Co sees the future of media companies in their ability to identify the markets where they can compete successfully and the business models which will help them to do s o. In the June of 2009, at the Cable Show[11] in Washington D.C, American News Corps owner Rupert Murdoch gave a speech, which also covered the current challenges of media industry, where he specifically underlined the inevitable need of content monetization. He underlined that times when people where reading news online for free should be over, and thus gave a hint to the whole industry that the process of â€Å"online content monetization† is not only non-reversible process, but indeed it should accelerate whether somebody likes it or not. Murdoch mentioned that only online ads cannot cover media companies costs and named New York Times, as a vivid example of that. NYT has one of the most popular U.S newspaper websites, but still their online ad revenues are not sufficient for cost coverage[12]. The signal form the industry guru was correctly understood by other giant players of media world and many of them like Axel Springer and New York Times[13] already second time, started thinking how to charge their readers for online news in the way not to harm online traffic and ad revenues. Finding the balance among these two will be the biggest challenge for the â€Å"followers of the trend†. In the process of monetizing online media choosing the right type of model which will fit to one or another news providers overall strategy and values is a big deal of question. Currently most news online is free, but there are some existing newspapers successfully charging their readers at least for the part of the information they provide to them. 1 shows the increased consumer spending (black curve) and penetration (grey curve) in online content. The research conducted by Online Publishers Association shows the same trend, that the money spent by consumers on online content in United States increase from 1.31 billion USD in 2002 to 1.78 billion USD in 2004, which meant annual growth rate of 17%. However this growth occurred in the entertainment area such as adult material, music, gaming and sports[14]. Currently, among them most successful in terms of revenues generated from online media content, are American The Wall Street Journal and the British Financial Times. Both of these newspapers are providing financial news and are most direct competitors of each other. Finance is one of those few areas which experts consider possible to monetize. The Booz Co research mentioned before makes focus on prior experiments of publishers who tried to monetize content and boost sales with which such an innovative tools as Kindle (Exhibit 4) sales, multi-title subscriptions and micropayments are, but as the results show these methods cant regain all the revenues lost which the media industry faced in the last two years. It also shows that inevitable steps are needed from the whole industry to look for new business models and as the survey in the same research shows, media executives expect most increase of revenues from the innovations in the digital media, from the new innovative models. (Exhibit 5). Expectations towards online monetization is a great, at least from the side of news providers, however the way on which they will have to go does not seem smooth and easy. There are various challenges monetizing volunteers will have to deal with; on the one hand there is a problem of search engines and bloggers â€Å"stealing† news from their web sites and offering them to readers on aggregate web-sites, and on the other hand there is a psychology of people and understanding their personal motivations, what would make them to pay money in online news. Furthermore, it will not be easy to make people pay for the information which they were used to get for free previously[15]. However despite all challenges and obstacles which is expected for industry players, Booz Co concludes that process of media digitization is on its way and nothing can stop it. Mathias Dà ¶phner comes up with same opinion: â€Å"I do not share this kind of pessimism that content business is dying. The opposite is right. Thats the tremendous opportunity through the digitization.†[16] One more factor which theoretically should give more hope to media magnates is psychological: as various studies about personality drivers during online purchase show, the experience of using internet and reading news online are positively correlated with purchase intention. Once the usage of internet and reading news online is a growing tendency in current reality, and the age of internet usage is also shifting fast, we can say that time works on media companies. In this research I will analyse existing online paying models which successfully operate and give the hope to industry players for the â€Å"brighter† future in that prospect. 2. Review of search methodology The aim of this thesis is to find out the features of existing paid models in online news which are already operating successfully. I will also try to measure their effectiveness/importance by various criteria, both objective such as existing financial and quantitative data, and also more partly-objective, such as different expert opinions[17]. The research will be developed in three main parts: Review of types of content which can be monetized, where people show some willingness to pay money (or are already paying) As related to the previous chapter, analysis of the personality drivers and its importance while consumers conduct online purchase Analysis of existing successful models, their features and their effectiveness in terms of empirical results For the sake of development of this three-pillar structure, the information will be obtained through various sources such as existing literature researches, articles, blogs, expert opinions and the consulting project ran by me and my classmates during our practice project[18]. 2.1. Sources for identifying online-chargeable content and consumers personality drivers The biggest contribution for the author in understanding of this issue were insights from consulting project workshop conducted by the ESMT Practice Project of which the author was a team member[19] in the late 2009. During this project, besides analyzing already available literature regarding topic, the team interviewed different kind of experts and also ran a representative survey among 300 German online readers to understand the areas where customers showed some willingness to pay. According to the results, there are not many areas which can be monetized, but only: Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers Local news Online sports events The point is almost completely shared by Mathias Dà ¶phner, the CEO of German media company Axel Springer, who held a discussion around the topic at Monaco Media Forum 2009: â€Å"There are not many areas where people are willing to pay money: 1) This is finance, which is related to power; 2) Plus sports or games 3) Regional environments, people around you; 4) And then we are coming to two existential areas: sex and crime, or love and death. â€Å" â€Å"These are areas where people are generally interested in and why should that change in digital business?