Week 12

Week 11

Week 10

Questions1) What does this meant by the following statements?Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)

trust is not in automatically two way of relationships.

Trust is not transitiveJust because trust has been established between Party A and Party B, it does not automatically follow that Party A will trust everyone that Party B trusts or Party B will trust everyone that Party A trusts.Trust is always between exactly 2 parties

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender trustDirect trust is where one party trusts the other party directly and recommender trust is where one party trusts another party based on the recommendation of a trusted third party.

2a) Have a look at the following websites. What are some of the elements that have been incorporated to increase your trust in the sites? If there are also some aspects which decrease your level of trust describe them as well.http://www.eBay.com.auhttp://www.anz.com.auhttp://www.thinkgeek.comhttp://www.paypal.com.au

2b) Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.A website that I think looks untrustworthy is http://www.buyandsellaustralia.com.au/ This is a website that brings buyers and sellers of items together much the same as eBay. The reason I find it untrustworthy is that unlike eBay, it does not incorporate any safety measures. There is no feedback mechanism, just a few seller testimonials (which seem a bit suspect) and no buyer testimonials at all. There is also no means of contacting the owners of the site if anything goes wrong. The "Contact Us" tab simply brings up a form to be filled in for the owners to contact you. Whilst the website and the people using it may very well be legitimate, I would be very reluctant to purchase anything listed on it unless I could afford to lose the money involved.

Week 9

Week 8

Q1: eBay is one of the only major Internet "pure plays" to consistently make a profit from its inception. What is eBay's business model? Why has it been so successful?

Brokers are market-makers: they bring buyers and sellers together and facilitate transactions. Brokers play a frequent role in business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), or consumer-to-consumer (C2C) markets. Usually a broker charges a fee or commission for each transaction it enables. The formula for fees can vary. Brokerage models include:

Auction Broker -- conducts auctions for sellers (individuals or merchants). Broker charges the seller a listing fee and commission scaled with the value of the transaction. Auctions vary widely in terms of the offering and bidding rules. [eBay]


EBay's success is based on its ability to transform many fragmented,
primarily local markets into global ones at a relatively low cost to
its users.  People have always had a need and an interest in buying
and selling used, surplus, and collectible items.  Traditionally, they
have done so through garage sales, classified advertising in local
newspapers, and flea markets.  However, the number of people available
to complete a transaction was limited because a face-to-face meeting
was typically required.

For a price comparable to advertising an item in the classifieds
section of their local newspaper with three or four lines of text,
users can post lengthy descriptions and pictures available to a
worldwide audience.  Concerns about fraud have been mitigated through
a user feedback system escrow services. The company's ability to bring
a large number of buyers and sellers together is what has driven its
growth.  The more buyers there are, the more sellers want to
participate.  Conversely, the more sellers there are, the more items
are to buy, and the greater the attraction of the service to buyers.
EBay has allowed many people to become entrepreneurs with little
upfront expense or overhead and provides a method for companies and
even governments to dispose of unwanted items.

The recent downturn in the economy which crushed so many dot-coms
ironically worked in eBay's favor.  People who were laid off started
businesses selling on eBay, and many people were interested in getting
a deal even if it meant purchasing a used item.  Also, collectibles
markets have thrived by making it easier for buyers and sellers to
find one another.  However, prices have sometimes been affected as
items that were once thought to be rare have turned out not to be.
Companies have also found it attractive to purchase industrial items
online at steep discounts to conventional channels.

EBay makes money by charging listing fees and collecting a percentage
of the selling price of items sold through the site.  EBay also owns
PayPal, which makes money through investing its clients' assets and
from transaction fees.  EBay's growth has been remarkable.  "In 1998,
its gross merchandise sales -- the total value of all transactions --
were $700,000.  In 2000, at the height of dot-comm mania, they hit
$5.4 billion.  This year [2003]?  The number should pass $20 billion."
 Over 86 million people are eBay users.

EBay appears to have significant growth potential.  It has
successfully introduced new markets, such as car sales, which many
thought would not be adaptable to its business model.  Also, only a
small percentage of the world's population currently uses eBay.
Fundamentally, it is so successful because it meets its customer's
needs better than any competing service.  No one else has accumulated
such a large number of buyers and sellers in a single marketplace.



Q2: Other major web sites, like Amazon.com and Yahoo!, have entered the auction marketplace with far less success than eBay. How has eBay been able to maintain its dominant position?

Size of its user base

Feedback history

reputation

rating

Q3: What method does eBay use to reduce the potential for fraud among traders on its site? What kinds of fraud, if any, are eBay users most susceptible?


