Week Five Exercises

Business models

Describe the features of each of these business models, giving an example of each. The basic categories of business models discussed in the table below include:

Brokerage - is essentially a market maker. They bring buyers and sellers together to facilitate a transaction. And what makes the brokerage model work is that brokers charge a fee or a commission for each transaction that they enable. Ebay is essentially a broker.
http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/business_models_tr.html

Advertising - is a very common feature of various kinds of media such as print, newspapers and magazines, radio, television and now the Internet, one of the things that businesses viewed as a possibility – especially content-driven businesses – was advertising. Advertising has two important directions: one, the basic image type advertising that is more likely to attract people’s attention without actually being annoying to them, through various kinds of new technologies. And two, is the paid placement approach of advertising within search, and also the placement of search links, or advertising links, within various kinds of websites.
http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/business_models_tr.html

Infomediary – is where Data about consumers and their consumption habits are valuable, especially when that information is carefully analyzed and used to target marketing campaigns. Independently collected data about producers and their products are useful to consumers when considering a purchase. Some firms function as infomediaries (information intermediaries) assisting buyers and/or sellers understand a given market.
http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

Merchant - is simply a wholesaler or retailer of a good or service. An important part of the merchant model is that the merchant is intimately involved in distribution. They’re taking in the front end from suppliers. They’re handling product. They have to store product. Then they have to mix and match that product to customer orders, and ship. That makes the merchant model quite involved.
http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/business_models_tr.html

Manufacturer (Direct) - is predicated on the power of the web to allow a manufacturer (i.e., a company that creates a product or service) to reach buyers directly and thereby compress the distribution channel. The manufacturer model can be based on efficiency, improved customer service, and a better understanding of customer preferences.http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

Affiliate - provide purchase-point click-through to the merchant. It is a pay-for-performance model, if an affiliate does not generate sales it represents no cost to the merchant. The affiliate model is well-suited to the web, which explains its popularity. Variations include, banner exchange, pay-per-click, and revenue sharing programs.
http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

Community - is based on user loyalty. Users have a high investment in both time and emotion. Revenue can be based on the sale of ancillary products and services or voluntary contributions; or revenue may be tied to contextual advertising and subscriptions for premium services. The Internet is inherently suited to community business models and today this is one of the more fertile areas of development, as seen in rise of social networking.
http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

Subscription - is that the customer is charged a periodic fee, to subscribe to a particular service. And subscription is a very important facet of the internet, because we’re seeing more and more things which were formerly products, things that were sold to the customer as a product – and in particular in the area of software, like various applications sold as products installed on your computer – are now starting to transition to services.
http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/business_models_tr.html

Utility - is based on metering usage, or a "pay as you go" approach. Unlike subscriber services, metered services are based on actual usage rates. Traditionally, metering has been used for essential services (e.g., electricity water, long-distance telephone services). Internet service providers (ISPs) in some parts of the world operate as utilities, charging customers for connection minutes.
http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

How does Australia rate?

The Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009 was released at the world economic forum in the past few days (March 2009). For the sake of this exercise, I am comparing Australia to Saudi Arabia, as I spent last year living in Saudi Arabia.

1) What is the Mobile phone use /100 population - compare
Australia – 102.5
USA – 83.5
China – 41.2
India – 20.0
Saudi Arabia – 114.7

2) Internet use / 100 population - compare
Australia – 54.2
USA – 71.9
China – 15.8
India – 6.9
Saudi Arabia – 25.1

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

Australia (14) ranks no lower than 22nd in any of the nine dimensions of the NRI. The infrastructure environment (8th), the political and legal framework (9th) and the government’s zeal at using ICT (9th) are Australia’s main strengths. In comparison, Saudi Arabia (40th) improves by eight positions with respect to its inaugural ranking last year. While it places 45 or higher in seven other categories of the NRI, Saudi Arabia’s situation presents serious shortcomings in terms of individual readiness (79th), notably the quality of the educational system, especially in math and science (85th). As a result, individual usage remains limited (53rd).
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2009/Highlights.pdf