† asks Dà ¶phner rhetoric question. The CEO of Axel Springer also commented the fact that currently most news online is free and called this fact a â€Å"structural mistake† which has to be corrected step by step. According to Dà ¶phner there is not need of revolution, once most appropriate rules and procedures in legislation already exist. They just need some moderation and then execution. Continuing on the issue Dà ¶phner summed up with the hope that in the long run, for hundreds of years, people are willing to pay for things they are interested in. â€Å"Commodity news will be for free, but special information, added value services, exclusive information should be charged†. Currently, there are already obvious movements in the industry towards fixing the â€Å"structural mistakes† Mr Dà ¶phner talked about. This will be discussed more detailed in chapter 3.2, named â€Å"challenges†. 2.2. Personality drivers of consumers to purchase online Understanding and analyzing consumer drivers while conducting online purchase, is critical for building prominent, profitable business model. However until today there is no perfect study in the area which could claim on being perfect in identifying and analyzing of all motivators which make consumers to pay money online, and whats more important, all researchers would agree on that claim of this study. One of the best researches in this field conducted by Wang et al claims that the main factors which affect consumers willingness to pay money online and are positively correlated with the one, are consumers perceived convenience, essentiality, added-value and service quality. However another research on the same topic e.g. from Choi, Lee and Soriano focuses on following factors: perceived consequences after purchase of product, easiness of use of internet, social factors such as environment around person, satisfaction of the reader after purchase and existing alternative sources to get the same particular information. As we see on this example two group academics have completely different approach and beliefs towards one topic. These two researches are clear evidence how diverse is different researchers approaches to the issue. To all of these factors I looked also form the prospective of researches which are dedicated to analyzing a bit broader field consumers purchasing drivers in whole online market rather than only in online media. In these researches, some of above mentioned factors are considered to be important but others are doubted. Its hard for someone to persist himself not to criticize some of the factors mentioned above, e.g. the word â€Å"perceived† is already very dubious and at the same time very subjective, however very important one. As Barkhi, Belanger and Hocks claim in their â€Å"model of the determinants of purchasing from virtual stores†, the notion perceived/perception has already enormous importance itself, as it defines consumers later attitude towards whole online purchase procedure. To continue analysis, factor such as social community is neglected in Bosnjiaks research, where he referring to Senecals 2005 research claims that recommendations made from close community make decision making process more complex but it does not affect final choice of consumer. Regarding service-quality we can say that, the word quality itself already induces some confusion because its pretty subjective notion. For different people quality might mean different things. For some people service-quality might mean the urgent delivery of hottest news and the exclusivity of this information, whereas for another person the quality of service might be associated with deeper analysis of the article or the easiness of ways to pay money online. Such an arguing can continue further, but what is more important, arguable are not only factors on which researchers build their different models, but also some general statements which are made by them. For example, the work of Wang et al claim the business model is sustainable if revenue-generating method is accepted by majority of the potential customers. However despite all the respect towards the authors and research itself, such a claim can easily become a reason of discussions, because still, the success of any model depends on the ideal proportion of ad revenues and online subscription revenues and for different newspapers the ideal conversion rate of readers to paid customers might be different. Even this research itself contradicts to its statement when brings an example of Wall Street Journal Online and Hoovers Online telling that they managed to make e-content portal profitable by only 10% of conversion rate. While conducting our consulting project, we also got results th at some high circulated newspapers would make their portals profitable even by 3% conversion ratio. Further more, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, has only 0,8% conversion rate of subscribers on its niche site for hardcore Green Bay Packers fans, making revenues of 600,000 USD annually. In other words, depending on the content offered by particular newspaper, and the number and type of readers they have, the effective proportion of online content and ad revenues should be found. More analysis should be conducted to understand the price of lost customers amount versus converted ones and the ideal balance of subscription revenues versus lost ad revenues. To this issue has dedicated his discussion Jeff Jarvis, on the blog-web BuzzMachine. Jeff Jarvis is an American Journalist, former television critic, editor, publisher and columnist. Among the companies he has been working are: New York Daily News, San Francisco Examiner, New York Times Company, MediaGuardian a supplement of British newspaper The Guardian. Besides he is an associate professor at the City University of New Yorks Graduate School of Journalism directing its new media program. He is also creator of weblog BuzzMachine[20]. Jeff Jarvis in his article about paid content published on Weblog BuzzMachine is more persuasive about the complexity of the issue[21] and based on his vast experience highlights for the readers how many different factors should be taken in consideration for identifying one or another model for particular newspaper. For those who will catch in Jeff Jarvis approach some â€Å"sense and consciousness† will become clear that based only on the analysis of psychological traits of people and their purchasing drivers, it will not be easy to find an ideal model, and that the issue needs rather practical approach. Findings of Jeff Jarvis will be discussed more detailed in the 5.1 chapter named â€Å"Expert opinions and Conclusions†. Before moving to the following chapter, we should conclude the started topic and mention that there is still needed some research in the area of personal motivators for online purchase, in order we could claim by 100% confidence that we are using the best model for identifying the online paid model. 