Interesting World Of Social Media Media Essay

Interesting World Of Social Media Media Essay Having that said I dare bet that every Internet-user is or has been part of the Social Media community. Yes, even you. Because, admit it, have you ever watched a video on YouTube? à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ So I thought. Social Media is however more than just YouTube. The experience goes much further than simply watching movies on the internet and that is exactly what captivates me. How can one kind of Media become so huge in such a short time? How is it possible that both companies and private-individuals use the same medium on different ways? And, more importantly, why is it that Social Media is still expanding instead of fading away like most of the hypes we know? Let it be clear; Social Media is one big, important and yet complicated format which we know little about. Time to dig a little deeper! First Ill start with discussing the definition of Social Media thoroughly. Only when knowing EXACTLY what it is, well be able to understand what makes it so interesting and vital. Secondly, Ill be digging a bit in the history of Social Media. How did this new medium come to be? Did it just appear out of nowhere or did it take a while before it caught the eyes of the public? Third, Im going to investigate who use Social Media and why? Ill split this question in two sub-questions for you; Social Media used by private-individuals and Social Media used by businesses. Knowing what Social Media is, how it came to be and who use it and why, Ill be able to think of the influence Social Media has on our society. Is social media really that important, or do technophobias have nothing to fear? After concluding whether Social Media has a big or small influence on our society, Ill look whether I can confirm this conclusion by looking how much is invested in the world of Social Media. Finally, Ill be speculating about the future of Social Media. Will Social Media become vital for every company, or will it just fade away as hype? Welcome to the complicated yet most interesting world of Social Media. Index 1 What is social media? 1.1 Social media as definition 1.2 Social media characteristics 2 How did social media come to exist? 2.2 social mediums that came out 2.3 how social media became popular 3 Who use social media and why? 3.1 private-individuals 3.2 businesses 4 How much is invested in social media? 5 What influence do social media have on our society? 5.1 influence on the human behaviour 5.2 influence on politics 5.3 influence on marketing 6 How will social media develop? 6.1 social media statistics of 2010 6.2 social media in the near future 6.3 social media in the far future 7 Sources What is Social Media? 1.1 Social media as definition Social media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Kaplan and Michael Heanlin in Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media, business horizons (2010). In other words, social media is a new medium (it was, arguably, introduced in the second half of the 20th century), that allows people to globally interact through the media. It is a collective term for all the internet-applications that enable us to share and discuss information, not only in the form of text, but also through sound and video. But since social media is a collective term, you probably wont take my brief description for granted. You want to know the different forms that social media has and where they are to be found on the web. Take a seat. This may take a while. So, social media knows six different forms; communication, collaboration, multimedia, review and opinions, entertainment and brand monitoring. I will discuss each and every one of them. Communication is currently the biggest form of social media. Three very important aspects of communication are; blogs, micro blogs and social networks. Youve probably heard of them. Blogs are websites, or parts of websites, where people can write articles, columns, reviews, etc. Blogs are usually aimed at a specific subject. Basically, there are two types of blogs; commercial blogs and non-commercial blogs. Commercial blogs are mainly used by companies (doh) for a variety of reasons (for instance; promoting their product or getting to know the customer), but also by people who like to write, professionally, about certain subjects. Non-commercial blogs are mainly used by private-individuals, like you and me. These blogs usually define themselves as blogs written due to boredom. Usually, I said. A couple of known blogs are; WordPress, Bloggers.com and Open-Diary. Micro blogs are basically the same as normal blogs only they are much smaller. Micro blogs contain fewer characters and arent always aimed at a specific subject. Micro blogs are an excellent way for companies to make small announcements. Just like normal blogs, there are two different kinds of users (businesses and private-individuals, remember?) using the micro blogs. Known micro blogs are Twitter, Tumblr and FML (Fuck My Life). Social networks is arguably the most important component of social media (thank you, Facebook!). A social network is a big networking site where people can communicate with each other and share information. In a social network you represent yourself using a profile picture and by writing down a biography. That way, it is easy to locate people with the same interests which can result in an online friendship. The problem that this feature however brings is that the accessibility of social networks can also be seen as an invitation for perverts. Social networks are an easy way for perverts to hide their true identity and gain the trust of good-willed girls. And for that very reason, I dont blame parents for worrying sick when their children are uploading new photos on Facebook or other social networks. Undoubtedly, social networks are something to be careful