But even if that’s a small number, and it’s probably reasonable to assume that fraud is an underreported problem, still, it’s a thing that needs to be dealt with, and eBay does some very clear things in terms of trying to help people overcome their inhibitions and enter into transactions with what would otherwise be strangers to them.  And that’s sort of the second part of this conversation, which really has to do with how do we get or facilitate the trustworthiness or at least the acceptance of trustworthiness of other individuals and overcome any inhibitions to enter into transactions, and transactions which can be sometimes significant in terms of their value.

So anyone who’s been on eBay or has used eBay as a marketplace knows that a central feature of the transaction process is the feedback mechanism by which buyers and sellers rate each other’s behavior as part of a transaction.  And these feedback ratings, and, again, we’ve seen feedback processes that now exist across all kinds of web sites, but in the case of eBay, the user feedback element is really a very significant part of how buyers and sellers evaluate the relative degree of riskiness of entering into a transaction with the other party.

And so how it works is with each transaction both the buyer and seller are given an opportunity to rate the other party’s performance in that transaction through a simple rating mechanism.  And eBay collects this data together and then provides a kind of quantitative summary for each member of the community that gives other users a sense of their overall reliability, a sense of their reputation as a trader, by looking at the number of transactions they’ve entered into over a period of time from the most recent onward and looking at the ratings of whether those transactions met with the satisfaction of the other party or not, including some commenting and the like.  And so now any prospective trader who is going to enter into a buying or selling relationship with another party can pull up their evaluation feedback and decide to what extent that they feel comfortable doing business with this other party.

As one might expect, people who have accumulated a lot of positive feedback on their transactions within the system are going to be looked at more favorably when it comes time with others engaging in transactions.  And so if you’re a seller this most certainly translates into a potential premium that you might receive in terms of the number of bidders bidding on your product and hopefully yielding a higher price, and a much more likelihood that people are going to trust that their interaction with you is going to go well.  And so that has direct financial impact on your ability to be a successful trader in the eBay marketplace.

So the eBay feedback system and this whole issue of being able to create a reputation as a positive, fair party within the marketplace really becomes a central issue in monitoring the feedback system, making the feedback system more effective, making sure that it isn’t played with in some fraudulent way to bolster the reputation of an otherwise disreputable individual.  All of these things are a major concern of eBay and a constant focus to provide its membership with the best information it has on its respective members, and hopefully, again, coming back to this central aspect of what eBay is, is being a broker, that creates a fair and level playing field for its membership.



Paypal

Reputation

Rating

Feedback History

Education

Q4: eBay makes every effort to conceptualize its users as a community (as opposed to, say "customers" or "clients"). What is the purpose of this conceptual twist and does eBay gain something by doing it?

Yes gains trust

Q5: eBay has long been a marketplace for used goods and collectibles. Today, it is increasingly a place where major businesses come to auction their wares. Why would a brand name vendor set-up shop on eBay?

Brand name vendors would set-up a virtual presence on eBay for a number of reasons;
- Email has a huge user base across the globe. No business can ignore eBay's sheer reach.
- Removing costly intermediaries such as wholesaler, distributor and retailer thus gain bigger profit by selling through eBay.
- No need to set up its own eCommerce website, can use existing eBay templates and payments system.
- Protect their product brand and quality as customers are likely to purchase from a big name vendor, reduced the likelihood of the brand is misused or misrepresented by other eBay sellers..

Q6. I have a few businesses, and I have used eBay for about 12 years on and off. Currently I have about 600 books listed on eBay (seller name ozrural). I stopped selling on eBay for a few years but they changed the rules this July and it is viable again (for me). What do yu think changed?

According to the 2011 Fall Seller Update two main seller benefit starting from July last year are;
- Extra 25 characters in the title to draw more buyers
- and new protection for seller's rating when buyer fails to contact you first before opening a case and the seller also work quickly to resolve it.

Week 6

Question 1

a) What experiences have you had with shopping online?

b) Describe a good experience.

c) What did you like about the online store you used?

d) Describe a bad experience.

e) What problems did you have with the online store?

f) What features make an online store more appealing?

g) What features make an online store less appealing?

h) Should we expect to see the prices of goods and services rise or fall due to the migration of consumers online?

Marketplace elements include:
Communications infrastructure
Structured environment
Transaction mechanism
Delivery

Ease of communication is both a strength and a weakness because of the huge volume of information and excess noise such as SPAM

I have included an additional reading from MIT (Understanding Digital Markets). After reading it please discuss the following statements and indicate if you agree with them or not. Please note there may not be a right or wrong answer.

