Matt Hams eBusiness Blog

Week 12

2011-11-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

Ok so this will be the last post for this course. This week we are looking at Security, privacy and IP.

Question 1 -

See if you can find an example of a privacy breach that was reported in the Australian or international news in the last 6 months. What were the consequences? i.e. legal, political, financial, personal etc. What action was taken in response to the privacy breach?

Well I'm am guessing that every one in the class will be talking about the same thing for this question. The News International Phone Hacking Scandal has been one of the biggest examples of breaches of privacy of our time.
Staff of the Newspaper were accused of Hacking into the phone message banks of celebrities, politicians and the Royal Family as well as relatives of solders killed in Afghanistan and families of victims of crime. The news paper then published stories about the people using the private content of their messages.
As a consequence there was an inquiry into the scandal, people lost their jobs, people high up in the news paper resigned and the whistle blower Sean Hoare was found dead in "unexplained circumstances (S, Rogers & K, Pedersen, 2011) for a comprehensive timeline and compleate overview of the whole scandle click here and you can see The Gaurdian's coverage of the scandle.

Some of the main consequences of the scandal included:

the aressts of seinior staff
the resignation of staff
the death of the whistle blower
the closing of the news paper after 168 years of publication (S, Rogers & K, Pedersen, 2011)
huge financial losses for the company

Bellow is some footage of the inquiry being announced to parliament.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRBwzgYNwF4
References

S, Rogers & K, Pedersen (2011, July 21). Phone hacking: what happened when? Visualised [interactive timeline table] The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/jul/21/phone-hacking-what-happened-when

WEEK 11

2011-11-04T00:46:00.000-07:00

This week we are looking at Web 2.0

Exercise - select five applications that you have not heard of before from Popular URL's Web 2.0 awards or the webware awards and describe on your blog page how they could be useful to a business.

First Site: OpenTable.com
Category: Location-based services

OpenTable is an online reservation service. It lets people find reservations at local restaurants and book them from their computer or mobile phone; all the while, not having to use the traditional system of calling or visiting the restaurants in person (Webware, 2009).

Along with its reservation system, OpenTable also maintains a database of restaurant information and reviews from both its users and partners. Similar to Yelp and CitySearch, this lets people recommend or discourage restaurants in OpenTable's database. Those reviews show up to other users when they do a search or while they plan to book a reservation (Webware, 2009).

This app would be useful to business to help attract new customers. It would be particularly useful to new businesses. In urban areas it can often be difficult to find a restaurant with a vacant table on a Saturday night. This app would allow restaurants to attract new customers and also help increase the amount of customers coming through the restaurant each night. An example of how this might directly benefit a business is, if there was a restaurant out of the way a little that the customer had never heard of if this app alerted the customer to the restaurant and the customer enjoyed the food and the service, the restaurant will most likely gain a new customer. This new customer will then also tell others so there is a flow on effect.

A possible negative to the app for a business is the fact that people can post reviews. So there is always the chance of negative feedback.

Here is a screen shot of what the user will see when they use the app.

Figure 1.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13546_109-10237740-29.html?tag=mncol

Second Site: FlightStats.com
Category: Location-based services

FlightStats mashes up the real-time flight information with Google Maps. Like other flight trackers, it shows scheduled departure and landing times, as well as actual take-off and projected landing. It will also send you e-mail or SMS alerts if the flight status changes, which is highly useful if your carrier or Web ticketing service doesn't offer such a feature (Webware, 2009)

FlightStats also has a very good mobile-friendly site and applications for certain handsets. It's the one you'll use when you're hanging around in the airport wondering just how far away a flight you're waiting for is (Webware, 2009)

This app would be useful to airline companies to help reduce the amount of time staff spent dealing with customers asking questions. It would be particularly helpful during extreme events such as the Chilean volcanic eruption earlier this year. During times like this staff have enough to deal with so if something could deal with the masses of questions automatically that would be very useful. Below is a screen shot of what the user would see when on the site.

(Credit: CNET)

Figure 2.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13546_109-10237744-29.html?tag=mncol

Third Site: GoodGuide
Category: Editors' Choice, Best Newcomer

We created the Editors' Choice awards for products like this: Small and relatively unknown products that demonstrate real leadership, but that don't yet have enough traction to win in the user vote part of the Webware 100 (Webware, 2009).

GoodGuide is a product recommendation system focused on "safe, healthy, and green products." It will tell you what chemicals are in your toothpaste, or if your socks are made with sweatshop labour (Webware, 2009).

The company's real value add is in acquiring the data on the products. There's an iPhone app for the service as well, so you can check on items when you're out shopping. As we said when the site launched: It's a simple story. But it's told very well (Webware, 2009).

This app would be very useful to businesses in the health food industry. Businesses that create foods and products that don't have harmful chemical in them could use this app as a way of getting the word out about their product. Bellow is an image of what the user would see when on the site.

Figure 3.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13546_109-10240169-29.html?tag=mncol

Fourth Site: Yelp.com
Category: Location-based services

Yelp is an online reviews service for local eateries and attractions. Users can leave reviews for any business they've been to, including photos and personal anecdotes. Yelp then gives the establishment a 1-5 star rating based on the total number of user ratings, which makes it easy to find out whether or not a restaurant is worth going to (Webware, 2009).

Yelp's service can also be found on mobile devices, both as a mobile-friendly Web app and a native client where users can pen in the beginnings of a new review while out and about (Webware, 2009).

In the past year Yelp has suffered harsh criticisms for its advertising program, which targets businesses that want to improve the way their review pages look. Businesses that pay can remove on-page recommendations for competing restaurants, and select a single user review to go on top of all the others. In response to claims that this was giving businesses a leg up, Yelp recently introduced a way for business owners to publicly respond to user reviews (both good and bad), so that all other users can see (Webware, 2009).

This app would be useful to business in the same way as the first one was. This site has the added feature of the restaurant owner being able to respond to bad feedback. This would need to be carefully thought out though as sometimes getting into a public mudslinging contest is the worst publicity of all. Below is a screen shot of what users would see while on the site.

Figure 4.
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13546_109-10240169-29.html?tag=mncol

Fifth Site: Google.com/goog411
Category: Location-based services

Goog411 (1-800-GOOG-411) was introduced in early 2007 as a way to access Google search results on your mobile phone. It's the equivalent of dialling 411, but it's free, and pulls multiple listings like the ones you'd get from a search in Google Maps. Mobile phone users can get listings sent to their phone via SMS, including telephone numbers and full addresses. You can also be connected to a business for free (Webware, 2009).