with. Luckily, social networks, just like any other form of media, mostly support the option to set your private status to friends only, or to restrict certain areas of your Facebook for unwanted visitors. Its a great way to make your photos pervert-free. Communication however doesnt only consist of these three aspects, but also contains location-based social networks, events, information aggregators and online advocacy and fundraising. Location-based social networks are social networks that aim at geography. People can indicate where they are, when they are there and why they are there, which will all be shown on a big map. That way you will be able to see where your friends are and you to notify them about your current location. The events section looks, in one way, very much like the location-based networks. It also relies on a map, only in this case the map indicates where and when events are held, together with more additional information such as who are performing, what kind of an event it is and the ticket fee. Its a great way to stay up-to-date about your favorite artists and to not miss any appealing shows. Social media is used by more than 50% of the American population, and for that very reason it should come to no surprise that there are lots of different sites with reference to social media and they are all very crowded. Amongst the common social media users there are celebrities, publishers and developers writing their thoughts down and making announcements. Social media is a huge center of information and it didnt take long till information aggregators were introduced to the market. Information aggregators are sites with big, huge dashboards that gather information from all social networks. The last part that communication knows is advocacy and fundraising. I believe AF is a rather peculiar element of communication, because its usually integrated in other social media (mostly social networks). The main goal of AF companies is to raise as much money as they can for charity. They do this by advertising on other sites and by striking up partnerships. Especially live broadcasting sites such as BlogTV and Stickam attract AF companies. Where communication specializes in a belonging community, collaboration is recognized for its involvement with other sites; sites that fall under the collaboration category usually gather information from other sources. The six aspects of collaboration are; wikis, social bookmarking, social news, social navigation, content management systems and document managing and editing tools. Wikis are a perfect example of sites gathering information from other sources. Take a look at the end of a Wikipedia page and you are high likely to see a list full or sources. For instance, when looking up social media the most famous wiki; Wikipedia, gives me this; Wikis are generally known for their reliability because they make use of the knowledge management system, meaning that every user can contribute to the site by creating and editing articles. That results in a huge database. Another social database that collaboration knows is social bookmarking. Social bookmarking collects links of all kinds of sites and then categorizes them. Users are able to rate (or as I like to call it; digg) and share the links. That way people can easily find good, reliable sites that fit their interests. Known social bookmark sites are; Stumbleupon, Delicious and Google Reader. Social News looks a bit like social bookmarking; it also works with a rating system. Unlike professional news sites however, people write their own news on social news sites. Readers have the ability to vote on articles; deciding what is important and what isnt. Social news sites are obviously a magnet for information aggregators. For them its like killing two birds with one stone; social news sites contain a lot of information and the community already picks their favorite articles. Known social news sites are Digg, Newvine and Reddit. Social navigation, content management systems and document managing and editing tools are the lesser known social media components of collaboration, which comes quite a bit to my surprise because social navigation and content management systems can actually come in quite handy. Social navigation, for instance, provides information about the public transport, and content management systems is a software-application that simplifies the complicated code-language of the internet for common users like you and me. In the case of social navigation, Im guessing that mobile phones and global positioning systems are preferred by todays customers because these are more frequently used in vehicles. I dont blame Document managing and editing tools for being little popular though. They are online (free) writing tools and also allow users to share their documents with the Interwebs, but why would anyone want to share their articles randomly with these tools on the internet? Most of the articles that are published on the internet are published not through document managing and editing tools but through own websites. The documents are usually written in Word. Multimedia is a term you have probably already heard of. It is generally favored by the youth. Multimedia can be divided in five aspects; photography and art sharing, video sharing, live casting, music and audio sharing and presentation sharing. Its very common for multimedia sites to be used for other kinds of social media. Think of it; multimedia sites are perfect databases to store your pictures and videos because they can easily be linked in your articles thanks to embedded codes. Though the names already give away where the aspects actually function for, I have decided to explain them anyhow. As you probably have already noticed, I like being as thorough as possible. Photography and art sharing are, as the name already says, sites where people can share pictures. They serve