Question 2

a) The dispersion of prices (that is, the spread between the lowest and highest price for a particular product) will narrow.

b) The importance of brand names will decrease.

c) Price competition will make all products cheaper.

d) Digital markets will become dominated by a handful of mega-sites, like Amazon.com.

e) How do you think the balance of power between buyer’s and seller’s will change?

f) Prices are clustered online.

g) Online prices are elastic. ( i.e. immune to change up and down with demand)

h) Online prices are generally transparent (the extent to which prices for a given product or service are known by buyers in the marketplace.).

ReplyDelete

Week 7 - Automata

2) Write a one paragraph describing the Turing test and another paragraph describing an argument against the Turing Test, known as the about the Chinese room.

Turing test aims to determine the a machine's ability for intelligent behavior. For the test a human judge will engage in a normal conversation with another human and a machine in natural language. The judge does not know which one is machine or which one is human. If the judge cannot reliably distinguish who is the real human and which is the machine, then the machine would succeeded in passing the Turing test. The test only allows the participants to communicate using text based channel.

However, the Turing test is not without its weakness. One such problem is that to pass Turing Test the Machine to pretend to be human, however not all human behavior is intelligent or certain intelligent behaviors will be perceived as un-human like. So for the machine to pass the test it needs to make the same mistake as human would and intentionally add mistakes such as typing errors. As such the Turing Test is not testing real intelligence behavior, but rather human behavior which at times can be very different things.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test#Human_intelligence_vs_intelligence_in_general

3) Can virtual agents succeed in delivering high-quality customer service over the Web?

Virtual agents has been used by many companies to provide customer services in place of real human. How successful it has been really is dependent on the nature and the complexity of customer service provided. For example the many banks has virtual agents to answer banking inquiries from customers. For simple inquiry such as how do I reset my password or where is the nearest bank branch to a certain location virtual agents has no problem in handling them. In fact it probably offer a better experience than real human as the information is returned instantaneously with links and instructions/solution to your inquiry. The advancement in technology such as voice recognition, better indexing and search strategies and a consistent answer has really increased the usefulness of virtual agents over the years. However the capability of the virtual agents is still pre-determined by its creators, it can only provide the customer service that it is programmed to provide. If it need to provide a customer service that was not programmed into its strategy or if it feels to understand the needs of the customer, then it will be at loss at what solution they can provide the customer with or in some cases providing the incorrect solution. For example if

If your inquiry is very personal in nature and are complex then virtual agents will not be able to help you. For example recently I used virtual agent to help me with my inquiries for a hotel booking. It was a great experience at until the very end where I had to put in a certain special request that the virtual agents keep on giving me the wrong information. After couple of times of back a forth it suggested I call the hotel for clarification. I got my request answered by the hotel when I called them the very next day. However in this case it wasn't a high quality experience from the virtual agents due to its inability to deal with variables that it wasn't programmed to solve. Instead of helping me, it wasted my time and got nowhere.

In conclusion, I believe virtual agents can provide a high quality customer experience in certain situation if it is programmed to handle the particular service. However at its current state it is incapable to fully replace real human in dealing with complex and difficult customer services.

Week 5 Business Models

eBusiness Models

Brokerage- A "brokerage" or a "brokerage firm" is a business that acts as a broker. A brokerage firm is a business that specializes in trading stocks. A sales person working for a securities or commodity brokerage firm is popularly (but incorrectly) called a "broker." A broker in that context is, strictly speaking, an exchange member who is actually executing the purchase or sales order in the 'pit', on the exchange, as a service to the client of the firm for which that salesman works. An example of an auction broker would be Ebay.

Advertising- is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. An example of advertising is media advertising such as television advertisements.

Infomediary- a company works as a personal agent on behalf of consumers to help them take control over information gathered about them for use by marketers and advertisers. An example of an infomediary would be Double Click.

Merchant- they function as professionals who deal with trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to produce profit. An example would be New Generation clothing, or any store for that matter.

Manufacturer (Direct)- a company that manufactures and distributes products to other companies to sell. This is usually done in mass production and reaps the benefits such as high output volume and low unit costs. An example of a type of manufacturer is a console manufacturer such as Nintendo who have the longest running company in the market for game consoles.

Affiliate- Used to affiliate the website with something else, usually a major brand or something with mainstream recognition. For example a network affiliate (or affiliated station) is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the program line-up of a television or radio network, but is owned by a company other than the owner of the network.