The entire service runs off voice-recognition technology, which has since been baked into other Google products, including Google's motion-activated iPhone app. Also, if the voice-recognition ever fails, you can simply dial in the name of the business you're looking for using your phone's keypad (Webware, 2009).

This app would be useful to businesses as just like Google it’s self the app tells the user how to contact the business and makes it easier for the user to contact the business. I would think that being Google there is also the ability for businesses to pay to have their business come up as a preference, simular to Google ads in the search engine. This would then become another way for businesses to get their name out to consumers.

References

Webware Staff, (2009, May 19).Webware winner 100: Open Table.CNET. Retrieved from http://www.webware.com/100/?tag=rb_content;overviewHead

Webware Staff, (2009, May 19).Webware winner 100: Open Table.CNET. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13546_109-10240169-29.html?tag=mncol

Week Ten

2011-10-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

This week we are looking at trust. There has been no in class session this week.

1) What is meant by the following statements?

Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)

This means that trust is not necessarily the same on both sides of the transaction or any other situation. Say for a simple example, I trust my wife to remember to pick up a birthday card for my mum. This does not mean my wife would trust me to remember to pick one up for her mum. In business an example of this would be that a seller may trust that the buyer will hold up their end of the deal and transfer the money for a product or service but the buyer may not have the same amount of trust that the seller will deliver what they have promised.

Trust is not transitive

I think that what is meant by this statement is that trust will not be transferred from one party to the next just through association. For example if a manufacturer trusts their wholesaler it doesn't mean that they will automatically trust the retailer that the wholesaler on sells their product to.

Trust is always between exactly 2 parties.

this statement means that the trust in any transaction is between the two parties that the transaction is between. for example in a situation where a manufacturer sells to a wholesaler and then the wholesaler sells to a retailer, the retailer only has to trust the wholesaler to provide the goods. the same retailer may not even know the manufacturer, the trust for the manufacturer lies between them and the wholesaler.

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommended trust

recommended trust is where one party recommends trust of a third party to someone. for example if a manufacturer trusts their wholesaler they may recommend them to another manufacturer, assuming that this manufacturer trusts the person making the recommendation then they will most likely take on the trust recommended.

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.au/
http://www.anz.com.au/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/
http://www.paypal.com.au/

After looking at all of these sites here is a list of elements I think have been put in to increase trust.

Contact us page
Sign in/log in pages, registration.
Customer support and help pages.
Legal agreements, Product disclosure statements, user agreements, terms of use pages, privacy policy's, security statements.
Safety advice pages.
Feed back forums.
secure payment sites recognisable by the padlock symbol or the https as seen in the picture opposite.
Give out phone numbers.
Use pictures of people and families to evoke a feeling that other people use and run the site.

2b) Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.

Here is a website that I think is untrustworthy, for a start look at the URL it is so long

http://lpau.zemgoogs.com/lp.aspx?LpID=329943&PartnerID=kintris&subid=10212015211915352111025&offer_id=52&aff_sub=RwQAADkXHgCiW50AAAAAAOjjJgAAAAAAAgAAAAYAAAAAAP8AAAADExBVMQAAAAAA9uUyAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB3cRIAAAAAAAIAAgAAAAAAVvvvOTMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=,eAEL9HPP8KzKT8.NSzaO1MstNs3xM7TQ88txqUqOt8x2L830d.VOS9fVBQAX.A1P&aff_sub2=&aff_sub3=

Another reason I think of this site as untrustworthy is because the picture below is a screen shot of the link to it from another site http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/ it has said this every time I have visited the host site. Any site that miss leads people like that, I would consider untrustworthy.

Week Nine

2011-10-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

So this week we are looking at channel conflict. There have been no questions set for this week so I am just going to note some of the key issues of channel conflict. All of the points are taken from Ian Knox' week 9 write up and lecture slides on channel conflict.

Access to the Internet has given buyers opportunities that may affect what they purchase, when and where they take their business.
Sellers can reach large numbers of any time of the day and reach beyond the geographical limits of their store.
Channel conflict occurs when manufactures or brand owners begin to sell direct to the consumer, cutting out their wholesalers and retailers.
Channel conflict can be defined as any situation where two different marketing or distribution channels are competing for the same sale with the same brand.
Channel conflict can occur between an off line bricks and mortar store and the same stores online store as retail employees feel threatened.
Conflict can be direct, internal or external.
Conflict can be found at any stage of the business process including pricing, order handling, delivery, service and repair, customer service and resistance to change.
If there is no strategies to manage conflict brands may 'cannibalise'.
Neither brands nor retailers can rely on customer loyalty. (Knox, 2011)

Unfortunately I think I missed the sale of the old car put on eBay. When I clicked on the link it just said the item was unavailable.

References

Knox, I (2011). Topic 9 Channel conflict. [PowerPoint slides]. BC501: eBusiness Fundamentals. UB, EG TAFE.

Week Eight.

2011-10-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

OK so this week we are looking at online auctions and in particular eBay.

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?

eBay's business model is a broker. One of the major reasons for its success is eBay's diversity. Over the past decade it has branched out into all different facets of facilitating transactions. eBay now offers listings at a fixed price, it has become involved with payment processing with the acquisition of paypal, it facilitates person to person communication with the acquisition of Skye and is also moving into the classified market with a 25% share of Craigslist (Rapper, 2008). eBay has not allowed it's self to become stagnate and has moved and grown with the demand for its service.

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?

eBay was one of the few sites to be profitable right from the start. The company has managed to maintain its dominant position by using the Internet to bring large numbers of people together at a low cost. Amazon.com had to invest and invest before it became profitable and has to continue to invest constantly. Amazon has much higher overheads that eBay. These include huge inventory costs, warehousing, staff and dispatch costs. eBay on the other hand has very few overheads, it takes no possession of goods and simply charges a fee. I think eBay is also very clever in the way it makes its money, it charges you at every chance it gets, when you sell, when you buy and now with the acquisition of pay pal it charges you when you pay. Yet because the amounts are quite small this does not put people off. When you consider the fact that eBay has very little to do with each transaction and there are 68 million active users (Rapper, 2008), it is a very successful money making machine.

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?

Through their security center eBay offers tutorials on safety procedures such as, identity safety, computer safety and how to avoid fraud. This center has a reporting tab where users can report fraud it also has a link that security software developers can click on and inform eBay if they have identified a security vulnerability.