as a great way for people to save (and optionally; share) their photos and find other photos. Since (mainly) blogs dont have a lot of space, photography and art sharing sites are very popular places for bloggers to upload their pictures on. They wont be bothered with the limited space problem and wont risk the chance of having the original photo removed so that only a dead link will remain. Video sharing basically have the same principal as PAs only do they specialize in videos except for pictures. Especially Youtube is a very important component of the video sharing aspect. Video sharing is used by both private-individuals and businesses. Private-individuals use video sharing mainly as entertainment, but also as outlet or gateway to show their own talents. Businesses use video sharing for promotion by uploading videos about their brand (mostly funny commercials or trailers). Remarkable is that most live casting users are also pretty popular on video sharing sites such as Youtube. Many famous Youtubers (like Davedays, Shanedawson, Zushoo, Creepjeepers) are featured on Stickam and BlogTV (two of the biggest live casting sites). Apart from their scripted shows they sometimes like to just randomly entertain fans on liveshows. Live casting is also often used as live streaming device for important shows. If people cant attend certain events for any reason, they will be able to follow it live at home. Music and audio sharing is an aspect of collaboration that specializes in sounds. On these sites, users are able to customize their own playlists and check out other playlists. It is a popular concept for radio broadcasts because their audience are most likely music fans and appeal to this market. Presentation sharing is mainly used by companies. Sharing presentations is a great way to take information up in an interactive way. Especially for teachers, presentation sharing can come in handy. Its a great way to reach the modern generation of students and still educational. Despite the fact that most people write reviews and opinions on blogs, there are still a couple of sites fully dedicated to the reviews and opinions category. The RO category has but three aspects; product reviews, business reviews and community question answer. Lets start with the beginning; product reviews are sites where the community can give their opinion on certain products. Its a really nice way for people to know what product to buy and what not. Business reviews are practically the same as product reviews, only they dont contain the opinion about products, but about companies. Is the service any good? Are they reliable? Etc. The problem with business and product reviews however, is that questions HAVE to be business/product related meaning that if you have any other questions, you have nowhere to turn. Thats where the community question and answer comes in. Community QA sites are sites where people can ask whatever they want and the community will answer. Yahoo!Answers is a well-known QA site. As Ive already said, entertainment is very popular with todays generation. The entertainment category consists of; media and entertainment platforms, virtual worlds and game sharing. Media and entertainment platforms is probably the least popular form of social media from all kinds of social media we have, because they play mostly behind the scenes. They are used by older companies who arent yet integrated in the modern society and allow them to digitalize their products/marketing strategies. Virtual Worlds on the other hand are pretty popular and used by a large amount of youngster. Virtual Worlds are basically online games like World of Warcraft, the Sims Online and Second Life. Players are able to create an imaginative character and play in a fictional world, where they can meet other people. But hold on a minute, you might think. If online games are part of the virtual worlds, then why is there another subcategory named shared games? That is, because shared games support browser-based games instead of downloadable programs. Shared games are usually simple flash-games, made by the community, and all playable on one big site. Virtual games, on the other hand, are usually huge, downloadable, professional games and its creators will dedicate themselves towards one game. At last, we have arrived at the last category; brand monitoring. Brand monitoring knows only one form, which is social media measurement. Social media measurement is an indicator that provides information about the internet traffic. Companies use it in order to get a good insight in their costumers; where are they from, how old are they and what are their interests? Its a great way to get to know the customer I think. So, that was chapter 1.1; the definition of social media and honestly, I wonder whether you still know what content managing systems are without looking it back up. Its a whole lot of information, I admit, but necessary information all the same. All I have done now is given you a good idea of what social media is and what we count under social media. I have written a quick conveniently arranged table about paragraph 1.1 for you below. You are welcome. Social Media Communication Blogs, Microblogs, Social Networking, Location-based social networks, events, information aggregators, online advocacy and fundraising Collaboration Wikis, social bookmarking, social news, Social navigation, Content Management Systems, Document Managing and Editing Tools Multimedia Photography and art sharing, video sharing, Livecasting, music and audio sharing, presentation sharing Reviews and Opinions Community Question and Answers, product reviews, business reviews Entertainment Virtual worlds, Media and entertainment platforms, Game sharing Brand Monitoring Social Media Measurement Permission granted to reproduce for personal and educational use only. Commercial copying, hiring, lending is prohibited.

