With Green Mountain coffee, Yelp, and man other big consumer companies being the focus of the news today, it got my little brain churning. Many of us think about investing as finding a quality company, with good earnings and growth potential. Though the key to investing, after looking at the news today, is merely the tracking of consumer trends. Since the society we live in today focuses on consumers, selling goods, selling goods on websites, selling directions to those goods, and on and on; it is fair to assume that our society is based around consumer trends. To make the most out of investing we must delve into those consumer trends.

Green Mountain is a perfect example and very fresh in everyone’s minds. Why do people by Green Mountain products? Well gosh Young Gun, that’s an easy one, everyone in America likes have a single serve coffee machine at home. Evaluating that answer, the average investors answer, we already see it in the terms of consumer trends. Green Mountain has pioneered the consumer trend of single serve coffee, they have not made one of a kind product that can stand the test of time. It is quite easy for someone like Starbucks or Walmart to come in and sweep away consumers. The market for Green mountain is there merely due to this consumer trend, not brand loyalty.

Let’s contrast this to a giant, to get the best understanding of my point. Ask yourself, why do people love Apple products? Again this answer should be easy, everyone in America loves iPhones. Now notice the contrast here from my previous paragraph, did I saw smartphone? Now you get the drift. Apple is pioneering the consumer trend and extrapolating brand loyalty through the consumer trend. No one can or will make a iPhone like Apple and no one has been able to make a smartphone quite like it. That is why so many consumers and phone companies are willing to pay a premium for the product.

My point is obvious, without brand loyalty that captures a consumer trend, you as a company have nothing. Just ask Netflix. If the consumer trend is single serve coffee and I can get the same coffee and maker at Walmart, Green Mountain isn’t much of a mountain anymore.

This morning I woke up to a Zynga stream suggesting the end of the world was near, very near. That the stock was headed towards $0 and tech bubble 2.0 was coming crashing down. I really don’t have the energy anymore to qualm the unrest, but you can refer you to I Was Wrong About Suggesting A Tech Bubble and Looking At Zynga’s Potential to show you that the masses sentiment is wildly untrue. Rather, what I want to hit on right this second is rather a larger concern of my in this new age of technology, when the stream goes negative on you.

The bandwagon, my favorite analogy. Why you say, Young Gun, do love this analogy so much? The response is oh so simple, the bandwagon, it can be used to your great advantage. In the case of trading, it is sometimes best to work in the shadow of others, more knowledgeable than yourself. Hey that’s why we read blogs and talk to strangers about investing. In this case, referring to my mornings example, sometimes the bandwagon is wrong, very wrong. The stream this morning was quite wrong about Zynga, with outrageuos suggestions of $0 and $3. When you know that the bandwagon is heading in the direction far from the truth, you can sit back, laugh, have a cold one, because in due time the profits will come.

This obvoiusly doesn’t hold true to every company that trades down. It accounts for companies that have growth potential, make money, so on and so forth. You are smart enough to know what I am talking about. My favorite example would be LULU in the midst of winter. I believed in the story, the growth, the desire for every woman in america to own their lovely pants (ahh yoga pants). I capitulated, I did so because I listened to intently to the voice of my peers and not my own. We all know that lululemon sits on its high and mighty stead currently, and I sit nowhere near it due to my misfortunes. So when the negativity surrounds you, sometimes that gut of yours knows the story better than any stream.

The story always seem to be the same for the tech giant Microsoft, just wait, the next version of Windows, that will blow you away. Wait, wait, the next next version of windows, that will be the game changer. Taking a look at all the factors in the past few years, it may be time to make that call again and have that call make you some money. There are a lot of features I, and the larger tech consumers would love to see in the new version of Microsoft and from what I have seen, the anticipation may finally live up to the expectations.

Microsoft has finally woken up to the competition that is Apple. They have shown this by there recent ruling to avoid employees from purchasing Apple products. This can be taken two ways. One, that Microsoft is gunning for Apple and die hard Appleheads should be scared. Two, the war is about to begin, and Apple is positioned to take the crown. Either way, a showdown is eminent. If you go here to a preview of Windows 8, you see that  Microsoft is going in a much different direction than before. Hey, you could even say that Microsoft storm is stealing a little Mac OS thunder.

What I am looking for as a Windows 8 potential consumer and an avid iPhone user is Microsoft to give me some love in the app world. I am so tired of logging into my computer and having 3 or 4 programs wanting to update themselves. While on my iPhone, all those programs are updated with one touch. This may not be a substantial problem for many of you, but it actually resembles a large issue. The problem that Microsoft has had over and over again, is they fail to focus on the ease of use of the consumer. Apple continually makes their products idiot proof and that usable to almost everyone (hell even my mother can use her iPhone with ease). Providing ease of life, that’s what technologies true purpose for consumers is, and until Microsoft sees that, Apple will continue to dominate.

Whichever way you cut it, the tech war is now here and impassioned. The telltale sign of dominance will likely come at the end of the year when we see how Windows 8 sells and how the populous responds. The masses love Apple computers, but who’s to say they won’t love Windows even more? One of the benefits of technology is it moves rather rapidly, in turn allowing the Windows Apple game to change over night.

Zynga, Facebook’s baby, seems to have lost it’s parent’s halo in the past month. This is merely because those evaluating the company are looking at it all wrong. As I mentioned in I Was Wrong About Suggesting A Tech Bubble, technology allows for unprecedented growth, that box stores cannot match. What bothers me most, is not that the stock price is down, that happens, but rather the masses interpretation of Zynga. I have read multiple articles, tweets, and of course watched CNBC, and I have to say all these people are looking at the gaming giant wrong.

What makes a great company? The answer to this question is simple, a great company is one that sees potential and takes advantage of it. Zynga has this quality and it sees the future in a multiple platform gaming community. The Q&A in the conference call also showed that the smart money is behind this movement as well . What Zynga has is the potential to be more than a Facebook company, they have the willpower and the desire to take over the phone market. Gaming on the smartphone is the future, just like gaming over multiple platforms is the future of gaming. Well who is aligned to profit from this? Zynga. The conference call said one thing loud and clear, that Zynga sees the smartphone market for the taking and they are taking it.

That’s just great isn’t it, but what about making money? A lot of questions surround the monetization of Zynga. Where will Zynga make money? How can a company make money with Facebook? How can a company make money by giving away a free product? All these questions and many more are well founded, the answer is much easier than one initially thinks. We are witnessing advertisements on cell phones and Facebook in their infancy. We are seeing AdWords before it was AdWords. The growth of the smartphone arena is unquestionable, last quarter well over 200 million smartphone were sold. Zynga is selling apps on all of them. The phones they aren’t selling them apps on, they are giving away free apps and profiting from advertisements. As the call suggested the ads are only going to get better as app advertisement goes from its infancy to becoming a toddler. The strongest argument for the future advertisement potential is the companies that are backing Zynga, on the call they mentioned a giant entertainment, Fox. My memory fails me on the other big names, but that fact remains, Zynga has epic advertisement potential and big names see it.

The stock is not institutionally held in high numbers because the company doesn’t have potential. Big money knows the epic growth that the smartphone market is seeing and will see. Zynga’s purchase of OMGPOP shows that they will take any measure to have the top (profiting) games. I like putting my money to work behind companies that are playing to win. Just go listen to the earnings call, it suggests a company with a vision that knows how to implement it. They are across multiple growing platforms and are the gaming giant of the next generation. You can’t fight the trend.