2.3. Discussed models and criteria for their comparison Once we are analyzing the existing models, the criteria for assessment of one or another method is the time of their existence and their results shown throughout their lifetime. Besides looking at the thematic differences in the features of the models both in Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) models, we will look at their financial results, their generated income through online sales and he dynamics in online subscription amount. The biggest attention the author paid was to the models of Financial Times and Wall Street Journal as the most successful financial players in B2C business. In addition, the author took a look at Bloomberg and Reuters as successful players of B2B model. New York Times was an interesting case for the author because it is a case, when after first unsuccessful trial, they are going to try monetizing online content already second time. Taking in consideration their prior experience it should be important to track which model they will choose for the second attempt. Finally, the author took a quick look at some other examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts of monetizing online content so far. Information was gathered from reviews of their websites as well as from articles about these news-providers, and various expert opinions about their models. 3. Possible models which can help to monetize online content Technological advancement has made most news content widely available for free online, which pushed most newspapers to give up subscription fees in the hope of getting more readers and hence by increasing traffic, get more advertisement revenues. However such movements contribute even more to the availability of free content in the web and hence induce decrease in print media circulation and advertisement revenues[22]. Charging for online news is very hard. The biggest risk that media companies face is loosing the visitors, because reduced traffic will induce less interest of advertisement providers on the particular site. Ads are still major source of revenues for most media companies and it will remain so in the nearest future. As Rupert Murdoch commented previously on the example of Wall Street Journal, â€Å"charging online content is not bad but still its not a gold mine†[23]. However, recently after presenting the idea at WSJ to impose premium paid model, Murdoch Justified their decision with telling that, in their case, ad revenues are no any more critical part in revenues and they pay more attention to subscription based revenues[24]. The high risk of loosing switching is easily explainable for SearchDNA founder John Straw, who admits that he himself would never pay for online content if he could get it somewhere else[25]. 3.1. Findings from consulting project While working on our consulting project[26], our group consisting from four MBA participants, I and my three classmates, identified four different types of models which could imposed during presenting the pay wall. The consulting project itself and its results is based on the basis of numerous articles and literature about previous experience, industry expert interviews and representative survey conducted among 299 German media readers. In column 1, table 1 explains four different pay-wall models which are possible to impose on online content in different situation, and column 2 explains the situations in which these different models would have chance to work â€Å"keeping other conditions constant†. Table 1: Types of models applicable in monetized online media[27] Types of Possible Models Situation explaining the feasibility of model Locking down the whole content Really unique content Locking down selected articles Unique content should be part of broader content Limiting the number of customers Very high overall quality, breadth of content offering Locking down the niche articles Want to monetize only highly specific â€Å"hidden† articles Source: consulting PP final draft Its upon news providers which type of model they will choose to match with the content they want to lock down. As we already discussed, there are few things which would motivate people to pay money online for, in other words online readers show at least some willingness to pay in following areas: * Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one * Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers * Local news * Online sports events Here we can provide some examples of successfully using some of these methods of pay-wall. The method of locking down selected articles is used by Wall Street Journal. In this case most daily news including political are considered as commodity information and they are given out for free, however if some specific interest area, e.g. finance, have deeper expert analysis, which you cant meet in other newspapers, the articles are locked down in this case. The method of limiting the number f articles is successfully used by Financial Times. New York Times decided to go on the same way from 2011. A good example of locking down niche content is Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and its Packer Insider: The journal locks down specific information, deep content about football club Green Bay Packers, for its fans. In deep content in this case is counted e.g. chat sessions with players. As the same Practice project showed, locking down whole content, â€Å"keeping other conditions equal†, is p ossible if the whole content is really unique. Here we have also to mention that during consulting project about online content monetization, we had some more interesting insights about the factors which increase readers willingness to pay: To our surprise content is not always the thing which might make readers to pay online: 35% of surveyed 299 German readers named following three factors as the possible motivators in increasing willingness to pay: Promotions/ Give-aways Customization Specific additional content As a conclusion of this chapter we should say many experts predict for the future that, free content will be used primarily as a marketing ploy: a complementary trial period is strictly used for purposes of enticing customers to subscribe to a service or buy a product online. (Wang et al). Alternatively some sites attract customers by offering a limited amount of free content. They then hope to convince their customers to shift to a variety of â€Å"premium†, fee-based content (Outing 2002). (Wang et al) 3.2. Challenges Innovative online ways of distributing news like news aggregate sites, blogs, social networks (Facebook, Tweeter, etc.) which are free to access, become more and more of a threat for media companies, because news is a costly product to produce, as well as it its distribution in traditional way. But distribution of news in online has zero marginal cost, as it takes nothing to the person to copy and paste a particular article or link it to the other page (Exhibit 6). Traditional media companies demand from these innovative producers of news â€Å"fair ways of playing†, which means either they should produce their own information or they should pay to original producers some fees for utilizing their articles. In his interview, Mathias Dà ¶phner mentioned that they are not demanding banning of these alternative sources. â€Å"We understand that future is mixed model, mutual