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

It appears that Australian consumers are more prepared for advancements in IT than Australian business. This is highlighted in the rankings of Individual’s readiness (13) as opposed to Business readiness (22). It suggests that the consumers are ready and willing for IT advancements, and businesses are lagging somewhat in delivering the services desired.Also, the individual usage ranking (18) compared with business usage (21), seems to suggest that the consumer is more advanced in IT participation than the businesses.
http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2009/gitr09fullreport.pdf

Week Four Exercises

1) Looking at the site usage, what do 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 basically how many times the webpage was accessed. A series of requests from the same uniquely identified client with a set timeout, often 30 minutes. A visit contains one or more page views.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics

Page Views - A request for a file whose type is defined as a page in log analysis. An occurrence of the script being run in page tagging. In log analysis, a single page view may generate multiple hits as all the resources required to view the page (images, .js and .css files) are also requested from the web server.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics

Pages/Visits – Pages viewed per visit.

Bounce Rate 38.46% to 100% (2 occasions) It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who "bounce" away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate.
The bounce rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who turn around at the entry page and immediately leave the site. Such visitors "bounce" out and never see additional pages.http://www.useit.com/alertbox/bounce-rates.html


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

Search Engines 78.03%
Direct Traffic 18.87%
Referring Sites 3.10%


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

Internet Explorer 70.70%


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

Australia 253
United States 53
United Kingdom 16
Canada 15


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.

The things that can be tracked are, site usage (visits, pageviews, pages/visits, bounce rate, time spent by users and new visits), traffic source, content, visitors profiles and search engines used. You cannot track users identity.


6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few, you may like to add some more and perhaps include them on the Moodle glossary.

high bounce rate – It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who "bounce" away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_RateThe bounce rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who turn around at the entry page and immediately leave the site. Such visitors "bounce" out and never see additional pages. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/bounce-rates.html

key words - A word used by a search engine in its search for relevant Web pages. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/k/keyword.html

click through rate - In that regard, if one thinks about a session – a user coming to a web site, and then clicking through a series of pages – one might look at that as kind of time ordered series, and call it a click stream, or a click path that gives you a view of what a user does over a discreet period of time. And understanding the efficiency of that click stream, and what click streams end up in important results like making a purchase, become a potentially important goal for a web site operator. So a click stream and the session that it encompasses is a discreet period of time. And it’s important and useful to know what kind of time interval our users are experiencing on the site, and what the outcomes of that session are, what the goal of our outcomes are for users. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/analytics_tr.html

click - In the World Wide Web advertising industry, selection of a banner ad by a user. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/c/click.html

Cookie - A cookie is simply a small stream of data that’s passed between a web site and a user’s browser. When a user comes to your web site, the first thing a web site will do if it’s configured to do so is to, in a sense, communicate with that browser, and ask it to return a cookie, this stream of data that was set by the server. And if the person’s never visited the site before, then it passes a cookie to the browser. If the person has visited the site before, then that cookie is returned to the server. And in doing so, it does a few things. And perhaps most importantly, not only does it recognize the individual as someone who’s returning from a previous visit, but also it may enable the information that’s being collected from that point forward to be tied to a specific person. It might also do some other things like help automatically log the person in if a log in is required. And to the extent that it recognizes a user, it will allow any kind of preferences or personalization features to register. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/analytics_tr.html

Impression - An advertisement's appearance on an accessed Web page. For example, if the page you're on shows three ads, that's three impressions. Advertisers use impressions to measure the number of views their ads receive, and publishers often sell ad space according to impressions.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/i/impression.html

Hyperlink - In computing, a hyperlink, usually shortened to link, is a directly followable reference within a hypertext document. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink. An image or a portion of text that, when clicked, allows electronic connections. These connections access other internet materials such as images, sounds, animations, videos, or other web pages. http://www.netsmartz.org/safety/definitions.htm#i

Navigation – The process of moving from one website to the next, or around a certain website.

