Lecture Post Bits and Bytes and Cloud Computing

Entrepreneurial Idea Overview:

The “bus locater” app is free app for all smartphones. It’s an app that will allow people to see the bus schedule and to find, locate and see how far the bus that they are waiting for is away from the bus stop and how long it will take for the bus to come.

Lecture:

       As mention in lecture bits and bytes are how fast the data is transferred from system to app and app to system and how big the file is/ how much spaces the app takes up. For my “bus locater” app to be fast accurate and up to date or seconds (in my case) I would need to make it able to transmit data in a rate of x bytes per second. Also the app will also allow users to save their bus stops and to send requires to the coming bus that they need to stop at a certain bus stop so there also needs a number of bytes for storage.

       Also as mentioned in lecture, cloud computing is a system that software exist in the clouds which means that there is no need to pay, buy or install the software as they are ‘floating’ around in the network. My “bus locater” app could use cloud computing by having all the users saved bus stops saved in an excel spreadsheet created in Google Doc this way I wouldn’t have to worry about users stops getting erase and I could have back up data saved into a Google Doc file so that in case I need to back it up due to a malfunction of some kind, I would have may data stored somewhere would out having to buy and/or installing a software.

Competitive Analysis

Entrepreneurial Idea Overview:

The “bus locater” app is free app for all smartphones. It’s an app that will allow people to see the bus schedule and to find, locate and see how far the bus that they are waiting for is away from the bus stop and how long it will take for the bus to come.

Competitor 1 URL: http://www.apppicker.com/reviews/2013/2/14/Catch-The-Bus-app-review

Competitor 1 Overview: The “Catch the Bus” app created by Jared Egan, has similar functions that the my “bus locater” app would have; locating bus location based on the GPS tracking, providing accurate information on when the bus will arrive. Both my app and the “Catch the Bus” app can and allow users to receive and access the information fast and easy. Also both the apps will use the user’s current location and find bus stops around them. There is also differences between my “bus locater” app and “Catch the Bus” app is that the “Catch the Bus” app people would need to pay $0.99 to use the app while for my app, it is free so people can try it out and if their bus route is not available on my app or if they don’t like it they can just delete it and not have to waste money.  

Competitor 2 URL: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inextbus-realtime-bus-tracker/id451379202?mt=8

Competitor 2 Overview: I downloaded the “iNextBus – Realtime bus tracker” app and tried it, it’s quite similar to my but not completely. The “iNextBus – Realtime bus tracker” app is created by Idemfactor Solutions, has similar ideas to what I have for my “bus locater” app; it’s free—it can allow people to use the app and if they don’t like it then they can delete it. It also has a pin-pointing location of every incoming bus on the map as well as an accurate estimate of arrival time however my “bus locater” app is a bit different from the “iNextBus – Realtime bus tracker” app, in my app the movements of the bus would be similar to car movements using GPS tracking. Instead of pin-pointing the locations of incoming buses, it will be a blue arrow similar to that we see on the GPS and it will be on continuous movements and a pin-point location of the bus stop and showing the time (not estimated) of when the bus will arrive at that pin-pointed stop.

Lecture Post System Unit

Entrepreneurial Idea Overview:

The “bus locator” app is free app for all smartphones. It’s an app that will allow people to see the bus schedule and to find, locate and see how far the bus that they are waiting for is away from the bus stop and how long it will take for the bus to come.

Lecture:

        In order for people to use this app they need to have a system unit that is stable, smart, efficient, and fast. The center processing unit (CPU) would need to be stable and smart enough to interpret and carry out the functions of the app. Also this app needs to run very efficiently, it would have to constantly update where the bus is at like a GPS so the processor cooling would need to be very strong so that it can cool the processor down faster. Also since most people nowadays won’t just be using one app at a time on their devices at one time, they probably listen to music as they are using another app so if the cooling processor is not strong then the CPU could be come to hot and slow down the app causing the app to be behind on information and giving you false information. So to prevent this from happening the device would need to have a strong cooling technology to help keep the CPU cool.

       Also since in the app I would have a save button for people who wants to save a certain bus route or bus number/name so that they don’t need to search it again and it’s easy to find. The device would need something that can store a large amount of memory. To store memory the device would need to have RAM and as we know the more RAM a computer has the faster it run so it would be best if the device has a large RAM. Since this app needs to run fast and also be accurate, the RAM must be large so that it can run at a certain speed to maintain accurate information.

Lecture Post Social Media

The “bus locator” app is free app for all smartphones. It’s an app that will allow people to see the bus schedule and to find, locate and see how far the bus that they are waiting for is away from the bus stop and how long it will take for the bus to come.

       Since so many people nowadays use social media as a way of communicating, finding out information, getting entertainments. It would be very wise to utilize social media for promoting this app and getting people to be aware of it. I could make a video of someone using the app throughout their day and show how effective this app makes their traveling and post it up on youtube, hulu, veoh, dailymotion, etc. Also with social media, I could create a page on Facebook for people to like and comment (good or bad) about the app.

        We can also see how big of an impact social media has on our everyday life. Most people in our generations now have a smart phone so we usually won’t have to be on a computer to access these media websites. Even if they aren’t known, people can find out about these apps once they are on top downloaded list. Even if they don’t make it to the top, people spread apps real quickly. For example, 5 years ago no one knew about Facebook. Now everyone has Facebook and the Facebook app on their phones and tablets. Facebook is one of the access sites worldwide.

Public Bus Locator

   Since gas prices are becoming more and more expensive more people nowadays are taking public transportation [buses] to get to where they need or want to be. It’s nice that people are using public bus as a way of transportation because that would mean that there’s less pollution being product; however at times the buses are not always very convenient.

As a resident of New York City, I take the public bus quite often because (1) it is difficult trying to find parking in the City and (2) gas is expensive. Sometimes buses would arrive to the bus stop early and leave early or they would arrive to the bus stop late, even though there is a schedule of when the bus is supposed to arrive they still don’t always get there on time. And also being in Syracuse sometimes the buses going to and from places, like downtown or to the mall, the bus would sometime be late. And the buses going to South and East Campus, it’s nice that they wait at the College Place bus stop till the time that they are schedule to arrive if they get there early however that’s the only stop that they would stop at for a long time, they don’t do it for all the bus stops. So it makes it difficult to try and catch these buses at other bus stops because you never know if they came early and is waiting at College Place.

So my entrepreneurial idea is to create an app that allows people to know when the buses are coming [the schedule] and where the buses are at [location on map] as they are waiting at the bus stop for the bus to arrive. There are similar apps out there that allow people to know when the bus will arrive but those only shows the expected time that they are supposed to arrive [schedule] which doesn’t mean that they will actually get there at that exact time. With this app, it can allow people to see when the next bus is coming and/or how far the bus is away from the bus stop.

With this app, people can check how far the bus is from the bus stop so that they can calculate when they should leave the house or when they should go catch the bus. They wouldn’t have to wait at the bus stop for a long time, especially in the winter time when it’s freezing cold out. With this app in the blazing hot summer or freezing cold winner, it can allow people to see and catch the bus on time without a sweat or being turned into a postictal.