Community- These business models involve a lot of investment by the consumer in terms of time and emotions. These are models which are based on social networking such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Subscription- The subscription business model is a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product or service. The model was pioneered by magazines and newspapers, but is now used by many businesses and websites. An example of this is a magazine subscription, e.g. Cleo.

Utility- In economics, utility is a measure of the relative satisfaction from, or desirability of, consumption of various goods and services. It can also measure meter usage, like a car meter using a pay as you go type of method. An example of a utility is Internet Service Providers as they charge customers per minute of usage.

1) What is the Mobile phone use /100 population - compare Australia, USA, China, India, Your Country

2) Internet use / 100 population - compare Australia, USA, China, India, Your Country

3) Compare main strengths and weaknesses of Australia or your home country in the survey

4) What does the survey suggest to you about the Information Technology readiness of Australian business compared to Australian consumers?

Week 4 Web Analytics

1) Looking at the site useage, what does the terms visits, page views and pages/visit mean? What does the bounce rate mean and does it vary much from day to day?

Visits is a site usage metric which count users that visits your site. The initial session by a user during any given date range is considered to be an additional visit and an additional visitor. Any future sessions from the same user during the selected time period are counted as additional visits, but not as additional visitors

Page Views indicates the total number of pageviews for your site when applied over the selected dimension. For example, if you select this metric together with Request URI, it will return the number of page views over the returned result set for the Request URI for your report.

Pages/visit is the average number of pageviews when the a single user visits your site during a single session.

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). It changes day to day because user may only needs the information from your first page where as other times the users may need to stay on your website for longer to find their required information.

2) Now look at the traffic sources report. What are the three sources of traffic and where has most of the traffic come from?

The three sources of traffic are search, referral and direct traffic.

Search traffic comes from visitors arriving the site through links from search result page of a search website, for example through Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Referral traffic comes from visitors arriving the site through links from another site or other parts of the web.

Direct traffic comes from visitors arriving the site through either typing the URL into the browser's address bar; or clicking stored bookmark; or through link from an email or other forms or communication to the visitor.

Most of search comes from Search.

Source: www.google.com/analytics/
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2916-Understanding-Traffic-Sources-in-Google-Analytics

3) What was the most popular web browser used to access the site?

Between 05/04/2012 to 05/05/2012 the most popular browser was Safari.

4) How many countries did visitors to Foliospaces come from and what were the top four countries?

75 Countries, and the top four countries during the periods in descending orders are United States, Australia, United Kingdom and South Korea.

5) Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on (a) What you can track, (b) What you can track over time and (c) What you can’t track.



a) Google Analytics allows you to track the data relating to below areas and also allows custom data

Audience
Demographics (language, Location)
Behaviour (New vs Returning, Frequency & Recency, engagement)
Technology (Browser & OS, Network)
Mobile (Overview, Devices)
Visitor Flow

Advertising
AdWords (Campaigns, Keywords, Matched Search Queries, Day Parts, Destination URLs, Placements, Keyword Positions, TV Ads)

Traffic Sources
Sources (Direct, Referrals, Search, Campaigns)
Search Engine Optimization (Queries, Landing Pages)
Social (Sources, Pages, Conversions, Social Plugins, Social Visitors Flow)

Content
Site Content (Pages, Content Drilldown, Landing Pages, Exit Pages)
Site Speed (Overview, Page timing, user timing)
Site Search (Usage, search terms, pages)
Events (top events, pages, event flow)
AdSense (Adsense Pages, Referrers)
In-Page Analytics
Conversions
Goals (goal URLs, reverse goal path, funnel visualization, goal flow)
Ecommernce (product performance, sales performence, transations, time to purchase)
Multi-Channel Funnels (Assested conversions, top conversion paths, time lag, Path Length)

b) All above data can be tracked over time.

c) Google Analytics is very comprehensive and not all of its features will be used. Certain areas such as Events, AdSense, COnversions requires other components and activations which was not part of the Foliospace data set.

6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few, you may like to add some more yourself.



high bounce rate - Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

key words - keywords can be defined as the specific terms used by person to search for something on the net.

Average Page Depth - The average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session.

click through rate - is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website. The clickthrough rate of an advertisement is defined as the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad is shown (impressions), expressed as a percentage. For example, if a banner ad is delivered 100 times (100 impressions) and receives one click, then the clickthrough rate for the advertisement would be 1%.

click - Computer Science An instance of pressing down and releasing a button on a pointing device, such as a mouse.

