I spent part of Tuesday developing a model to outline my intended audience for my thesis project(s). Because the term ‘cloud computing’ has become a catch all for everything dealing with data centers, I need to determine specific data center transactions I am targeting as well as user behaviors. Cloud computing is nearly synonymous with the Internet. Amazon Web Services powering the likes of Netflix and Yelp; the ubiquitous access to Gmail; Apple’s iCloud service for device syncing; dozens of social media services such as Facebook and Instagram - all fall under the cloud.
The two main behaviors I am targeting are digital content production and (re)distribution for social media. Aspects of cloud computing I will not address are: streaming media (music, tv shows/movies, live events), work related communications such as emails and file sharing, and services used for backing up digital content. For instance, online services Backupify and Dropbox are for general consumer use, but do not share similar behavior patterns with consumption of physical products as do Tumblr or Instagram, for example.