racism Essay -- essays research papers

Racism An underlying problem is promoting racism. It is the fact that a lot of people believe, and try to make they believe, that racism no longer exists. Many people today live their lives oblivious to what is happening in the world around them, often trying to convince themselves that racism is not a problem in their world. Others know all about the problem, but don’t really realize that they themselves could possibly be adding to the problem by discriminating against someone else’s human rights, and at the same time going around saying how open-minded they are. One of the main problems of racism is that many people live in racist conditions, without even seeing it. Often times it’s in their school, workplace, community, or even in their own homes. People often tell jokes with racist slurs, and while we know not to laugh at ones about blacks, it seems that ones about other races like Chinese and Hispanic are okay. We tell ourselves that they are just jokes, but not to those who they are ridiculing. We are all perpetrators of this and we usually feel that these types of jokes are harmless. They can be harmless and maybe at times we even think they are funny, but they are also hurtful and degrading. Some of the biggest racists are those who don’t even know that they are, and even say that they aren’t. These people are racist because they cannot comprehend what is happening and do not realize what they are saying is racist. Until they come to grips with this problem, in th...

Employee rewards Essay

Employee reward is about how people are rewarded in accordance with their value to an organization (Armstrong, 2001). It is concerned with both financial and non financial rewards and embraces the philosophies, strategies, policies, plans and processes used by organization to development maintain reward systems. An employee reward system consist of an organizations integrated policies, processes, practice, structures and procedures which will provide and maintain appropriate type and levels of pays benefits and other forms of rewards. The main components of a reward system include processes for measuring the value of jobs, the contribution of individuals’ in those jobs and the range and level of employee benefit to be provided, these processes consist of job evaluation, market rate analyses and performance management (Armstrong,2004). Practice for motivating people by use of financial and non-financial rewards, the financial reward rewards consist of base and variable pay and employee benefits and allowances and non-financial rewards are provided through effective leadership, the work itself and the opportunities given to employees to develop their skills and careers. Structures for relating pay and benefit levels to the value of positions in the organization and for providing scope for rewarding people according to their performance, competence, skill and experience (Gephart&Caroll, 1998). Employee rewards are an effective way to drive performance and reinforce the behavior that helps a company meets its objectives. Pay bands are profiled in terms of the level of required competence, which describe the typical or minimum requirements of the roles allocated to each band. Individual roles are then slotted into the appropriate band by the company their profile with the band profiles. The purpose of pay structure is to organize and demonstrate organizations compensation philosophy and to reflect and support the advancement of the company culture. An effective pay structure allows employees to attract and retain the people who can help achieve our business goals (Jones, 1991). Broad banded pay structure is one in which the range of pay is significantly higher than convectional graded structures. The progression is appropriate because they provide for more flexibility in making and administrating pay decision. Broad banded structure recognizes that in flat organizations career are more likely to develop within more broadly homogenous areas of responsibilities rather than progressing up a number of steps in a clearly defined hierarchy. This structure has few broad bands which reduces the problem of grade drift. More authority is developed to managers to manager rewards in their departments which they can view them as their kingdom. The broad banded pay structure posses a problem of controlling pay decision so that a fair degree of equity and consistency is achieved. Broad banded pay structure requires that the line managers are literate on the issues of pay otherwise the process will be badly managed and complains will arise in the organizational of discrimination in pay. Broad banded pay structure can only succeed in sophisticated organizations with a tradition of good pay practices if this is not adhered to misunderstanding may occur due to irregularities in pay of employees doing the same job. Broad banded pay structure enable line mangers the freedom to manage the pay of their staff within their budget but this can become disadvantageous especially if the managers create their own kingdoms in these departments. Also too much scope for pay progression. The control mechanism in broad banded pay structure can be provided but can be difficult to mange and costly as job evaluation of no longer drive grading decisions (White&Drunken, 2000). Broad banded may pay structure create unrealistic expectation or scope for pay rise as it seems to restrict the scope for promotions making if difficult to understand equal pay progress. All these issues can cause potential problems in an organization that operates a traditional narrow banded structure. Narrow banded structure has ten or more graded and progression is expected to occur in small but relatively frequent steps. Progression is usually linked to performance. It is more appropriate in an organization when the organization is large and bureaucratic with well defined and extended hierarchies. In narrow banded structure pay progression is expected to occur in small but relatively frequent steps (Thrope&Homan, 2000). The culture in the organization having narrow banded structure is one in which mass significance is attached to status as indicated by grindings. This pay structure is appropriate when same little scope of pay is wanted as it facilitates control and clearly indicating relativities. In a narrow banded structure the hierarchy is tall as all the jobs are allocated into a salary grade within the structure on the basis of an assessment of their internal and external value hence it will be difficult for a broad banded pay structure when being introduced in the organization as it is mostly appropriate for flat organization not all hierarchy organization. Each salary grade consists of a salary range in narrow banded structure which can be 10 or more grades while in a broad banded pay structure. It is more flexible and can consist of five to six broad bans. In a narrow banded structure the rate of salary progressive is determined by performance as well as length of service while the broad banded pay structure progression is linked to contribution and competency of the employee. In narrow banded pay structure the number of salary ranges required depends on the lower and upper salary level of the jobs in the structure of an organization, the differentiate between the ranges, and the number of distinct levels of responsibility in the hierarchy which need to be catered for by separate grades. This will create many pay grade which if a broad banded pay structure is introduced in the organization implementation will be difficult as it will be possible to design and differentiate them more accurately as an aid to better precision when grading jobs.

