Jay’s Blog

Smartphone users use many mobile apps, including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and more. However, the two most popular apps downloaded by millions are Instagram and TikTok. These two apps are very similar, with small differences and uses for each app and user. Both have pretty similar targeted audiences, with a near 50-50 split of men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 24.

Instagram

Instagram is an app used by many celebrities and influencers to post about their day or upcoming projects or sponsors. However, the average user of Instagram will typically use this app to keep up with these celebrities and influencers and/or to keep in contact with friends and family or even to meet new friends or partners. Instagram has features such as photo posts, video posts, stories (short clips of videos that expire in 24 hours, similar to Snapchat, another popular mobile app), lives (live streams of users for followers or any passerby to tune into), and recently Reels (similar to TikTok’s main source of media which are 5 second to 10 minute videos posted to users’ profile(s)).

Instagram is charted to have 696 million downloads in 2023 alone and was bought by Meta in 2021 which continued its growth into popularity. With this purchase came Instagram Threads and a place for users to shop for products and apparel. It is also stated that users can make from $10-$100 per post with 500 to 10,000 followers. There are many ways users make money from Instagram from simple sponsored posts to selling their own products on their profiles which anyone can do and has the capability of doing.

TikTok

TikTok is a very diverse and, in my opinion, very strange app. TikTok came from the previously famous app, Musical.ly which was removed from app stores for a few years before turning into the TikTok we know now. It did start off with users treating it like Musical.ly with the lip-synching and dancing to the very diverse platform users go to for many wants and needs. Users can find just about anything on TikTok from funny videos to lip-synching and dancing videos to finding restaurants near you.

TikTok is a platform primarily used by teenagers but has a wide age range of users and posters. It is has become a very popular platform for users to express themselves through creative content, with features such as lip-syncing, dancing, reposting, duets/stitches (ways other posters can interact with one another’s followers and gain traction), and comedy. The app has a dedicated young community, with users competing in challenges and seeking likes, followers, and featured videos. It is also a platform for anyone wanting to start businesses or music careers. Users can find many profiles promoting music or songs in process that other users have made and even products that other users have handmade for sale. However, this is where the strangeness takes action. Posters can make from 2-4 cents per 1,000 views and 20-40 dollars for 1 million views which is much different from its counterpart Instagram and famous video platform YouTube. TikTok does pay per view like these two do. Users, in order to make more money, have to sell their own products or music for examples or have a higher following enough to obtain sponsorships which provide higher income. There is also TikTok Shop which allows in-platform sponsorships and revenue. It is also a strange app in my opinion because of the amount of safety concerns. It is a platform used mainly by teenagers and young adults which can cause concern for parents and is also, similarly to any social media platform, subjected to harassment and bullying by anonymous users without any reprimand from the platform its self. Despite this though, TikTok continues its growth in the mobile app game and continues to provide users and posters with content they look for.

References:

businessofapps

AboutInstagram

spocketInstagram

Spocket/TikTok

I have found out that my Amazon uses the cloud which I did not know. It is under the AWS (Amazon Web Services) and has over a third of the cloud market holding 31% market share. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a dominant player in the cloud market, providing a range of cloud computing products and services that enable companies to move away from physical computing technology and onto the cloud. AWS is a highly profitable and dominant player in the cloud market, providing companies with a scalable and cost-effective way to manage their computing needs. However, there are critics of AWS argue that Amazon is abusing its control of the market share by engaging in anticompetitive behavior, such as copying and integrating software from other tech companies. AWS is made up of many different cloud computing products and services. The highly profitable division of Amazon provides servers, storage, networking, remote computing, email, mobile development, and security. AWS can be broken into three main products: EC2, Amazon’s virtual machine service; Glacier, a low-cost cloud storage service; and S3, Amazon’s storage system.

However, I do not think Amazon could work as well without being a cloud because they have family accounts and Amazon owned products that keep track of search history, purchase history, and what items are left in users’ carts like Alexa. Alexa uses your account to help you and Amazon keep track of your data and interests across many accounts and devices. Even with the disadvantage of needing to operate on a cloud, it is also its advantage as it allows access to the account throughout the house with Alexas or Echo Dots as well as reminders of carts and purchase histories.

I do think it could be a bit unsafe allowing many devices to have access to your account as they could be breached by hackers or even used by guests or children in the house to use your account to purchase or change settings of your account form these very devices as well as sharing data possibilities by Amazon themselves.

Another cloud service I use that I knew of is Google. Google has their Google Photos, google Drive, and Gmail. I did not know that my Gmail used cloud as I thought it was just held in the account but Drive and Photos I knew because I am able to see my files and photos from many of my connected devices through my account. Google uses a software-as-a-service (SaaS) service to most of their applications like Gmail, Drive, and Photos.

Google uses SaaS to allows users to access any of their data by logging in to any device available which gives users any form of flexibility. It also allows users to not have to install or update their services since it is done through the cloud services themselves. It is also cost saving as users don’t need to subscribe or install other applications.

However, Saas will need two-step verifications or more for accessing any data or files on the users’ account(s). Also with enterprises the responsibility for protecting those applications and their data moves from internal IT teams to the external SaaS providers. For small to medium-sized businesses, this is less of a disadvantage, as large cloud providers typically have more resources for putting strong security in place. But this can be a challenge if a large business faces tight security or regulatory standards. In some cases businesses will be unable to assess their applications’ security themselves, for instance by performing penetration testing. Essentially, they have to take the external SaaS provider’s word that the application is secure.

I feel more secure with having to log in to access anything going into a cloud because I should eb the only one to know the password to any accounts and having multiple verification processes can help secure my account. However, I still think there are ways for passwords to be compromised and used against the user and used for any sort of reason much like with any platform and application.

References:

https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cloud/what-is-saas/

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011316/what-amazon-web-services-and-why-it-so-successful.asp#:~:text=AWS%20provides%20servers%2C%20storage%2C%20networking,twice%20its%20next%20closest%20competitor.