existence of both of us declared Dà ¶phner. We also do not request something new and innovative. We just need fairness, respecting each other, respecting copyright rules, paying royalties as it is supposed to be done and for of all this playing rules are already there, we just need to make them better and then follow to†. Rupert Murdoch went even further and called search engine Google stealers, as they take others information without permission and put it on their pages. Regarding this phenomenon, Axel Springer CEO Dà ¶phner told very appropriate example to the Huffington Post co-founder. â€Å"If you want to give others your beer for free, please brew your own beer and then you are welcomed to do so, but please stop taking my costly beer and then giving it to others for free†. Recently there is a clear evidence of starting changes in this regard: Google agreed with several news-provider companies to restrict their articles readerships through Google to maximum amount of five. Another web-site YouTube started removing from their site unlicensed videos. In other words, Mathias Dà ¶phners prediction that the current reality would start changing step by step has obviously started to become true. Thus in nearest future we should anticipate emergence of new pay-models, when media companies will have to think, how to share the cake with news aggregate web-sites, social networks and bloggers. We are witnessing enormous changes not only because of monetization, but because of establishment new type of relationships between industry participants, which ideally should bring in new opportunities. (Exhibit 9) 4. Existing paying models, analysis Studies claim[28] that in order managers found ideal subscription business model for online monetization they need to understand their subscribers personality drivers, their perceptions and attitudes, what makes them purchase news online? In fact there is not breadth of information about consumers personality drivers, indeed the researchers actively continue investigating this area and thus provide us with new and new models. Non-existence of ideal model in this area is one of the reasons why we cant predict ideal online pay model. The other reasons are â€Å"closer† to business. Referring to Jeff Jarvis argumentation in his article about paid content models, there are plenty of criteria which determine the success of one or another model. Once these criteria are individual and very specific for each newspaper, no one can/should claim yet, on identifying one general ideal model which will fit to all news-providers. As director of Association of online publishers, Lee Baker commented in News Media, half of their members already charge for online content and another 19% is going to do so in the nearest 12 months. â€Å"Paid content modelling is important to our members†, continues Mr. Baker. â€Å"Our members are trying to penetrate new areas such as mobile apps. More than half of them express desire to create paid-for apps†. Despite we cant claim on building the ideal model as a proxy for the future, we can cover the most successful news providers and their models which are currently successfully used, both in B2C and B2B business. 4.1. Financial Times VS The Wall Street Journal Currently the most distributed B2C pay models in online media are two: one is Financial Times way restricting the definite amount of free articles for subscribers and then charge the readers if they exceed this amount, and another is Wall Street Journals way offering readers only one or two paragraph for reading and making available the rest only for subscribers[29]. To compare these two models in more details lets take a more detailed look at the ways which they are used by their most successful implementers. Of course there is some room for deviations and different news providers can apply to some minor changes, e.g. in the amount of text which should be given out for free, but the concept remains the same. Table 2 below shows clear distinctions between the features of these two models in the case of FT and WSJ. The essence of difference of these two models is the amount of information provided for free and the ways how it is done: The Wall Street Journal makes clear distinction between commodity and high-value content. The so ca Tracking Developments in Media Industry Tracking Developments in Media Industry Abstract These days the media business is witnessing the next structural transformation in its business model. Due to the reduction of revenues[1] from printed media and advertisements, industry giants are looking for other ways for penetrating additional revenues. The traditional strategy of cost reduction that was previously widely applied does not seem to be sustainable. On the contrary, most key players in the media world see the biggest opportunity in the invention of new models which will contribute to the boost of revenues. To a large extent media executives agree that monetization of online content is the decision they should go for more insistently[2]. One of the reasons why online monetization is a financially attractive way of growth is that, it has zero marginal cost, and as opposed to print media, revenue increase will not induce proportional increase in costs[3]. Another advantage which online news have compared to the traditional printed media is that they can provide news in r eal time regime which is extremely important in this particular industry as â€Å"news is very costly and at the same time highly perishable product†[4]. So far there have been some attempts of online monetization like the Kindle and micropayments but these strategies cant balance the all the losses that the industry bears because of the before mentioned reasons. Up to date, unfortunately for the industrys decision makers, choosing the right model for online monetization was not the only challenge they had to face. Challenges like search engines, which are generating their content and giving it out to customers for free, are not easy to overcome. In fact, bloggers and social networks like Facebook and Tweeter could be considered as posing similar risks for traditional media companies. However in chapter 4 we will see that the attempts of transforming these risk bearing factors into opportunity and getting some kind of revenues from them has started, which logically should lead us to some type of â€Å"business to business† model which will become beneficial for both parts. In this thesis, because of different reasons[5] I will not claim to have found the ideal model for content monetization, but rather will present several alternative models for monetizing online media content, and whats more important, will discuss the most successful models employed thus far which are applied by leading players in the industry. I will compare their features to each other, analyze their advantages and disadvantages. I will also look empirical data of results of each model to give the reader a better sense of each models financial success and the importance of online content in their business, to have better understanding what role content monetization might mean for these news providers. Besides I will help the reader