Cookie - A cookie is information that a Web site puts on your hard disk so that it can remember something about you at a later time. (More technically, it is information for future use that is stored by the server on the client side of a client/server communication.) Typically, a cookie records your preferences when using a particular site. Using the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), each request for a Web page is independent of all other requests. For this reason, the Web page server has no memory of what pages it has sent to a user previously or anything about your previous visits. A cookie is a mechanism that allows the server to store its own information about a user on the user's own computer.
Source: http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/cookie

Impression - Measure of internet use that may be defined as (1) The viewing of a web page or internet advertisement by an internet user or (2) the request by an internet user to see a particular web page or internet advertisement.
Source: http://www.agbnielsen.net/glossary/gloss

Hyperlink - a link from a hypertext file to another location or file; typically activated by clicking on a highlighted word or icon at a particular location on the screen
Source: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Navigation - To move around on the World Wide Web by following hypertext paths from document to document on different computers.
Source: www.ebtco.com/english/support/glossary/index.php

Pageview - Number of times your webpage was viewed. Includes duplicate views by the same visitor.
Source: www.discountclick.com/help/seo/glossary.asp

Session - An HTTP session is a sequence of network request-response transactions. An HTTP client initiates a request by establishing a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection to a particular port on a server (typically port 80; see List of TCP and UDP port numbers). An HTTP server listening on that port waits for a client's request message. Upon receiving the request, the server sends back a status line, such as "HTTP/1.1 200 OK", and a message of its own. The body of this message is typically the requested resource, although an error message or other information may also be returned.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP#HTTP_session

Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors) - Is a measure of the amount of unique people who visit a site, or click on a link in a given amount of time. While a single person could tally multiple page views by reloading a page, it will still count as a single unique visitor.
Source: www.affiliatetemple.com/affiliate-glossary/

URL - Uniform (or universal) resource locator, the address of a Web page
Source: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Visitor - The number of individuals who visit a particular website.
Source: imtips.co/blog-terms.html

Visitor Session - a time period marking one complete visit by a user to a website from start to finish. There is usually a set length of time necessary for the visit to be regarded as complete.
Source: www.comcorp.com/resources/internet-marketing-glossary.html

Comparison shopping - To shop for bargains by comparing the prices of competing brands or stores online.
Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/comparison-shop#ixzz1u5c01enT

Week Three

1) This week we are looking at Digital Design. Look at the Powerpoint presentation and explore some of the links. I recommend spending a good deal of time looking at 'Web Pages That Suck'



2) Listen to the podcast or read the transcript Digital Design on the Digital Enterprise page.



Questions

1. In two paragraphs explain why a customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish

Customer-centric design is design centered around what the customer wants (as opposed to what the company wants).  To do this, you have to always keep in mind why the customer came to your site and make it as easy as possible for them to accomplish their goals. In the end it is the customer are the users of web site. If the customer find it difficult to use or provides a frustrating experience then it is unlikely the customer will continue with the purchase or use the website. Since the switching cost of the using another competitor's website is so low and convenient it is essential for the website to be customer centric. T

It is hard to accomplish the customer centric focus because there is so many elements that must come together and work well together. Many company design their website without consulting the end user, if that is the case websites are unlikely to be customer centric. There is five basic element for an website to be effective at servicing the customer's needs; facilitate the evaluation of competing business and products; able to easily select the product and make a transaction; ability to get help; provide avenue for customer to provide feedback; and the last element is to keep customer informed and offer them incentives to come back. There is many ways a websites that can approach those 5 elements and what works well for one website may not work to well in another. Furthermore websites are continually evolving and improving the customer experience delivered, therefore the notion of customer centric website is a moving goal post. This further complicate companies who want to build a customer centric website as what is considered to be customer centric website maybe outdated by the time it goes live.

Source: Rappa M. (2005). Digital Design. Retrieved on April 20, 2012 from: http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/design_tr.html

2. Define the term 'presence'. Write an additional paragraph that describes why firms that do business on the Web should be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world.

Presence is defined as ‘the impression that something is present’. Web presence is the digital impression of the an entity achieved through interactions in the digital environment. A business start its web presence through the creation of a web site, thus represented in the Internet. However, without an audience or people who visit the website, it will have no function and its presence will not be realised.

Web based business are concerned with presence as it is made up of customer interactions, which without would mean there is no customer visiting the site or having known of its existence. Web presence requires not only the existence of the web site, it also requires site visitors for it to be present. However attracting the visitors is the first hard step of an online business. The physical business can build "physical" presence and attract customers through strong advertisement and big physical footprint to indicate its size. This can also drive customers through to the physical business's website. Online only business on the other  has no such luxury, they must build their presence through links, web banner, search engines and any traditional advertising methods. Those are the only way do drive the customers to their website, so naturally they are more concerned with presence than physical business.

