Gmail is a free email service offered by Google. Businesses use this free email service. A subscription can be purchased which offers additional services. Google, which offers Gmail, is new to the clouding industry.  

Electronic Mail (email) has become increasingly integrated into businesses. Mail, reports, memos, and newsletters are steadily being sent by email. A business can buy and maintain its own email service or it may use an email service from a third party.

Clouding refers to companies that offer email and other services. Gmail offers email and other services such as apps. Apps is short for applications and these offered apps are subscription based.

Businesses can either house and maintain their own email and/or other services such as apps or get them from the cloud. Clouding is new and many businesses are skeptical of its reliability and do not like the idea of having less control of an integral component of their business. For example, email systems offered by clouding have downtime every month but so do email systems housed and maintained by companies. So what a business must do is make a trade off. The two main proponents being reliability and cost. Gmail claims they do a better job of maintaining reliability and at a lower cost than housing and maintaining done in house by a business.

Ebusiness is what Google is doing more of these days. Gmail which is beginning to offer more services will make a lot of money for Google. Mostly, making money is what ebusiness is all about.

I like that Google is expanding its Gmail services. As it is I use Gmail all the time and I can’t wait to see what else Google comes up with to offer businesses.

Jessi, H. (2009 September 3). Retreived November 25, 2009. Is Gmail ready for business? Fortune Brainstorm Tech. http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/03/is-gmail-ready-for-business/

Therapy, who doesn’t need it. It can help with minor things like biting your nails to major concerns like suicidal thoughts. In the 1960′s a computerized program was created, known as ELIZA, that was an alternative to a human therapist.

Therapy can be quite effective as treatment to a person, granted that person wants to change. In a session a therapist can read the patients body language and feel his/her mood. A lot of tell tale signs is non-verbal communication between a patient and a therapist. Therapists can pick up on non-verbal communication because of good education and experience.

Expert systems advise by storing expert information and then give suggestions based on rules and restrictions. They are advantageous in cost cutting because sometimes it is cheaper than hiring a human to perform the job.

Online therapist that emulate human therapist may some day in the future be the norm. ELIZA, created in the 1960′s, was the begining of the online therapist. Now they are more developed and will continue to gather more information and make better suggestions.

I’ve only seen therapists in the movies but they seem like competent people willing to help. I see them mostly listening, giving key suggestions now and then, while the patient rambles on. I think it would take a while for acceptance of the computerized therapist. What would help make the computerized therapist accepted faster is low cost, easy user interface, and an avatar as an on screen therapist.

Netflix is a leader in innovation and dominate in its industry. This is no coincidence. Netflix has been able to revolutionize the movie rental industry. With the internet Netflix can reach the masses without physical rental stores located throughout select regions. Movies are sent and received by mail and/or online.

A new feature has been added to Netflixs’ arsenal: an instant streaming disc. Netflix has partnered with Related Content Database (RCDb), in a technology and licensing service agreement, to create an instant streaming Blue-ray disc. This instant streaming Blue-ray disc will allow PS3 (Playstation 3) users  to pop in a disc and with a subscription to Netflix view thousands of T.V. episodes and movies. PS3 users will also be able to fast-forward, rewind, rate movies, and play movies from a quence or a personalized category.

Related Content Database (RCDb) is a new company, founded in 2006, with a fast growing reputation for providing innovative and quality software to complement Blue-ray. RCDb creates Blue-ray software and provides services to network related: discs, player, and other devices.

Netflix is a prime example of Information Systems in business. This young and successful company has built its business model around the internet. The only physical buildings involved in the company business are distribution centers that house all the movies. Distribution centers are most likely strategically placed all around the country in order to have as few open as possible while still getting movies to customers in a timely fashion. Everything from setting up an account to contacting customer service can be done right on their website.

“RCDb Licenses BD-Live Software To Netflix For PS3 Instant Streaming Disc”. Business Wire. Findarticles.com 17 November 2009. Http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_20091110/ai_n42068602/