Another method used is the Feed Back and rating system, this system allows users to leave comments and rate other users on their performance as a buyer of seller. This is a very useful tool and allows users to benefit from the past experiences of other users.

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?

eBay promotes the community concept because for the site to be successful it needs it's customers (both buyers and sellers) to participate in a manner that recognises a shared interest. Rapper (2008) states that "both buyers and sellers must take a vested interest in the overall soundness of eBay as a broker." The reason that this is so important to eBay is because of the company's limited ability to grantee satisfaction. eBay's success is largely based on the overall success of it's community of users.

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?

The attraction of eBay for all types of sellers including brand name vendors include:

The ability to maximise prices and achieve the highest possible price.
The obvious benefits that come with the global exposure to 168 million registered users (Rapper, 2008).
The ability to reach a wider audience or market than that which is geographically possible.
The relative low overheads that are associated with any online business, as opposed to a bricks and mortar outlet.
The fact that eBay has such sound and proven systems in place to handle the transaction, this is much easier than trying to reinvent the wheel.

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 you think changed?

In July eBay changed the way it charges for listing books and music. From what I understand the fee system is now a fixed system that takes less from the seller and makes it more viable for a seller to sell items that are sold at a lower cost.

Additional (optional) task: If not already a member, join eBay and explore the functions of the site (optional). Consider making a purchase, or perhaps try your hand at selling. Auctions are impacting on all aspects of business so it is useful to understand how they work.

I have up until recently had nothing to do with eBay. But actually, after the lecture where Ian Knox came in and chatted to us about his son's online business I decided to give it a go. I remember thinking about what Ian said about not necessarily needing to come up with a new idea. I did some research on what people were selling on eBay and what I could buy from other sites such as Ali express. The thing I came up with that was selling well and that I could purchase at the right price was leather IPhone 4 cases. I purchased a package of 50 cases from China that worked out to cost $2 each. I have put them on eBay at a buy now price of $6.50 inc postage and I also have put some on auction (I have put in a screen shot of my sale page rather than a link to the sale as I figured it would not work once the sale finished). It has been an interesting experiment but hardly one that is going to make me rich. I have found it is a very difficult market to break into and that the margins are very low. It is difficult to get your product to come up high in the consumer search with out paying for the privilege, and if you do pay for it then you loose the majority of your profit. I am sure that the more you did this the better you would become at it and that you would learn the tricks that help maximise your profitability. For now I think I'll stick to my day job. and try to think of another use for a heap of leather IPhone cases, on that note if there was anyone who wanted a leather case for their IPhone, get in quick, I only have about 48 left and with the release of the IPhone 5 any day now these will be a collectors item in no time........ (yes, I am being sarcastic).

References.

Rapper, M. (2008). CASE STUDY: EBAY. On Managing the digital enterprise [web audio]. North Carolina, USA:

Week Seven

2011-09-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

Ok so this week we had a lecture at SEATS to discuss the test and the Blog requirements. I have done the test and got 22/30 on the multiple choice questions.
This week we are looking at Digital Automata. I have had a little trouble with Moodle this week, there was a second power point presentation with a voice over but I could not get it to work.

1) Check this link to my ‘intelligent’ cybertwin which I also mentioned in the Powerpoint. You may like to create your own cybertwin as well. The more you 'train' your twin, the better the responses will be. While it is just a fun exercise, Think of the opportunities. Imagine if we had a cybertwin that could answer your questions about the course. Or perhaps a shopping assistant?

So the first thing we were to do this week was check out Ian's cybertwin. I had a chat to 'him' and was fairly amused with the response. Having met Ian once I think his cybertwin has far less tact than the real Ian does. I think I would want my own twin to be a little nicer to people before I would let it represent me in business. That said the whole thing was fun and good for a laugh. Here is a copy of the conversation Ian's 'twin' and I had (the you in the transcript is referring to me and the conversation is highlighted):

You: Hi Ian how are you?

Ian: My brain aches all the time and I can't seem to get interested in anything but doom and gloom? Am I ill or just rotten?

You: maybe ill?

Ian: I am the ultimate being, master of the dark place behind the fridge. Do not say maybe to me.

Ian: Have you thought about studying eBusiness?

You: yes.

Ian: I will do what ever I want.

You: ok fair enough.

Ian: Really matt Hams, you must articulate at length if you are going to become dastardly in any effective kind of way!

Ian: What job do you se yourself doing in 10 years?

You: running my business in the pet industry.

Ian: Pets are a waste of money, that could otherwise be spent on dynamite or spraycans.
So there you have it..... A little strange I know.......

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

The Turing test is described as a test that assesses a machine's ability to think or understand. The tests original form was a person talking to another person and a computer. The conversation was text based from a key board and if the person conducting the test could not distinguish between the computer and the other person, then the computer passed the test. I am finding it hard to source my answer because I have read lots of different sites about this and this answer is my own spin on all that I have read. This article from Stanford university was interesting and discusses the test at length. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/

The Chinese room is an argument put forward by John Searle. From what I can gather Searle's main argument is that no machine truly has the ability to think and that all machines are limited to the depth of their programing. The analogy Searle uses is a good one and after my research I think I am with Searle. His analogy is that of a man in a room being passed notes under the door in Chinese. In the room the man has instructions about what he must do, these include some Chinese symbols that the man must copy and send back. If the man follows the instructions he need not know what the messages in Chinese say. In this same way a machine must only follow the instructions given to it to complete the task at hand. So if it follows the instructions (programing) given to it it will achieve the goal, yet it will not truly understand what it has done. A good example I thought of to demonstrate this would be if a computer was to be used to track fatalities in the military. The information could be processed by the machine and based on the numbers given to it, it could send out notice to the families of the deceased. However the machine would not understand that the information was sad, sensitive and that it may upset the family that is receiving it. the computer would achieve the goal but not with any consciousness about what it had done.

3) Can virtual agents succeed in delivering high-quality customer service over the Web? Think of examples which support or disprove the question or just offer an opinion based on your personal experience. Write you answer on your blog page or express an opinion on this voice discussion board (it's simple to join). If you choose this option please link (live in an hour or so) to it from your blog page.

I have answered this question on the voice discussion board click the link and you will be taken to the board and you will be able to hear my post.

Week Six

2011-09-11T01:07:00.000-07:00

Ok so this week has been another week in the online learning environment.

a) What experiences have you had with shopping online?

I have purchased:

· Clothing

· Books

· Movies and music (itunes)

b) Describe a good experience

A good experience I have had is the purchasing of books from Amazon. The prices are always competitive, and the delivery has always been reliable and to the date which the seller informed me the books would be arriving.