3. Write three paragraphs to briefly describe the things that Real Estate Agents can best accomplish through (1) their web sites (2) Mass media advertising (3) Personal contact

Website is a great two way platform that for Real Estate Agents to reach a large sections of the audience with out been limited by location barrier. It can display, categories and index a large amount of information regarding the properties in the Agents' portfolio and the Agents themselves. It allows interested party to obtain information through browsing and search, which often answers many of questions they may have. This in turn saves time, better inform the potential customers, reduce misunderstanding and generally provides a better customer experience. Furthermore agents don't have deal with each and every potential buyers personally. It can act as a filtering process that reduce the number of interested parties to only those who are serious about buying the property. Furthermore website allows the agents to reach out by buyers irrespective of his/her location. For example an investor in China could view what property in the Agent's portfolio. Also website can have the function or give instruction for the audience to contact the agents regarding properties. Thus, allowing the two parties to engage each other according their own convenience. Lastly website can be easily updated so the most current information is available, thus reducing the potential for wasting customers' time and causing confusion.

Mass media advertising - great for communicating to a large group of targeted audience a short and important information. Due to is one way nature, cost and length, it agents will usually use it to advertise themselves or a major offer or promotion to attract lots of interests in a short amount of time. For example they have a major new developments with large number of land blocks to be release to the market. It may choose to perform mass media advertising to attract as many potential buyer as possible in a short amount of time.

Personal contact due to its nature is best saved for those one-on-one negotiations with the most serious buyer and sellers. It is the most effective way to build trust and rapport between individuals. Also it is usually the fastest way to answer any questions that the seller and buyer may have. The personal contact helps to assures the party and are critical in engaging in such a large financial and emotional transaction between the involved parties.

Week Two - Navigating the web

Part 1 - Navigation


a) What are the four (4) main points Michael Rappa makes about search? Please write them on your blog page. 


1. People rarely use or know to use tags special characters to define the enhance their query, thus displaying a less accurate result.


2. Search engine is a database made up of urls, associated key words, text and or images. It is compiled through each search engine's own mechanism and is only an approximation of all the countless information on the web. It is nearly impossible to collect and compile all of the information on the internet due to the exponential growth and the information stored in servers and database that forbid the search engine's access to it.


Some search engines used human to gather and categorize the urls, however this has proven as a time consuming and complex process. So now most search site relies on auto-collection mechanism. For example Google-bot which "crawls" website for the required information. 


3. The preferred and the most widely used search protocol from search are natural language, which is similar to the questions one would ask an expert who knows the answer.


4. Search engines use algorithms rank the millions of links from a single search to provide the user with the most useful information.


Source: Rappa M. (2005). Navigating the Web [MP3]. Retrieved on March 9, 2012 from: http://digitalenterprise.org/podcasts/navigation.mp3


b) Watch or read the Marissa Mayer interview. Marissa says 'search is in its infancy'. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? What is your personal experience with search? There are no right or wrong answers here, I just want your opinion.


I definitely agree with the comment regarding search is in its infancy. It has come a long way since the very first search engine in terms of search speed, indexing and result optimization. However the principle behind how it display search results as a bunch of links and users needs to then click into the link in order assess themselves if it the right result they wanted has remained the same. Currently search engine still acts as a middle layer that semi-connect the user and the information they needed. I believe search engine need to be smarter in grouping of results and display them in a coherent and logical response to the search query, not just hundred of pages of links. User don't want and don't need millions of links from a single search query. They just want their query to be answered.


Current search engine for most part lacks the understanding of the user's intention and the situation. For example the current query of "How to tie a knot" will elicit the same response irrespective of who is search this query. People such as rock climber, ship crews, people who likes knitting may all use this search string but expecting totally different response. In the current state they are all likely to receive the same answer from the Search Engine. Search engines should also utilize the smart sensor network in providing user with useful information. For example if user search the travel time between Point A - point B, it should take into account of the Smart sensor which can calculate the real-time travelling time. Also using the range of smart sensors, if the person searched the above query while he is on the trains. The train line travelling time should then be included in the result.


Source: Arrington M. (2009). Marissa Mayer On Charlie Rose: The Future Of Google, Future Of Search. Retrieved on March 9, 2012 from: http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/06/marissa-mayer-on-charlie-rose-the-future-of-google


Part 2 - History of the Internet


a) So what are the 6 webs?