Pageview - this means every time a request is made for a specific page by a visitor – and depending on what kind of site it is, you may be more or less interested in the number of page views and how many page views are made during a particular visit or session by a user. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/analytics_tr.html

Session - When one talks about how many visits are being made to their web site, then one wants to account for that visit as being some actual user or customer who’s come to the web site. Sometimes the word “visit” is also used interchangeably with the term “session.” And so we might want to be able to enumerate how many sessions we logged on a particular day, or week, or month, how the number of sessions is changing over time, to give us a sense of just what our growth and usage looks like. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/analytics_tr.html

Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors) - And to the extent that you can identify that user through authentication, or a cookie, or some other specific detail, that you can identify unique users or unique visitors who come to the site. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/analytics_tr.html

URL – Uniform Resource Locator, In popular language, a URL is also referred to as a Web address. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL

Visitor – Anyone who accesses your website.

Visitor Session – The time each person viewing your webpage spends on your website.

Week Three Exercises

Questions

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

It is essential that businesses get this right. When someone is searching online, websites only have a matter of seconds to make an impact on the person viewing it. The whole idea of purchasing online is that it should be a quick and easy experience, if it is not the customer might as well get in their car and drive to a showroom/store. That is why the impact made on the customer must be instant. Then once they are hooked it is a matter of simplicity and practicality to keep them on the site to make the purchase. Also, once they have made the purchase, the correct amount of feedback (affiliate products, use of products, troubleshooting, etc.) needs to be provided, so as to ensure that they will return next time to make other purchases.

The difficulty in achieving this, can be, the varied needs of customers. However, this is overcome, by covering all bases, and having a website that can cater to all needs of various customers. The main problem is that very little consideration is given as to what makes up a good website, and a pleasant purchasing experience. Which is exemplified by websitesthatsuck. These websites have a common theme, of being thrown together, with no thought given to the ease of use for the client. By looking at these websites, it is obvious what is wrong with them. Therefore, businesses need to view these, and ensure they do not make any of the same mistakes. Just like observing market leaders can give you an example of what to do, looking at these market losers, can give you a great example of what not to do.


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.

I believe that presence when used in a business context, goes further than just being available, or even being prominent. I feel that a good presence in the business world, is the overall image of the company. It should encompass attire, conduct, posture, and should give an impression of professionalism, confidence, and power.

When you translate this to companies that are web-based. Firstly, people need to be able to find your website, via search, so once you have an understanding of search engine triggers. Then the website needs to be a digital reflection of what a well dressed, well mannered, intelligent, sales executive, would achieve. Therefore the first impressions given by your website, must have all the qualities that I mentioned above. Also, it has to have a degree of support and assistance available, to deal with some minor issues that may arise during the purchasing experience. Therefore, your website must not only look the part, but also have the “intelligence” to support, and in turn have a simple and effective purchasing process.


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

Quite a number of Real Estate Agents these days have utilised web sites, to convey a large amount of information that was simply not feasible via traditional mediums. The main benefits that I can see, is that the Real Estate Agents, can have all their available properties displayed, but at the same time people can refine the display to houses that appeal to them. Therefore, through the hundreds of properties for sale or rent, the customer can reduce the time spent trawling through them to get a specific group of properties. The other main feature, is the virtual tours available on line. Whereas in traditional mediums, it is not practical to have more than a couple of photos, once people have limited the houses that appeal to them, they can then go through them with a fine-toothed comb, and spend more time viewing pictures and even video of appropriate properties. This time was traditionally used finding the appropriate properties in the first place.

Mass media advertising as the name suggests hits a wider audience. When people visit Real Estate Agent websites, it is because they are looking to buy or sell property. However, mass media advertising has that same goal, but as a secondary goal to actually entice the random market to buy or sell. By doing this they can hit a broader market. Although, it is more of a hit and hope, as opposed to the specific targeting of web-based advertising.

Personal contact still plays a big part in Real Estate, and I believe it is still the vital component in clinching most deals. This is still the element of the sales process that finishes off the objective. The combination of web-based advertising and mass media advertising, would be virtually useless without the personal contact to finish off the deal (in rare cases people will buy property off a plan), sign contracts, conduct inspections, etc.

All three of these mediums incorporated together, into one marketing strategy is still the best solution for Real Estate Agents. To ignore any one of these elements would ultimately end in disaster for the business.