Another good experience is purchasing music from itunes. The systems that itunes have in place makes the whole transaction so easy. From search, to payment and retrieval of the purchase, the transaction is easy.

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

In both of the above cases, I liked the visual aspect of the sites (seeing the covers of the music or books), and the recommendations. This has meant that I have been able to find similar books and music etc that others have also been interested in, and this has lead to an addition purchase for me in alot of cases.

d) Describe a bad experience

A bad experience I have had is purchasing jeans from America. I purchased two pairs of jeans of the exact same size and brand, when they arrived one pair fit and the other pair didn’t. The jeans were cheaper to buy from America than Australia, but to post them back and have another pair sent which did fit would have meant that they were more expensive than purchasing in Australia. If I had purchased in store – I would have been able to try the jeans on, and would not have had this issue.

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

The problems with purchasing the jeans online was that the sizes were not reliable, which makes purchasing clothes online in general a very difficult experience. I have not purchased clothing online since, as if they do not fit, the benefit of the clothes being cheaper is lost.

f) What features make an online store more appealing?

For me, I like easy systems, as few a processes as possible to make a purchase, and I like to see pictures of what I am buying, regardless of what it is that I intend to purchase.

g) What features make an online store less appealing?

Confusing purchase processes, for example unable to find the checkout or where or how or too many options for payment.

The sites which operate on an infomediary business model such as we discussed last week make an online store less appealing for me. I don’t like the intrusive questions which are asked and are made mandatory before I can make my purchase. Quite often, if a site asks me too many questions which are not related to the immediate purchase, I will leave the site without buying anything.

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

In my opinion, the prices should continue to fall due to the migration of consumers online. As the demand increases for purchasing products and services online, more merchants will enter this market. For this reason, there will be more competition among sellers, thus decreasing prices.

More merchants are also becoming aware that there are less overheads when selling online, such as no rents to pay (besides the domain or online shop) and consumers willing to pay the postage costs in most cases.

Question 2

a) The dispersion of prices will narrow

It is hard to say whether the dispersion will narrow. I think in the short to medium term the dispersion will not narrow. As the article suggested dispersion of prices on line is not much different from those in the bricks and mortar retail market. This is largely due to the following facts:

· Product heterogeneity.

· Buyer trust in online sellers.

· Efficiency.

· Ill informed buyers.

· Buyers concern for time effective shopping.

It is interesting to think that the article we have been reading from was written in 1999. More than a decade on I believe the principles behind the reasons for the dispersion of prices are as relevant today as they were in 99. The article spoke a lot about the fact that these E-markets were immature. This is one area that, I guess, has changed over the past decade although as the markers mature the technology they use continues to surpass them and create room for further growth and development. It is for this reason i think that the dispersion will remain the same or simular for at least the short-term. I think a huge factor in the dispersion will be the further development of the semantic web. As the web becomes smarter and search becomes more dynamic, the search costs will decline and the result may be a more informed consumer and therefore the dispersion of prices may in turn narrow.

b) The importance of brand names will decrease

I don’t agree with this one. Brands have been important to modern cultures for such a long time and their importance transcends the purchase process and the purchase methods. I am not saying that I agree with it but brand names influence social standing, self esteem and inturn purchases regardless of the sale medium.
This short film is an interesting look at brand names, it is around 15min long (but very funny) and is probably rated at least M15 (frequent course language) but as you watch you will see that brands are forever burned into our psyche. It is interesting to see the characterisation of brands and the metaphoric way that certain brands have been portrayed. well worth a watch!

c) Price competition will make all products cheaper

My feelings about this one are based on the answer I gave for the first part of this question. Just as the price dispersion may not necessarily narrow because of a multitude of factors, the same could be said for over all prices and wether they will go up or down. There are so many factors that come into the price that one consumer is willing to pay for any given product. I think the simple fact that the overheads for online markets are generally so much lower than those of traditional outlets that there will be a drop in the cost of shopping online in comparison to shopping in-store.

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

I think that this is a real possibility. And in some ways is already starting to happen. Sites such as iTunes, Amazon and EBay are already taking so much of the market share and I think it is because of their ability to reach the broadest cross section of users in relation to the computer literacy of those users. If we look at all of these sites they are all simple to use and have built up a trust with online shoppers. As was stated by Smith, Bailey & Brynjolfsson (1999) a recent Xerox study that found that just 5% of the websites online receive nearly 75% of the hits.

e) How do you think the balance of power between buyers and sellers will change

There is an assumed answer here I think. That being, that with the increase of choice online and the huge reach a buyer now has, that the balance of power will shift to give the consumer more power, the power to ‘choice’. I think that while this is true, the basic fundamentals of marketing and customer service will still remain the drivers of success for any business. That essentially the power will remain with the sellers who market themselves well and make the consumer feel that they need what the seller is selling.

f) Prices are clustered online

To answer this question I just started to look on line for different products to buy and from what I have seen I don’t think that prices are clustered online. The obvious main reason for the diversity is again, the product heterogeneity. A search for flat screen televisions reveals a price range from $200 to $1000’s but there are so many different products displayed that it is difficult to draw comparisons between prices.

g) Online prices are elastic

I really don’t think that any price regardless of the medium is truly elastic. Demand has always been and always will be the driver for price.

h) Online prices are generally transparent.

I don’t think that I could say prices online are transparent. This is such a massive topic to be discussed in one paragraph. The word ‘prices’ in this context is impossible to generalise in such a manner as to draw a conclusion on the transparency of such. The simple fact that the product and service range online is so extensive gives rise to a comparatively extensive answer. I do think that if the products are known and understood by consumers, that there is some degree of transparency, due to the ability to compare prices of homogeneous products.

Question 3

a) What types of m-commerce services does your cell phone provider offer?

Telstra – the ability to check how much data I am using through my mobile phone through an application (Bigpond) on my iphone. I can also download many free things or watch free TV which Telstra has in combination with other partners (eg. Sunrise). I can check my bill and my account details. This is the extent of what Telstra – i.e. my cell phone provider – offers.

b) Which of these services do you use?

I regularly check how much data I use on my mobile, to ensure that I do not go over the amount allocated per month – this is about all I use through the cell phone provider.

c) What types of transactions do you perform through your cell phone or other wireless device?

· Internet banking

· Ebay

· Google maps

· Email

· Facebook

· Checking weather

d) What types of transactions would you like to perform, but are currently unable to?

