Week One Exercises

1) Internet risks – give examples of four things that can go wrong with a transactional site?

Network Failure can result in loss of transaction details.
System Failure can result in business inactivity for a period of time.
Security of banking details can be questionable.
Lack of face-to-face customer contact (personal touch).


2) Write down a definition for each:

a) E-commerce: According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.

b) E-business: According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_business, may be defined as the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business.



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

I guess the simple answer is: The buy side of eCommerce is concerned with the actions of the customer. The sell side of eCommerce is focused on the transaction process of the suppliers.


4) Describe the different types of eBusiness

Customer to Customer
Customer to Business
Customer to Government
Business to Customer
Business to Business
Business to Government
Government to Customer
Government to Business
Government to Government


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

According to http://comm215.wetpaint.com/page/Australia+Technology+Penetration?t=anon, mobile phones are by far the industry leaders for market saturation. With more mobile phones than people in Australia, due to many people owning more than one mobile phone. The potential for market penetration lies firmly in the hands of mobile phones.


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

According to our lecture notes:
Increase speed with which suppliers can be obtained.
Increase speed with which goods can be dispatched.
Reduce sales and purchasing costs.
Reduce operating costs.


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

I cannot see any "real" barriers to the sell-side of eCommerce, and my search for answers to this proved to be almost futile. However, the only barriers I could imagine would be:
Lack of available hardware.
Lack of technological understanding.
Fear of the unknown.
Resistance to change.


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

According to our lecture notes:
Cost Reduction - Decrease advertising expenditure.
New Capability - Reach new customers/markets.
Communication - Online menus, reviews, etc.
Customer Service - Can handle customers questions and complaints more efficiently.
Control - Expose customers to as mush or as little information as desired.
Competitive Advantage - Very few restaurants currently do this.


9) What are some examples of Digital information?

Will come back to this.


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

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web, Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.
In answer to the second part of the question. I would imagine that the various search engines available on the Internet, are supposed to be the facilitators of this. As they are supposed to supply our request with the most relevent answers.