to have knowledge about the obstacles which should be taken in consideration by stakeholders, if they want to find the best match pay model for their news web-site. 1. Introduction Throughout its history the media business, which is one of the most dynamic and fast-developing industries, has passed through many development cycles, each prone to tremendous changes in terms of strategy, structure and model it operated with. The reasons of these changes in different times were different processes taking place in parallel, e.g. advances of post-delivery system, facilitating transportation and logistics around the world, various technological innovations etc. However, without any doubt, the emergence of the Internet and the subsequent development of digital media is the greatest change of at least last two decades. It has once again revolutionized the whole industry dramatically, more than any previous development. Currently we are witnessing a transformation process which might become a ground for the conceptual change of the whole media industry. â€Å"Due to the reduction of revenues[6] from print media[7] (one of the reasons of this is decreased circulation of print newspapers, Exhibit 1) and online advertisements, industry giants have started to explore new ways to restructure their portfolios of income, and how to make their readers pay for the information they get online†[8]. The latest financial crisis played a role in accelerating this process. The downturn of revenues pushed the media companies to sharpen cost cuttings first of all indicated by the massive layoffs of the staff. However as many industry experts like freelance photojournalist Mike Fox believes, massive layoffs itself is not a sustainable strategy for the future[9]. The same view is shared by management consulting firm Booz Company in their research about the media industry. They admit that cost cutting is an imp ortant tool for managers, but in order to stay capable of growing in the long run, companies cant focus only on the expenditures side of their income statement.[10] Media executives are still optimistic about the future. As the survey in the same research from Booz Company shows, â€Å"most of the respondents (nearly 70%) believe that their companies are financially healthy. The which even higher to 80 percent when it comes to the opinion of integrated players (Exhibits 2), and surprisingly just one forth of the surveyed executives expected they would meet the end of recession with a deteriorated situation (Exhibit 3). Moreover, more than half of media executives (57%) believe that they still hold the wheels to control situation despite financial crisis and think that with structural trends developing in the industry they can outperform the negative results of economic downturn. Print executives are even more optimistic, this opinion is shared by 67 percent of them†. Booz Co sees the future of media companies in their ability to identify the markets where they can compete successfully and the business models which will help them to do s o. In the June of 2009, at the Cable Show[11] in Washington D.C, American News Corps owner Rupert Murdoch gave a speech, which also covered the current challenges of media industry, where he specifically underlined the inevitable need of content monetization. He underlined that times when people where reading news online for free should be over, and thus gave a hint to the whole industry that the process of â€Å"online content monetization† is not only non-reversible process, but indeed it should accelerate whether somebody likes it or not. Murdoch mentioned that only online ads cannot cover media companies costs and named New York Times, as a vivid example of that. NYT has one of the most popular U.S newspaper websites, but still their online ad revenues are not sufficient for cost coverage[12]. The signal form the industry guru was correctly understood by other giant players of media world and many of them like Axel Springer and New York Times[13] already second time, started thinking how to charge their readers for online news in the way not to harm online traffic and ad revenues. Finding the balance among these two will be the biggest challenge for the â€Å"followers of the trend†. In the process of monetizing online media choosing the right type of model which will fit to one or another news providers overall strategy and values is a big deal of question. Currently most news online is free, but there are some existing newspapers successfully charging their readers at least for the part of the information they provide to them. 1 shows the increased consumer spending (black curve) and penetration (grey curve) in online content. The research conducted by Online Publishers Association shows the same trend, that the money spent by consumers on online content in United States increase from 1.31 billion USD in 2002 to 1.78 billion USD in 2004, which meant annual growth rate of 17%. However this growth occurred in the entertainment area such as adult material, music, gaming and sports[14]. Currently, among them most successful in terms of revenues generated from online media content, are American The Wall Street Journal and the British Financial Times. Both of these newspapers are providing financial news and are most direct competitors of each other. Finance is one of those few areas which experts consider possible to monetize. The Booz Co research mentioned before makes focus on prior experiments of publishers who tried to monetize content and boost sales with which such an innovative tools as Kindle (Exhibit 4) sales, multi-title subscriptions and micropayments are, but as the results show these methods cant regain all the revenues lost which the media industry faced in the last two years. It also shows that inevitable steps are needed from the whole industry to look for new business models and as the survey in the same research shows, media executives expect most increase of revenues from the innovations in the digital media, from the new innovative models. (Exhibit 5). Expectations towards online monetization is a great, at least from the side of news providers, however the way on which they will have to go does not seem smooth and easy. There are various challenges monetizing volunteers will have to deal with; on the one hand there is a problem of search engines and bloggers â€Å"stealing† news from their web sites and offering them to readers on aggregate web-sites, and on the other hand there is a psychology of people and understanding their personal motivations, what would make them to pay money in online news. Furthermore, it will not be easy to make people pay for the information which they were used to get for free previously[15]. However despite all challenges and obstacles which is expected for industry players, Booz Co concludes that process of media digitization is on its way and nothing can stop it. Mathias Dà ¶phner comes up with same opinion: â€Å"I do not share this kind of pessimism that content business is dying. The opposite is right. Thats the tremendous opportunity through the digitization.