I would like to be able to look at a restaurant online, check availability of bookings at the present or future time, make a booking, view the menu and wine lists, and have the option of pre-ordering food. This can be done to an extent now (bookings via email etc), but not often in real time.

e) What is your opinion of wireless advertising/mobile marketing?

In the case of SMS marketing, I find it intrusive and annoying and I have never taken up any offer made in an SMS.

In the case of mobile marketing on your mobile. When I decide to transact through my mobile, I am generally going to do one thing and I know what it is I am after. Along with this I am busy (hence using my mobile as opposed to going to a computer), therefore leading to me not generally undertaking any offers which come up on my mobile. When I transact through my desktop computer things are much different and I sometimes take an interest in the advertising which I am shown.

References

Smith, M., Bailey, J. & E, Brynjolfsson (1999). Understanding Digital Markets:

Review and Assessment Paper 140

Week Five

2011-09-04T02:14:00.000-07:00

Ok so this week has been another week in the 'on-line' learning environment. We have had no class time. This week we are looking at Business Models.

Describe the features of each of these business models. Give an example of each.

Brokerage.
This model is a model where the business creates a market by bringing together buyers and sellers and creating a transaction. The Business generates an ongoing profit by charging a commission on the sale. The commission arrangement can vary from the buyer paying, the seller paying, any combination of the two or set prices and percentages. Arguably the most famous business that is in this category is EBay.

Advertising.
This is the model where, obviously, the business makes it's profit from advertising. This model had evolved rapidly over the last decade. Things such as paid placement advertising in search and link advertising allow for a much more direct advertising method and are far less intrusive and annoying that the popular banner and flashing banner models of the 90's. Another important development within this model has been the ability to track the impact of the advertising through data collection such as the click through rates. The most obvious example for this model is Google Ad's.

Infomediary.
This I have found, is a hard business model to describe. The term Infomediary is derived from the words information intermediaries. From what I have read on the net and in particular Rapper's sight, this model helps both businesses and consumers by providing information about products or services. Information is analyzed and used to target advertising to the people who will be most likely to be interested in the product or service. Infomediary companies usually offer a service or allow access to sites or information on the condition that the user registers and logs in. This process of registering and logging in creates, as we have looked at earlier in the course a data stream for the companies to analyze and then use for marketing purposes. An example of an Infomediary business I would think would be Google.

Merchant.
A merchant is basically a business model that buys and then sells products or services. One of the key differences of this model is the fact that the proprietor has a much higher risk due to the fact that inventory has to be purchased, stored and then distributed. Unlike all of the above mentioned models who deal mostly in information or intangible goods, the merchant has higher over heads due to the complications of dispatch, stock purchasing and warehousing. An Example of a Merchant is Amazon.com

Manufacturer (Direct)
This is where the person or company who makes the product is selling it directly to the end user. One obvious benefit of this model is the 'cutting out the middle man' effect. Where by the manufacturer can obtain a higher price for their product by, bye passing the wholesaler and receiving the retail margin. An example of a Manufacturer model is http://www.hoselink.com.au/.

Affiliate.
This model is again one that deals in an intangible service. The Affiliate model raises revenue by helping other businesses make sales by directing traffic from one site to another. The value is measured by the click through rate, that leads to sales. A real benefit to this model is that it has very little overheads and it usually does not cost the merchant anything at all until it yields results. An example of this model is www.ultimate-guitar.com

Community.

This was the hardest yet to define. Short of cutting and pasting something that I didn't understand, which I have avoided thus far I have had trouble with this one. From what I can gather this is a model where users band together in chat rooms and forums and swap information. I can see from Rapper's site that revenue sources from such a model rely on donations, sales of ancillary (support) services or products and contextual advertising. Also as Rapper stated in his podcast often businesses will have more than one model. From what I have read on his site and others, this model may well work concurrently with a subscription model.

Subscription.

This is a model where the consumer is charged a periodic fee for a continuing service or for the use of a product. This model has become more popular in recent times, as businesses sell subscriptions rather than one off items to a consumer. The person is charged the same amount regardless of usage. This obviously has the potential to be beneficial or detrimental to the customer. An example of this model that I have dealt with just today is Nortin Anti Virus.

Utility.
In this model the consumer is charged for what they use. It is a metered system and is common for lower priced purchases such as news paper articles and other information. A benefit of this model over ones such as subscription is that the consumer only pays for what they use, this often makes a person feel better about their decision to make a purchase. An example of this model is slashdot.

In this weeks topic out line, Ian asks, What is the business model for TWITTER? It is an interesting question and also one that is difficult to give a definitive answer. I would think it has a myriad of different models. Including but by no means restricted to advertising and affiliate. While researching this question I found an interesting article at Harvard Business Online published October 27, 2009, titled 'Twitter's Business Model' here is the URL. http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/oct2009/ca20091027_535681.htm

Next up we are looking at the The Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011.

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

This is the way that the mobile phone use/100 population, is worked out as per the report.

Mobile telephone subscriptions

Source: International Telecommunication Union, The World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database 2010 (accessed in December 2010) (Dutta & Mia, 2011)

Australia, 113.8 Rank 45
USA, 90.8 Rank 76
China, 55.5 Rank 111
India, 43.8 Rank 119

So as we can see Australia is ranked the highest, with more than one per person.

2) Internet use/100 population - compare Australia, USA, China and India.

This is the way that the Internet use/100 population, is worked out as per the report.

Internet users are people with access to the worldwide network.

Source: International Telecommunication Union, The World

Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database 2010 (accessed in

December 2010) (Dutta & Mia, 2011)

Australia, 74.3 Rank 20
USA, 78 Rank 15
China, 28.9 Rank 75
India, 5.1 Rank 118

So here we can see that the USA is the leader. India is ranked very low. I guess this is due to the huge class gap in the country and exemplified by the massive population.

I have decided to answer questions 3 & 4 together

3) Compare main strengths and weaknesses of Australia.

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

Australia ranks well in No. of days to start a business, second only to NZ. We also rank well in Financial Market Sophistication. I think that these two are both very important for the economy and set us up well moving forward. We ranked quite poorly for a developed nation in the Mobile Phone usage and in the Internet usage. Also Business usage on a whole was average so in my opinion businesses and the Australian consumer are in a similar space.

References

Dutta.S & Mia.I. World Economic Forum. (2011) The Global Information Technology Report 2010 - 2011. (ISBN-13: 978-92-95044-95-1).Geneva, Switzerland:SRO Kundig.