Week Two Exercises

Part 1 - Navigation
What are the four (4) main points Michael Rappa makes about search?

I thought that the four main points that he was trying to make was in relation to the four distinct functions or descriptions of what he thought "search" was. Therefore, I would say that the fact that search engines are databases, collection mechanisms, search protocol and ranking algorithms. This is essentially the points that he was trying to make.
However, I found it quite interesting that Michael Rappa mentioned that most people are only searching a small portion of the databases that exist, due to some search engines not having access to databases and servers. Also, the fact that most people do not understand what drives their search engines, so they are essentially not asking the right questions to get the answers that they seek.
I also found it interesting the way Michael spoke about paid placement of advertising, and how the role of advertises has impacted search engine providers.


Write a paragraph or two, on four points made by Marissa Mayer, that you think were the most interesting or significant for business.

I thought that the most interesting point that was made in the interview, for business, was the fact that social networking sites, such as, Facebook and Myspace, have approximately four times the amount of page viewings as search does. The simple question for businesses, is how do you access this market efficiently? With that amount of page viewings, it seems that businesses would be crazy to miss this opportunity. The next point that I found intriguing, ties into the last one, where Marissa felt that a social networking site, coupled with a GPS style technology, could allow people to find where their friends are. For me this begs the question, if this can be done, then how could businesses utilise this information? By knowing where people physically are with their mobile devices, can companies then advertise accordingly?
I also, liked the way that Marissa mentioned that due to Google's broard advertising base. Google is able to ride out economic uncertainty, because when one market ebbs, another flows. Thus, creating an extremely stable income flow from advertising, and as she pointed out, even in economic uncertainty, companies will still continue to advertise. One of the other points that caught my attention, was that Marissa insisted that Google is not "paid-search", but "advertising-subsidized search". What is the difference? I believe that she was just trying to dodge the follow-up ethical question, that was no doubt coming next. However, to her credit, she avoided it like the professional that she is.


Part 2 - History of the Internet
What are the Six Webs?

1. Near Web: Typing style. eg. Sitting in front of a computer with a keyboard and mouse.
2. Here Web: Pocket style. eg. Device that is always with you, mobile devices, PDA's, etc.
3. Far Web: Sit-Back style. eg. Games consols, high-definition television.
4. Weird Web: Voice style. eg. Voice recognition.
5. B to B: Business to Business communication. eg. Businesses computer's communicating to one another.
6. D to D: Device to Device communication. eg. Meshed networks.


Could there be more?

In my very limited opinion, I believe that there is. I am aware of products such as ANPR, which is automated License Plate Recognition. This technology I would imagine would be taking the next step from "Weird Web", whereas the voice recognition is taken the step further. Under this same banner, would be Facial Recognition systems. Also, there are things such as Virtual Reality. Would it be fair to say that the technology used in these systems do not fit into the six webs already mentioned. However, I may be missing the point here, and these things may already fit into the categories pointed out by Bill Joy?


What does it mean for business?

Bill Joy believes that there are huge entrepreneurial opportunities existing already, to bring the "Here Web" forward in the furutre. He rightly points out that technology improvements such as, long-life batteries with low power consumption, networking improvements, mobile device improvements, are all massive markets that need to be filled in the coming years.
On a totally different tangent, for business. The wide spread use of "Here Web" technology, the employees are no longer tethered to the office. The opportunities exist for employees to be in constant contact with the office, no matter where they are or what time of the day. This also raises the sensitive issue, of when does an employees job end, and homelife start. Does this line need to be clearly defined, so as to obtain a happy balance?

Week One Exercises Continued

Question 9) What are some examples of Digital information??

I am taking a punt here, as I could not find a definitive answer on the Internet, so here goes:

Web sites, electronic journals, electronic books, digitally recorded sound, digital television, and digital moving images.

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.

Introduction

Well this is my first experience with a Blog, the whole idea is foreign to me, and a little daunting. Here we go...
I guess this is where I put all my answers to the weekly questions posted on Moodle, and if you are reading this Ian, I hope I'm on the right path. Sorry for the late start on this.