†[16] One more factor which theoretically should give more hope to media magnates is psychological: as various studies about personality drivers during online purchase show, the experience of using internet and reading news online are positively correlated with purchase intention. Once the usage of internet and reading news online is a growing tendency in current reality, and the age of internet usage is also shifting fast, we can say that time works on media companies. In this research I will analyse existing online paying models which successfully operate and give the hope to industry players for the â€Å"brighter† future in that prospect. 2. Review of search methodology The aim of this thesis is to find out the features of existing paid models in online news which are already operating successfully. I will also try to measure their effectiveness/importance by various criteria, both objective such as existing financial and quantitative data, and also more partly-objective, such as different expert opinions[17]. The research will be developed in three main parts: Review of types of content which can be monetized, where people show some willingness to pay money (or are already paying) As related to the previous chapter, analysis of the personality drivers and its importance while consumers conduct online purchase Analysis of existing successful models, their features and their effectiveness in terms of empirical results For the sake of development of this three-pillar structure, the information will be obtained through various sources such as existing literature researches, articles, blogs, expert opinions and the consulting project ran by me and my classmates during our practice project[18]. 2.1. Sources for identifying online-chargeable content and consumers personality drivers The biggest contribution for the author in understanding of this issue were insights from consulting project workshop conducted by the ESMT Practice Project of which the author was a team member[19] in the late 2009. During this project, besides analyzing already available literature regarding topic, the team interviewed different kind of experts and also ran a representative survey among 300 German online readers to understand the areas where customers showed some willingness to pay. According to the results, there are not many areas which can be monetized, but only: Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers Local news Online sports events The point is almost completely shared by Mathias Dà ¶phner, the CEO of German media company Axel Springer, who held a discussion around the topic at Monaco Media Forum 2009: â€Å"There are not many areas where people are willing to pay money: 1) This is finance, which is related to power; 2) Plus sports or games 3) Regional environments, people around you; 4) And then we are coming to two existential areas: sex and crime, or love and death. â€Å" â€Å"These are areas where people are generally interested in and why should that change in digital business?† asks Dà ¶phner rhetoric question. The CEO of Axel Springer also commented the fact that currently most news online is free and called this fact a â€Å"structural mistake† which has to be corrected step by step. According to Dà ¶phner there is not need of revolution, once most appropriate rules and procedures in legislation already exist. They just need some moderation and then execution. Continuing on the issue Dà ¶phner summed up with the hope that in the long run, for hundreds of years, people are willing to pay for things they are interested in. â€Å"Commodity news will be for free, but special information, added value services, exclusive information should be charged†. Currently, there are already obvious movements in the industry towards fixing the â€Å"structural mistakes† Mr Dà ¶phner talked about. This will be discussed more detailed in chapter 3.2, named â€Å"challenges†. 2.2. Personality drivers of consumers to purchase online Understanding and analyzing consumer drivers while conducting online purchase, is critical for building prominent, profitable business model. However until today there is no perfect study in the area which could claim on being perfect in identifying and analyzing of all motivators which make consumers to pay money online, and whats more important, all researchers would agree on that claim of this study. One of the best researches in this field conducted by Wang et al claims that the main factors which affect consumers willingness to pay money online and are positively correlated with the one, are consumers perceived convenience, essentiality, added-value and service quality. However another research on the same topic e.g. from Choi, Lee and Soriano focuses on following factors: perceived consequences after purchase of product, easiness of use of internet, social factors such as environment around person, satisfaction of the reader after purchase and existing alternative sources to get the same particular information. As we see on this example two group academics have completely different approach and beliefs towards one topic. These two researches are clear evidence how diverse is different researchers approaches to the issue. To all of these factors I looked also form the prospective of researches which are dedicated to analyzing a bit broader field consumers purchasing drivers in whole online market rather than only in online media. In these researches, some of above mentioned factors are considered to be important but others are doubted. Its hard for someone to persist himself not to criticize some of the factors mentioned above, e.g. the word â€Å"perceived† is already very dubious and at the same time very subjective, however very important one. As Barkhi, Belanger and Hocks claim in their â€Å"model of the determinants of purchasing from virtual stores†, the notion perceived/perception has already enormous importance itself, as it defines consumers later attitude towards whole online purchase procedure. To continue analysis, factor such as social community is neglected in Bosnjiaks research, where he referring to Senecals 2005 research claims that recommendations made from close community make decision making process more complex but it does not affect final choice of consumer. Regarding service-quality we can say that, the word quality itself already induces some confusion because its pretty subjective notion. For different people quality might mean different things. For some people service-quality might mean the urgent delivery of hottest news and the exclusivity of this information, whereas for another person the quality of service might be associated with deeper analysis of the article or the easiness of ways to pay money online. Such an arguing can continue further, but what is more important, arguable are not only factors on which researchers build their different models, but also some general statements which are made by them. For example, the work of Wang et al claim the business model is sustainable if revenue-generating method is accepted by majority of the potential customers. However despite all the respect towards the authors and research itself, such a claim can easily become a reason of discussions, because still, the success of any model depends