Week four

2011-08-27T02:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this week was the first week that we had no contact hours for e-business. I found it a little bit more difficult as I like the interaction of classes, but I think I am getting the hang of the online learning environment.

Below are the answers to the Google Analytics questions, these are based on Ian's Google Analytics portolio.

1. Looking at the site usage, what does the term: visits, page views, and pages per visit mean? What does the bounce rate mean, and does it vary much from day to day?

Visits: The amount of times that the website has been visited by a particular computer. This could be many times in the one day, as one visit ends when the browser is closed (or inactive for a period of time), and therefore if the person starts another session in a new browser it is counted as a new ‘visit’.

Page views: This is a total view of all the pages in the site, and how many times each has been viewed.

Pages per visit: This is an average number of pages that a particular user views within their ‘visit’.

Bounce rate: This is the amount of people who have visited the site and then left before interacting (after only viewing the first page). It doesn’t seem to me that this percentage varies much from day to day. It generally sits between 25% and 50%, with some anomalies on either side. This 5min youtube video gives a deeper insight into bounce rates and what they mean across all of your pages (not just your home page). It also looks at your landing page bounce rate and what this says about your key word choices.

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

· Direct traffic (this is where most of the traffic has come from).

· Search engines

· Referring sites

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

Internet Explorer was the most popular browser. This information will be handy to know to assist in the set-up of the website. This is so that you can determine which browser you might want to optimise your site for.

4. How many countries to visitors to foliospaces come from? What were the top four countries?

There were visitors from 130 countries to foliospaces. The top four countries were:

1. Australia

2. United States

3. United Kingdom

4. Canada

Interestingly enough, in the lowest countries (112 onwards), all but one of the visitors had a 100% bounce rate.

5. Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on:

1. What can you track?

Visitors (including new and unique visitors), bounce rate, countries, browsers, average time on site, page views and pages per visit, traffic sources.

2. What can you track over time?

Increases and decreases in all of the above mentioned.

3. What cant you track?

Specifics of a particular visitors’ eg. Loyalty and puchases.

6. What to do the following terms mean?

1. High bounce rate

High number of people who leave after visiting the first page

2. Key words

The words people use to search and find the website

3. Average page depth

This is the number of pages that a visitors views, during a session on a site.

4. Click through rate

This is the amount of times that an advertisement is shown to users on a webpage, and is divided by the times that a user actually clicks onto the specific advertisement.

5. Click

This is the amount of times that users click on a specific advertisement.

6. Cookie

This is a thread of data stored on a computer. It allows the computer to be saved on a server, so that the computer gives information to the web server about the session or computer. For example if you are on a website, it remembers that you are logged in, so that you do not need to re-login when you visit different pages on that site.

7. Impression

This is when the web address, or your paid advertisement, is shown on a browser, eg. In a search result.

8. Hyperlink

Highlighted text, that will link you a website, file or place within the page or document.

9. Navigation

This describes the way that a user surfs the web.

10. Page view

A user viewing a page.

11. Session

The amount of time that a user spends interacting on a site.

12. Unique visitors (or absolute unique visitors)

Those people who have come to the site to the very first time.

13. URL

Uniform resource locator. This is an address where information is stored and can be found as it is unique to that information.

14. Visitor

This term refers to the amount of people come to the site, as best as can be counted through google analytics. But it is tracked by computer, not person, so therefore might not be an exact amount of persons to the site, but is close as practically possible.

15. Visitor session

A visitor session is a measured amount of time that the visitor (see above) interacts with a website.

16. Comparison shopping

This is the act of shopping around to see who has the best product or deal.

References

Google Analytics - Bounce rate: the simply powerful metric (2007, Sep 12) Retrieved from, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppgfjo6IIf4

Week Three

2011-08-23T23:28:00.000-07:00

So this week we had our lecture at SEATS and had Ian Knox, from UB come in and speak to us. He was very interesting to listen to and I found his honest and frank out look on ebusiness interesting and inspirational. He spoke of the many ways to run a business on line and touched on the power of social network sites.

Week Three Questions.

Explain why a customer centric web site design is so important yet so difficult to accomplish.

It seems in this day and age that it is fairly obvious why a web site needs to be customer centric. When businesses first started to use the web, their sites were for the most part just a digital brochure of the products or services that the company offered. The user would be most likely searching for information rather than to make a purchase or use a service. As the world moves toward digital marketing and the consumer embraces the technology of online shopping, a company wishing to remain competitive must develop a site that is easy to use and that makes the customer feel comfortable with the purchase process. If a customer can not use the site with ease or does not feel that the site and therefore their personal information is secure they simply will not purchase from the site.
A customer centric site is so difficult to accomplish for lots of reasons. Before a company can develop a customer centric site they must first get to know their customer very well, this presents it's own set of challenges. Once the company has a sound understanding of their customer they then have to design a process that works well, large companies may have the huge amounts of capital to fund the research into this but many have not. Another thing that makes this difficult is the rapid evolution of the digital world on a whole. As things change so too do the customers expectations. What might have worked a year ago will not necessarily work next year.

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.
Ok so probably the best description I could find online is the following;
Simply, how you or your company are represented on the web. This may include you website, but isn’t limited to it. It also includes your keywords, your satellite sites, your social network, your articles, links to your site from other sites, etc. ... (up state, 2011)
So with this in mind, there are numerous reasons that a firm that does business on line should be more concerned with their online presence than one that does not. A firm that operates online relies on it's presence to attract customers, sell products or services as well as to promote their brand. A strong presence will assist in all of the areas mentioned. It's interesting too, that both businesses that operate on line and those that do not must remain aware of their presence. Just as a presence can help sales, branding etc. Businesses must to be aware of the potential negative effects of a presence.
The attached graph (malbon, 2008) puts this into perspective by showing the growth in the number of web sites over roughly the last two decades. this is a clear indicator that businesses are taking viewing their presence as important. It also gives us some insight into how difficult it is to be noticed in the crowd.

Write three paragraphs to briefly describe the things that Real Estate Agents can best accomplish through their web sites, Mass Media Advertising and Personal Contact.
(1) A Real Estate Agent can use their web site to help the potential customer save time, if they have a large amount of properties listed, potential customers can brows many properties and compile a short list of properties they wish to inspect. Their sites could also be useful for taking online applications for rental properties, advertising auctions and introducing new staff.

(2) Mass Media can best accomplish capturing the portion of the market who either doesn't use the Internet or who may not know that they are interested in purchasing a property. For example, a man and his wife are having a coffee and he browses the real estate section and sees a property that has a double garage and a pool. Al tho he wasn't thinking of moving (so was unlikely to search for such a property online) the thought of a two car garage and a pool get him thinking and then the process can begin.