Pronoun

Read in your textbook or in any other available resource on the topic of Verb BE. 3. Write a personal ad describing yourself, activities you do, hobbies, where you work, where do you live, etc. Focus on two or three questions available in Appendix A to write your ad. 4. Bring the ad to class. Prep-04-26-04 Carmen L. Lambda, De-D. 7 program O'Hara 5. Carry out some research on someone famous. Think of a person you would like to interview and do some research on the Internet on that person. It could be an athlete, and actress or actor, or the president. Make sure you have enough information on this person. Activities 1. Ice breaker activity will be carried out.In order to do this, have students read their ads. Ask students to listen to the ads and have them jot down any similarity or striking fact they would like to hear more about. After everyone reads their ad, have students get up and go about the room and ask each other about specific details they thought were interesting. Let them converse among themselves. . After that, have students talk about something they found out or thought interesting about the people they talked to. Facilitator can participate in this activity. 3. Facilitator provides an overview of the course. Particular emphasis should be placed on objectives, evaluation criteria, student participation, and group work.If any changes are made to the grading evaluation criteria, these should be given in writing to the student and the office program during the first workshop. 4. Discuss evaluation criteria. 5. Select Student Representative. 6. Tell students they are going to review the alphabet and most of all review alphabetical order. Tell them you are going to give each student a card. Each card has the name of a different animal, or thing. Ask students to look at their card, but tell no one what they have. By acting (walking, acting, or making sounds) like the animal or thing they should go around the room and try to place themselves in correct a lphabetical order.Facilitator should create his/ her own list of things and animals, but these are some examples: a. Kangaroo b. Ostrich c. Tiger d. Bear 8 e. Clock f. Snake g. Bird h. Train 7. Provide students with about 10 minutes to try to sort themselves alphabetically. Once students are sorted, have them read out their card. Did they get it right? Be sure to review any alphabetizing questions they may have. 8. Present students with a review of the VERB BE in present tense. Am am from Mexico City (l am) What's your name? (What is) My name is Maria Where are you from? 9. Have students pair up. Ask students to interview each other, making sure each student gets the name, phone number and address of the person he/ she is interviewing. 10.Have students introduce the person by providing the details requested (phone number, name, and address). Have them use the phrases: This is (name). His/Her address is His/Her phone number . 11. As students say the information help them and guide th em to say the addresses and phone numbers correctly concentrating on the numbers and on using the verb be correctly. 12. Have students again pair up. Facilitator should try pairing them up with someone different each time. Ask them to decide on a famous person they would like to interview. This famous person could be an athlete, actor, actress, or president. Use the research you carried out prior to the workshop. 13. Write up an interview for that famous person.Have One of the students portray the famous person and have the other person be the interviewer. Practice your interview and present the role play to the class. Be sure to use verb be correctly. 9 14. Have students complete the assignment presented in Appendix B. Students should hand in during the next workshop (Workshop 2). (HINT: Make copies of the assignment and hand in once you complete it. 15. Offer a preview of Workshop 2 and discuss upcoming homework. In order for students to complete the homework, ask them to work in groups. Make sure the composition of the group has been decided before they leave the classroom. Ask them to provide you with a list with the group members. Groups should not have more than four students.