on the ideal proportion of ad revenues and online subscription revenues and for different newspapers the ideal conversion rate of readers to paid customers might be different. Even this research itself contradicts to its statement when brings an example of Wall Street Journal Online and Hoovers Online telling that they managed to make e-content portal profitable by only 10% of conversion rate. While conducting our consulting project, we also got results th at some high circulated newspapers would make their portals profitable even by 3% conversion ratio. Further more, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, has only 0,8% conversion rate of subscribers on its niche site for hardcore Green Bay Packers fans, making revenues of 600,000 USD annually. In other words, depending on the content offered by particular newspaper, and the number and type of readers they have, the effective proportion of online content and ad revenues should be found. More analysis should be conducted to understand the price of lost customers amount versus converted ones and the ideal balance of subscription revenues versus lost ad revenues. To this issue has dedicated his discussion Jeff Jarvis, on the blog-web BuzzMachine. Jeff Jarvis is an American Journalist, former television critic, editor, publisher and columnist. Among the companies he has been working are: New York Daily News, San Francisco Examiner, New York Times Company, MediaGuardian a supplement of British newspaper The Guardian. Besides he is an associate professor at the City University of New Yorks Graduate School of Journalism directing its new media program. He is also creator of weblog BuzzMachine[20]. Jeff Jarvis in his article about paid content published on Weblog BuzzMachine is more persuasive about the complexity of the issue[21] and based on his vast experience highlights for the readers how many different factors should be taken in consideration for identifying one or another model for particular newspaper. For those who will catch in Jeff Jarvis approach some â€Å"sense and consciousness† will become clear that based only on the analysis of psychological traits of people and their purchasing drivers, it will not be easy to find an ideal model, and that the issue needs rather practical approach. Findings of Jeff Jarvis will be discussed more detailed in the 5.1 chapter named â€Å"Expert opinions and Conclusions†. Before moving to the following chapter, we should conclude the started topic and mention that there is still needed some research in the area of personal motivators for online purchase, in order we could claim by 100% confidence that we are using the best model for identifying the online paid model. 2.3. Discussed models and criteria for their comparison Once we are analyzing the existing models, the criteria for assessment of one or another method is the time of their existence and their results shown throughout their lifetime. Besides looking at the thematic differences in the features of the models both in Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) models, we will look at their financial results, their generated income through online sales and he dynamics in online subscription amount. The biggest attention the author paid was to the models of Financial Times and Wall Street Journal as the most successful financial players in B2C business. In addition, the author took a look at Bloomberg and Reuters as successful players of B2B model. New York Times was an interesting case for the author because it is a case, when after first unsuccessful trial, they are going to try monetizing online content already second time. Taking in consideration their prior experience it should be important to track which model they will choose for the second attempt. Finally, the author took a quick look at some other examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts of monetizing online content so far. Information was gathered from reviews of their websites as well as from articles about these news-providers, and various expert opinions about their models. 3. Possible models which can help to monetize online content Technological advancement has made most news content widely available for free online, which pushed most newspapers to give up subscription fees in the hope of getting more readers and hence by increasing traffic, get more advertisement revenues. However such movements contribute even more to the availability of free content in the web and hence induce decrease in print media circulation and advertisement revenues[22]. Charging for online news is very hard. The biggest risk that media companies face is loosing the visitors, because reduced traffic will induce less interest of advertisement providers on the particular site. Ads are still major source of revenues for most media companies and it will remain so in the nearest future. As Rupert Murdoch commented previously on the example of Wall Street Journal, â€Å"charging online content is not bad but still its not a gold mine†[23]. However, recently after presenting the idea at WSJ to impose premium paid model, Murdoch Justified their decision with telling that, in their case, ad revenues are no any more critical part in revenues and they pay more attention to subscription based revenues[24]. The high risk of loosing switching is easily explainable for SearchDNA founder John Straw, who admits that he himself would never pay for online content if he could get it somewhere else[25]. 3.1. Findings from consulting project While working on our consulting project[26], our group consisting from four MBA participants, I and my three classmates, identified four different types of models which could imposed during presenting the pay wall. The consulting project itself and its results is based on the basis of numerous articles and literature about previous experience, industry expert interviews and representative survey conducted among 299 German media readers. In column 1, table 1 explains four different pay-wall models which are possible to impose on online content in different situation, and column 2 explains the situations in which these different models would have chance to work â€Å"keeping other conditions constant†. Table 1: Types of models applicable in monetized online media[27] Types of Possible Models Situation explaining the feasibility of model Locking down the whole content Really unique content Locking down selected articles Unique content should be part of broader content Limiting the number of customers Very high overall quality, breadth of content offering Locking down the niche articles Want to monetize only highly specific â€Å"hidden† articles Source: consulting PP final draft Its upon news providers which type of model they will choose to match with the content they want to lock down. As we already discussed, there are few things which would motivate people to pay money online for, in other words online readers show at least some willingness to pay in following areas: * Deeper analysis of specific articles as an addition to the more general one * Old archives; plus specific interest areas of some readers * Local news * Online sports events Here we can