(3) No matter how far the web goes I can not see a time in the near future where Personal contact will be obsolete. Purchasing a house for the vast majority of the population is a huge event and one that is very emotional and requires alot of thought. It is for this reason, among others that personal contact is very important in the real estate industry. People need to talk to a 'profecinal' and feel that they are making a sound decision when they purchase a house. It is in this part of the process that a customer could easily walk away from or commit to a deal, it is all about how comfortable they feel with the person they are dealing with. Buying a house is too important to most people to be done wholly online.

References

up state business websites (2011, March 29). Retrieved from www.upstatebusinesswebsites.com/web-glossary/

Made by many, brilliant graph of the web's growth (2008, April 08). Retrieved from http://madebymany.com/blog/brilliant-graph-of-the-webs-growth

Week 2

2011-08-22T04:04:00.000-07:00

Ok so this week we had a lesson at the flexible learning center. We set up TAFE computer accounts and had a look at the use of Moodle. We also discussed the assessment and started to think about groups for the assignments.

For this weeks questions I had a little trouble watching the videos and so ended up watching them at the Flexible Learning center. I still have not managed to down load the pod cast from Michale Rappa but will do so this weekend and add to the blog as soon as possible. so my questions well be slightly out of order this week.

After watching the Marissa Mayer interview, I guess one of the most relevant points to business was her opinion on why google has been so successful.
The reasons Marissa sights are.

Google employees work in small teams. This enables close discussions between team members as often teams are all in the one office.
Internal Research and development through the employees using the products.
A broad mission; to organize the worlds information. This notion of a broad mission I find particularly interesting. It works well for a hi tech company but I think it could be a negative thing for some company's as a broad mission may lead to lack of direction.
Marrissa also states that most of the new ideas come from 'in-house'.

Another point I found interesting was the discussion about the "next big thing" It's interesting but hardly surprising that the interest is still in cell phone technology. Cell phones and particularly smart phones seem to be dominating the R&D efforts of a lot of tech companies this decade. Marissa cited the possibility of your phone telling you where your friends are, like maybe they are in a coffee shop near by. This type of technology is the same type of technology that Bill Joy talked about in the other interview. He called it D2D. So one device talking to another and passing the information to the user. Marissa talks about the privacy issues associated with such technology and states that there will be a trade off, as there is with much of the social networking available today. The trade off is, privacy for convenience. Time will tell if users are willing to make that trade off. I think people have already submitted so much that they will make this trade off with little resistance if the technology becomes available. I don't know that it is a good thing but I'm sure it will happen as society's insatiable desire for information grows seemingly as fast as the technology it's self. Following on from this point is another interesting one, Marissa states that she couldn't live with out 'search' above all other products and services. I find this interesting because I think if other people thought about it they might say the same thing. What is it that drives us to want to know EVERYTHING no matter how insignificant?
Last of all I found it an interesting thought that Marissa stated that Google is an "add subsidised" service. Meaning that the advertising helps pay for the service that we as the users receive. I find this interesting because for years marketing departments have had to battle to grab the attention of a broad target market and hope that the add is being seen by the people they wish to attract. Online advertising can be so much more direct. For instance if a person Googles Mountain bikes, there is a high likelihood that they will be interested in other things such as apparel, helmets, perhaps magazine subscriptions or mountain biking destinations. This allows the Marketer to hone in on specific interests of the consumer. I think that this leads to a positive out come for both the consumer and the marketer. As the consumer we are not subjected to ad's that we have no interest in and the marketers are far more likely to obtain successful results.

The Bill Joy Video.

What are the six webs.

The Near Web. This is where the user is sitting at a desk or such and using a computer, this is what I guess I would call the "traditional use" in this web the user usually has a mouse and a key board.
The Here Web. This is the web that is with you all of the time, such as on your smart phone.
The Far Web. This is the web you use on interactive devices such as your T.V. You watch from your couch with a remote control.
The Weird Web. This is the voice controlled web, used in things such as car navigation systems.
B2B Web. This is Business computers talking to each other to improve business transactions.
D2D Web. This is where devices talk to each other. This could lead to your phone telling you if you are near your friend, how busy is the traffic etc.

Could there be more Webs?
I have no doubt there could and will be more webs, given that the interview is fairly old it would not surprise me if there are already more. That said I have been searching for evidence that someone has named more and I can't yet find anything.

What does this mean for business?
As these technologies develop there will be huge opportunities for businesses. I have decided to put these in dot point because there are so many and it would take so much time to look at each one in depth.

Opportunities to develop both software and hardware to run and utilize all of this new technology.
Further opportunity to collect and sell information.
The D2D web will lead to major opportunity for businesses such as restaurants and hotels to let potential customers, particularly those who are near by, know that they have tables/rooms available.
Opportunity for business people to develop their skills through online learning from anywhere in the world and by the best teachers in the world.
Technological advancement in general business processes will have a positive influence on businesses globally.

What are the four main points Michael Rappa makes about search?
I found it quite hard to get four distinctly different points from this pod cast as the whole thing is on a similar vein.
The first one is that data storage is so cheap now, that it is increasingly easy for us to collect, store, transmit, search and analyze. This is already having a huge impact on the way we do business and will continue to do so for a long time yet.
Next Michael talks about the importance of an effective search method. With all the "noise" as he called it, it will become more and more important to find effective ways to distinguish between what is important to the searcher. Michael also notes like others (Bill Joy, Marissa Mayer) that we still have a long way to go with the development of search and it's capabilities. There is a lot of room for growth and improvement in the arias of voice and image search. I think it's really true that the company that masters these new areas will become a dominant force in the search engine service of the future.
Michale also talks about paid placement and it's place in a search. He states that paid placement has a place as long as the user is aware what is paid and what is just search based information.
The last thing I noticed was the interesting fact about the way most of us search. I know when he said that most people type a few key words and hope for the best, that he was describing the method I use most of the time. I think this point ties in with what we talked about last week with the semantic web and the web being able to better understand what the user is looking for. Again I think a company that can master this semantic styled search will become a major player in the search provider industry.

2011-08-10T04:13:00.000-07:00

So this week, Friday the 5^th of August was our first class. We discussed the course and various interesting facts about eBusiness, eCommerce and the internet. Dallas gave us some back ground information on some of the major companies that we deal with every day such as Yahoo, Google and eBay. We discussed the difference between the Internet- a massive network of networks, millions of computers connected around the world and the World Wide Web – a way of accessing information over the internet.

