2010 Young Entrepreneur Model Business Plans
By: Kelly Lake
Jeff Katz is a Frostburg State University graduate who is now working for American Express directing a new type of credit card aimed towards college students. Katz is a new successful business man who not only has a successful job with American Express, but he has also done some work with the Apple iphone applications.
Jeff Katz has this new idea of creating a credit card directed towards college students. In Katz presentation, he explained the millions of dollars that are going into online gaming (which can be from facebook, playstation, xbox, etc.) but the amount of money is out of this world in which people are spending. This new credit card idea from American Express would be called the ‘loot card’. This loot card would help their customers be able to earn points every time they buy something to do with online gaming. “Almost every college student you know, and the majority of a college staff has a facebook…” explains Katz. “…and the majority of the facebook users also interact in some type of gaming on facebook.” Facebook has completely changed the way people look at online social interaction. One of facebooks top online games is a game called Farmville. Farmville is an interactive game that only facebook users are able to access, that lets one create and run their own farm. Farmville players are able to build a house, grow and sell crops, obtain livestock, and interact with other Farmville players. Katz reports “Farmville makes at least $50 million per month between the advertising and buying facebook money. This being said, Farmville is one of the most successful games on facebook.”
With this loot card, students would be able to buy whatever they wanted with games such as Farmville and they would earn points that would help them in their purchases with online gaming. With this card, there is also almost no risk when using this card. Because the card is aimed towards college students, they would be able to set up a payment plan, similar to how they pay back student loans, which would have a lower risk in harming credit. During the question and answer segment of the presentation, former peer Nicole Pruitt had an interesting question she was willing to share. “Say I wanted to buy just facebook credits but not have those towards gaming?” Katz was able to explain that when dealing with this type of card, any online social gaming setting would be acceptable. They would not get as high as rewards compared to if they were spending it directly on Farmville, but they will still be able to receive points.
This new idea is a new innovation in the gaming world. College students will be able to spend what they would like on this online gaming, but they will also be able to manage their credit so they can keep their lives on track.
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