Race and Ethnicity Essay

The list comprised in this article is unfortunately true and eye opening. Many white people are unaware of the natural advantages that are written here. They take it for granted thinking everyone else is also entitled to these rights. Since I am not white, I can clearly see that these are privileges given to whites only. I can even say that I have never experience some of the things written in McIntosh’s list. I disagree with many of these terms. The item on her list that I feel most strongly about is: 10. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of my financial reliability. People should not relate other’s financial situation based on their skin color. That is very wrong. It has been engraved into people’s minds that all black people are on welfare or food stamps because they don’t work. But that is not true. Just because someone is black does not mean that they are poor and unable to support themselves. If you are judged for walking into a high end store just because of your skin color, that is very unfair. Race and ethnicity does not have anything to do with someone’s financial reliability. Another that I think is unfair is: 12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race. For the same reason as the previous one, race should not be a factor in the judgment of others. McIntosh sees these are privileges for white only when in fact; it should not be a privilege. Anything written on this list should be given to everyone, regardless of the race. I definitely agree with McIntosh that: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow â€Å"themâ€Å" to be more like â€Å"us.† The idea of white privilege relates to the themes of white power because it is giving whites an overall advantage in life. White privilege also relates to the themes of white supremacy because it makes them more powerful. Privilege is being of a favored state by birth or luck. If the things stated McIntosh is called privilege, then it is extremely misleading. The idea of white privilege makes them feel confident, comfortable, and oblivious; on the other hand, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. White power and white supremacy is all about making white people the most powerful and advantageous, white privilege also supports that.

None Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

None - Assignment Example In instances of strict liability, the requirement of a guilty mind is not required; all that is needed to show criminal conduct is the forbidden action. Strict liability offences are usually not of a serious nature and the laws governing such offences are regulatory. A good examples are offences of pollution. Denunciation in criminal sentencing regime is the act of imposing a severe sentence to an accused person in bids to send a message, that society, in the embodiment of the court does not tolerate the action of the accused person action. It therefore serves to deter individuals from committing similar crimes as well as appeasing the victim as they feel that justice has been served. For instance, a person accused of raping a child, could get a harsher sentence than one accused of raping an adult in order to show that child rape will not be tolerated. It is a defense used in court by person’s who murder their spouse alleging that at the time of the commission of the crime the person was suffering from the battered wife syndrome. It is called the battered woman/wife syndrome because it is a defense mostly used by women. It is a defense for the women who react with force as a defense mechanism stemming from the belief that it is the only way to defend themselves from their assailants. Nevertheless, there is no psychological evidence to support this principle as a defense in criminal law. There are four main principles that govern the adjudication of criminal justice. The first one is the presumption of innocence; that a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law of competent jurisdiction. The other is the is the burden of proof; in criminal law, he who alleges proves, thus the onus of proving criminal liability is vested on the prosecution and that of proving defenses put forward by the defense team, is vested in the defense. The other principle is right to remain silent; one has the

Risk and return, portfolio diversification and the Capital Asset Essay

Risk and return, portfolio diversification and the Capital Asset Pricing Model; The cost of equity (Starbucks Co.) - Essay Example (Valuebasedmanagement.net, 2011) This paper will therefore provide computation and will also discuss the cost of equity of Starbucks besides computing the cost of equity for Nestle and McDonalds to make a comparison. Further, cost of equity will also be calculated by using dividend discount model as well as arbitrage pricing theory. The above calculations show that the overall cost of equity for Starbucks is 11.82% based on the data provided. This value is higher than the cost of equity of an average firm on the S&P 500 index thus indicating that the overall risk profile of Starbucks may be higher than an average firm. It may be due to the fact that the investors, considering the dynamics of the industry and particular performance of the firm in the industry, may not be willing to put their bets on Starbucks. The cost of equity should have been lower than an average firm on the S&P considering the overall market strength of Starbucks and brand power. The above comparison between McDonalds, Nestle as well as Starbucks shows that the return on equity for other two firms is lower as compared to Starbucks. The lower cost of equity of these firms suggests that these firms have relatively stable risk profile due to their stronger financial performance as well as fundamentals. What is also important to note that these firms are diversified in nature whereas Starbucks is only relatively focused on the sale of coffee only? It is therefore of no surprise that the cost of equity of such firms is relatively lower than Starbucks Dividend discount model is another important model to find out the fair values of the stock based on the dividends. (Investopedia.com, 2011 ). This model considers dividends as the future cash flows to be received and accordingly the price of the stock is calculated by using following formula: Thus the expected rate of return is obtained by considering a linear combination of different macroeconomic factors combined with