As part of our assessment we are to keep a blog as an online journal each week. Here we will post what we have learnt each week as well as answer the weekly topic questions. My answers to the Topic 1 Questions are as follows.

Internet risks – what can go wrong with a transactional site?

· Security problems (privacy issues, identity theft) this could lead to a lack of trust from potential customers.

· Technical problems with the site it’s self.

Write down a definition for each:

E-Commerce:

From what I can gather from my research E-commerce relates to the process of conducting sales on line. It has a much more specific meaning than E-business. It relates directly to the trading, buying and selling on line.

E-business:

E-business is far less specific term. It relates to anything to do with information technology in business.

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

The main difference I can gather from Figure 1.1 The distinction between buy-side and sell-side e-commerce (Knox, 20011, slide 12). Is that one side (buy side) is dealing with suppliers and the other side (sell side) is dealing with customers.

Describe the different types of eBusiness

According to figure 1.2 Summary and examples of transaction alternatives between businesses, consumers and governmental organisations. There are nine (9) different types of eBusinesses. (Knox, 2011, slide 13)

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) refers to sites such as eBay, where consumers can on sell products to other consumers.

The advantage of consumer to consumer e-commerce is most often the reduced costs and smaller but profitable customer base. It also gives many small business owners a way to sell their goods without running a highly profit draining bricks-and-mortar store (Hill, 2009).

Consumer-to-business (C2B) is an electronic commerce business model in which consumers (individuals) offer products and services to companies and the companies pay for them (Hill, 2009).

According to many sites I have looked at, this type of e business is a complete reversal of traditional business models. This type of business has been made possible by the internets ability to connect large numbers of people in a bidirectional manner, unlike the traditional single direction process. Also the increased availability and lowered cost of technology.

Consumer-to-Government (C2G) in this model, an individual consumer interacts with the government. For example, a consumer can pay his income tax or house tax online. The transactions involved in this case are C2G transactions (e-Commerce Models, ‘n.d.’)

Furthermore, according to figure 1.2 Summary and examples of transaction alternatives between businesses, consumers and governmental organisations. This model can also include feedback to Government through pressure groups. (Knox 2011, slide 13)

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) this model involves transactions between business organizations and consumers. It applies to any business organization that sells its products or services to consumers over the Internet (e-Commerce Models, ‘n.d.’).

Business-to-Business (B2B) this is where businesses interact with each other, and can buy and use or buy and on sell each others products and services.

Business-to-Government (B2G) a derivative of the term Business to Business, or B2B, the description Business to Government (B2G) is used for transactions between a company and Government bodies and agencies (WebDynamic, ‘n.d.’). This is where businesses transact with the government on line. Simular to the C2G businesses can pay their taxes online (e-Commerce Models, ‘n.d.’).

Government-to-Consumer (G2C) this is where the government interacts with the public. It can involve taxation payments as well as general government information and local government information. (knox, 2011, slide 13)

Government-to-Business (G2B) in this model the government interacts with businesses. This interaction can range from taxation, information on government services and information on legal regulations. (Knox, 2011, slide 13)

Government-to-Government (G2G) this model is the sharing of information between governments. It also relates to inter government services. (Knox, 2011, slide 13)

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

I would say with out a doubt that the mobile phone has the highest penetration rate. I say this with no research. I am yet to visit a country that does not have mobile phone technology, including many developing countries. My 82 year old Grandmother has a mobile phone as does my friend’s 8 year old daughter.

The adoption rate for mobile phone users in the

was 85% in 2005 that was up from around 15% in 1997. (Knox, 2011, slide 14)

Another article stated that the global penetration rate for mobile phone users would reach 61% by the end of 2008 the article stated that this was up from just 12% in the year 2000 (Winder, 2008).

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

· Increasing speed with which supplies can be obtained

· Increasing speed with which goods can be dispatched

· Reduced sales and purchasing costs

· Reduced operating costs (Knox, 2011, slide 16)

Four barriers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.

· High set up cost.

· Running costs.

· Lack of time/resources.

· Difficulty integrating IT systems. (Knox, 2011 slide 20)

How might a restaurant in Sturt Street Ballarat benefit from an online presence?

A restaurant would benefit from an on line presence in a variety of ways. They could display their menu, advertise, advertise weekly specials and up coming events or entertainment, take bookings and even take pre ordered meals online. As well as opening and closing times and holiday period trade, as seen in this restaurant website www.tinamberhotel.com

What are some examples of Digital information?

· Television,

· Photography

· Stock market reports

· Weather reports

· Phone numbers and addresses of businesses

· Product information and advertisements

What is the semantic web? Are we there yet?

As I understand it, the semantic web is a more intelligent web system, that will be more user friendly and able to perform much more complicated procedures. An article in Scientific American^TMstated ‘The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. The first steps in weaving the Semantic Web into the structure of the existing Web are already under way. In the near future, these developments will usher in significant new functionality as machines become much better able to process and "understand" the data that they merely display at present (Berners-Lee, Hendler & Lassila, 2001).’

I believe we are well on the way to a semantic web but I don’t think we are there yet.

References

Hill, D (2009). Darrell Hill Business technology Defined. Retrieved August, 9, 2011, from http://www.darrell-hill.com/e-business/consumer-to-business-c2b

Winder, D (2008, September 25) 61 percent of global population now using mobile phones. itwire. p. 1 Retrieved August 9, 2011, from http://www.itwire.com/your-it-news/mobility/20824-61-percent-of-global-population-now-using-mobile-phones

e-Commerce Models (‘n.d.’) [e-Commerce Models defined]. Retrieved August 8, 2011, from http://www.eservglobal.com/uploads/files/index.pdf

Knox, I (2011). Topic 1 introduction to ebusiness. [PowerPoint slides]. BC501: eBusiness Fundamentals. UB, EG TAFE.

Berners-Lee, T., Hendler, J. & Ora, L. (2001, May 17). The Semantic Web. Scientific American^TM.Retrieved August 9, 2011, from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web

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Week 1. The first blog.

2011-08-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

So it's week one and this is my first ever blog. Hence the oridginal title. As I write this I have no idea if what I am writing is going to the place it is intended, or if anyone will be able to read it when I hit ‘Publish Post’. The whole thing is new to me so I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

It has taken me quite a while to get this far so I think I’ll call it a night now and add more about the readings and the first class, throughout the week. I just hope this will still be here when I next log in.