provide some examples of successfully using some of these methods of pay-wall. The method of locking down selected articles is used by Wall Street Journal. In this case most daily news including political are considered as commodity information and they are given out for free, however if some specific interest area, e.g. finance, have deeper expert analysis, which you cant meet in other newspapers, the articles are locked down in this case. The method of limiting the number f articles is successfully used by Financial Times. New York Times decided to go on the same way from 2011. A good example of locking down niche content is Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and its Packer Insider: The journal locks down specific information, deep content about football club Green Bay Packers, for its fans. In deep content in this case is counted e.g. chat sessions with players. As the same Practice project showed, locking down whole content, â€Å"keeping other conditions equal†, is p ossible if the whole content is really unique. Here we have also to mention that during consulting project about online content monetization, we had some more interesting insights about the factors which increase readers willingness to pay: To our surprise content is not always the thing which might make readers to pay online: 35% of surveyed 299 German readers named following three factors as the possible motivators in increasing willingness to pay: Promotions/ Give-aways Customization Specific additional content As a conclusion of this chapter we should say many experts predict for the future that, free content will be used primarily as a marketing ploy: a complementary trial period is strictly used for purposes of enticing customers to subscribe to a service or buy a product online. (Wang et al). Alternatively some sites attract customers by offering a limited amount of free content. They then hope to convince their customers to shift to a variety of â€Å"premium†, fee-based content (Outing 2002). (Wang et al) 3.2. Challenges Innovative online ways of distributing news like news aggregate sites, blogs, social networks (Facebook, Tweeter, etc.) which are free to access, become more and more of a threat for media companies, because news is a costly product to produce, as well as it its distribution in traditional way. But distribution of news in online has zero marginal cost, as it takes nothing to the person to copy and paste a particular article or link it to the other page (Exhibit 6). Traditional media companies demand from these innovative producers of news â€Å"fair ways of playing†, which means either they should produce their own information or they should pay to original producers some fees for utilizing their articles. In his interview, Mathias Dà ¶phner mentioned that they are not demanding banning of these alternative sources. â€Å"We understand that future is mixed model, mutual existence of both of us declared Dà ¶phner. We also do not request something new and innovative. We just need fairness, respecting each other, respecting copyright rules, paying royalties as it is supposed to be done and for of all this playing rules are already there, we just need to make them better and then follow to†. Rupert Murdoch went even further and called search engine Google stealers, as they take others information without permission and put it on their pages. Regarding this phenomenon, Axel Springer CEO Dà ¶phner told very appropriate example to the Huffington Post co-founder. â€Å"If you want to give others your beer for free, please brew your own beer and then you are welcomed to do so, but please stop taking my costly beer and then giving it to others for free†. Recently there is a clear evidence of starting changes in this regard: Google agreed with several news-provider companies to restrict their articles readerships through Google to maximum amount of five. Another web-site YouTube started removing from their site unlicensed videos. In other words, Mathias Dà ¶phners prediction that the current reality would start changing step by step has obviously started to become true. Thus in nearest future we should anticipate emergence of new pay-models, when media companies will have to think, how to share the cake with news aggregate web-sites, social networks and bloggers. We are witnessing enormous changes not only because of monetization, but because of establishment new type of relationships between industry participants, which ideally should bring in new opportunities. (Exhibit 9) 4. Existing paying models, analysis Studies claim[28] that in order managers found ideal subscription business model for online monetization they need to understand their subscribers personality drivers, their perceptions and attitudes, what makes them purchase news online? In fact there is not breadth of information about consumers personality drivers, indeed the researchers actively continue investigating this area and thus provide us with new and new models. Non-existence of ideal model in this area is one of the reasons why we cant predict ideal online pay model. The other reasons are â€Å"closer† to business. Referring to Jeff Jarvis argumentation in his article about paid content models, there are plenty of criteria which determine the success of one or another model. Once these criteria are individual and very specific for each newspaper, no one can/should claim yet, on identifying one general ideal model which will fit to all news-providers. As director of Association of online publishers, Lee Baker commented in News Media, half of their members already charge for online content and another 19% is going to do so in the nearest 12 months. â€Å"Paid content modelling is important to our members†, continues Mr. Baker. â€Å"Our members are trying to penetrate new areas such as mobile apps. More than half of them express desire to create paid-for apps†. Despite we cant claim on building the ideal model as a proxy for the future, we can cover the most successful news providers and their models which are currently successfully used, both in B2C and B2B business. 4.1. Financial Times VS The Wall Street Journal Currently the most distributed B2C pay models in online media are two: one is Financial Times way restricting the definite amount of free articles for subscribers and then charge the readers if they exceed this amount, and another is Wall Street Journals way offering readers only one or two paragraph for reading and making available the rest only for subscribers[29]. To compare these two models in more details lets take a more detailed look at the ways which they are used by their most successful implementers. Of course there is some room for deviations and different news providers can apply to some minor changes, e.g. in the amount of text which should be given out for free, but the concept remains the same. Table 2 below shows clear distinctions between the features of these two models in the case of FT and WSJ. The essence of difference of these two models is the amount of information provided for free and the ways how it is done: The Wall Street Journal makes clear distinction between commodity and high-value content. The so ca