1. The Near Web: the Internet that you see everyday through a computer screen.
2. The Here Web: the Internet that is always accessible where ever you go through the mobile devices that you carry, for example through a smart phone or tablet.
3. The Far Web: the Internet you see when you sit in front of a big screen, the distance between you and the screen is further hence the far screen and method of interaction is different, for example in front a television.
4. The Weird Web: the Internet you access through smart and intelligent system that knows how to interpret your intentions through your body, for example hand gestures, body position and voices. The system then translate those interpretations into instructions  in access the Internet.
5. B2B: the Internet which is not aimed at consumption or creation of content by people, but rather purely machine to machine interactions between big businesses.
6. D2D: the Internet which uses network of smart sensors to understand and communicate environmental and situation information. The information gained from such sensor networks can be used for example to adjusting urban systems for maximum efficiency.


Source: Joy B. (2005). The Six Webs: 10 years On. Retrieved on March 11, 2011 from: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/324


b) Could there be more?


I believe the short answer is yes, however dependent on the time frame. Technology changes over time, and will eventually breaks down traditionally school of thoughts such as this.


One example is the new Google glass, where it use a transparent LCD or AMOLED display to put information in front of your eyeballs. At first glance it is part of the here web, however user will be able to scroll and click on information by tilting your head and have voice command /input which is the characteristics of the weird web. It also relies on the D2D web using its sensors such as camera and GPS to be location aware and communicate to other smart sensor to provide information such as traffic status, public transportation status, weather, humidity...etc.


I believe with the convergence and the advancement of technology some of the 6 webs will combine and the distinction between them will become blurred.


c) What does it mean for business?


Business should view the 6 webs as different area to engage in their customers or areas where they can achieve operational efficiency. They need to understand the current and future Internet technology & trends; and overlay it with 6 webs to identify areas of differentiation opportunities. Businesses need to undertake continuous improvement and innovations to remain engaged in the ways that their consumers are using the web. This is because technology and Internet usage trend is consistently changing, such is raise of the smart phone in recent years fundamentally altered the ways which individuals access the Internet. Company needs to respond to their customers usage trends, for example by developing mobile apps that leverage the Internet ability of the Smart phones. 


Also technology innovations allows competitors to redefine the market place and industry, so business needs to not only aware of the consumer trends but also the competitors' actions. This further highlight the need for company to continuously prepared for changes if they want to remain competitive. For example Internet through the big screen (TV) is seen as the next big thing after mobile devices. As such companies are all scrambling to introduce their version of the Far Web. Google is pushing their android based TV user environment, while Apple are consistently upgrading their version. TV companies such as Sony and Samsung are all also pushing their own versions.

Week One - Introduction to eBusiness

1) Internet risks – give examples of four things that could go wrong with a transactional web site?
- Security controls for safeguarding customer information;
- Raise of credit card fraud could contribute to financial losses if the website lack adequate identification process;
- Ability to scale upwards in case of large volume of customer demand;
- Suspect-able to cyber attack that could compromise corporate information;and cause website to be unavailable to customers.

2) Writedown a definition for each:

a) E-commerce: refers to online transactions - buying and selling of goods and/or services over the Internet.

b) E-business: covers online transactions, but also extends to all Internet based interactions with business partners, suppliers and customers such as: selling direct to consumers, manufacturers and suppliers; monitoring and exchanging information; auctioning surplus inventory; and collaborative product design. These online interactions are aimed at improving or transforming business processes and efficiency.
Source: http://www.austrade.gov.au/e-business-versus-e-commerce/default.aspx

3) What is the difference between buy side and sell side eCommerce?

Buy-side e-commerce refers to transactions to procure resources needed by an organization from its suppliers. Sell-side e-commerce refers to transactions involved with selling products to an organization’s customers.

Source: http://www.davechaffey.com/E-business/C1-Introduction/E-business-E-commerce-defined

4) Describe the different types of eBusiness

a) B2B commerce - it is that business activity in which 2 firm or business units make electronic transaction in which 1 can be a producer firm and other are raw material supplier firm.
b) B2C commerce - in B2C commerce, 1 party is the firm and other party is a customer. on the one hand, customer can seek information, can place an order, get some items on the Internet and can also make the payment. on the other hand, a firm can make a survey to know, who buying what and can also know satisfaction level of customer. a firm can also make delivery of goods like air and train tickets etc.
c) intra B commerce - under this, the parties involved are 2 persons or departments of some business unit. use of computer network makes it possible for the marketing department to interact constantly with the production. a firms transactions or interactions with its employees are some time refer to as B to E commerce. employees can use electronic catalogue and ordering forms.
d) C to C commerce- under C to C commerce, both the parties involved are customers. it is required for buying and selling of those goods for which there is no established markets are available.

Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_types_of_e-business

5) Which digital technology has the highest penetration rate? Explain and source your answer.

The digital technology which has the highest penetration rate is mobile phones. According to the Information Society Report (2011) from the International Telecommunication Union the global mobile phone technology penetration rate is at 78% by the end of 2010. This is not surprising given the reduction in the cost of mobile services; introduction of low end and low cost mobile phones; proliferation of mobile technology in third world and developing countries; Introduction of 3G networks and the dominance of smartphone technology in developed countries.  

Source: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/

6) List: Four drivers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.

a) Expansion of their market - Businesses can become restricted to doing business within the geographic area they serve. It can be beneficial for businesses to utilize sell-side e-commerce to increase the amount of consumers they can target across a larger geographic area.


b) Decrease amount of inventory needed - The use of this driving force is the business would be able to implement a Just in time distribution system reducing the amount of inventory they would need to store, thus freeing-up capital for other endeavors.


c) Reduced Costs - This driving force is a critical driver to sell-side e-commerce by a business because the reduced costs by not having physical space to pay rent or purchase for the operation of the business. As well staff costs and the business is not a heavily impact by external changes in legislation and new laws, there is an impact but can be limited.


d) Reduced risk of Cost - An example of this is when a store owner closes their store at 5pm their oppurtunity to trade and sell their product and/or service has finished. So the benefit or driving force behind e-commerce is that the business can trade 24/7 and aren't limited by time or products available.biles are increasingly popular and increasing globally (Pearce, 2009).

7) List: Four barriers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.

a) Poor infrastructure/lack of distribution channel - Many developing countries do not have the infrastructure to support normal travel throughout every region of their nation. Therefore a business owner in a developing nation might hesitate to utilize new business techniques through e-commerce, simply because their country does not possess adequate infrastructure to support the distribution channel they will need in order to succeed. 


b) Cost/lack of knowledge - Many developing countries are isolated in regards to regular commerce with developed countries. Therefore if a business owner in a developing country wanted to build a website and begin to utilize sell-side e-commerce, they might be scared off the idea due to their own inexperience and the sequential costs associated with building and marketing a website. 


c) Quality of life/Distribution of wealth - As is the case in developed countries, many developing countries’ citizens live in poverty. Many developing countries citizens do not have access to clean water and food on a regular basis; forget about access to the internet and credit cards. Therefore it would be difficult to sell a business owner on the benefits of sell-side e-commerce when a large percentage of his fellow citizens do not have the means to become his customers. 


d) e-Commerce Security and Fraud - Suspect-able to cyber attack that could compromise corporate information;and cause website to be unavailable to customers. Needs strong security measures for safeguarding customer information. Also with there is a trend of raising of credit card fraud could costly to the business 

8) How might a restaurant benefit from an online presence?

Benefits of restaurant having an online presence may include:
Cost reduction - reduction in time needed to handle common questions and calls from patrons, ie menu, location. price and opening time.
New capability - may include allowing patrons to leave feedback, make a booking online, joining royalty program of the restaurant.
Communication - Patron able to find out the menu, location. price and opening time. Also any news & events can be communicated to the customers easily.
Customer service - customer's expectation of a website, ability to reduce customer confusion.
Control - control the content, ensure a consistent and coherent image and message is present to the customers.
Competitive advantage - customers are likely to do research on restaurants, a web presence ensure the customer knows the existence of restaurant. Also menu, food images, video and seamless booking and communication experience will ensure customer form a positive opinion with the restaurant, making the customer wanting to visit the restaurant.

9) What are some examples of Digital information?

- Internet
- Mobile Phones
- CD's
- DVD's
- Bluray
- Television 
- Digital Camera's
- E-books
- Video Game Consoles
- Video on Demand (Youtube)
- Twitter
- Social Network Sites
- Blogs

10) What is the semantic web? Are we there yet?

The semantic web is designed to allow machines inter-operate and process data without the aid of humans. It should be more direct and more useful for users as it finds information and data which is relevant to what the user wants. According to the term's creator Tim Berners-Lee, "it is a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines"


Currently there are stand-alone example of semantic web project and tools, such as the search engine Alpha wolfram, which can be seen as a limited example of the semantic web. However over all the we have not yet achieve true semantic web that as the world wide web is still dominated by traditional search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web#Current_state_of_standardization