Topic 12 – Web analytics

Questions:
I have one of my Google Analytics pages accessible for you. Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/ and logon:
Then click on view report and answer the following questions:-
1) Looking at the site usage, what does the terms visits, page views and pages/visit mean? What does the bounce rate mean and does it vary much from day to day?

Visits represent the number of times the website was visited, without regard to repeat visitors.

Page views represent the total number of pages that visitors looked at on our site.

Visitors represent the number of actual people that visited our site.

Page/visit is simply the average amount of pages a visitor has requested.

for example:

If you visit the UB website tomorrow and looked at the ‘home’ page, our ‘about’ page, and our ‘contact’ page, that would count as 1 visit and 3 page views.

If you return to UB website in one week and look at the same pages again, that will count as 1 more visit and 3 more page views. However, it will only count as 1 visitor since it’s the same person visiting twice.

If one of your friends visits UB website today and looks at those pages on our site, that will count as 1 visit, 1 visitor, and 3 page views.

In regards to your bounce rate, it does vary day to day with all rates within a 20% range between 26.19% – 49.34%. 2) Now look at the traffic sources report. What are the three sources of traffic and where has most of the traffic come from?

The three sources of traffic are search engines, direct traffic and referring sites. The most traffic has come from search engines at 46.48% followed by direct traffic at 37.08% and referring sites at 16.44%
3) What was the most popular web browser used to access the site?

Topic 11 – Web2.0/3.0 (Web Page)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, (2015, June 8).Webware winner 100: Open Table.CNET. Retrieved from http://www.webware.com/100/?tag=rb_content;overviewHead

Webware Staff, (2015, June 8).Webware winner 100: Open Table.CNET. Retrieved from http://news.cnet.com/8301-13546_109-10240169-29.html?tag=mncol

Topic 10 – Trust

Questions
1) What does this meant by the following statements?
Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)
Meaning when one party does trust the other party in the same way. For example a seller may trust that the buyer will deliver in terms of the money required but the buyer may not trust the product being advertised by the seller. Or they may not trust that the product will be delivered. And vice verse, the seller might not trust that the buyer gives legitimate information and payment details. For trust to not be associative and non-symmetric means it is not mutual to both parties.
This YouTube clip shows an example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T68JOMb7bO4

Trust is not transitive
This means that just because one party can deliver on a particular important element, that doesn’t mean that they can be completely trustworthy with other just as relevant aspects. In the same way, being experienced and predictable is just as important to creating and maintain trust, so businesses need to be experienced in every area of their business to perform well. If they are transitive they don’t have these elements.
http://peternbiddle.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/trust-isnt-transitive-or-someone-fired-a-gun-in-an-airplane-cockpit-and-it-was-probably-the-pilot/

Trust is always between exactly 2 parties
To perform successful business transactions and operate businesses online efficiently, trust must be mutual for two parties. The party that delivers the service and the party that receives are generally strangers so the service must all be agreeable and have the same expectations to sustain a strong trust relationship and satisfy both parties needs.

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender trust
Direct trust is usually in the form of written documentation and is for the sole purpose creating a free and deliberate positive relationship between both parties involved.
Recommender trust is when trust is spoken of between two parties and expectations are set in place in delivering trust but no written documentation is required.

2a) Some of the elements that the following sites have incorporated to increase your trust in them.

http://www.eBay.com.au
Gives thorough information about how the site was developed and operates
Law Enforcement tab
Gives you options to contact them
Allows you to use varying payment options

$2_1ZA}H)0)%$N2H}J9]~{XA$

http://www.anz.com.au
Different options for banking and credit cards depending on your own needs
Contains information about ANZ
Corporate Responsibility Information
Confidentiality with personal information
Research into how they operate. Previous circumstances
Security and Privacy statement

http://www.thinkgeek.com
Can monitor and create your own account
Able to contact the site operators

http://www.paypal.com.au
Has ways to manage your personal account
Offers financial protection when shopping
Business option and personal option

(ebay.com.au)

2b) Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.
Sites that don’t have privacy statements or protection over your personal information aren’t trustworthy. Also if they have bad credentials and it is common knowledge that they don’t have a good rate of delivering on their service as well as not having a support service. An example of this would be http://www.alibaba.com/

http://www.delete-computer-history.com/untrustworthy-websites.html this website lists other sites that consumers have had particular difficulty with. A consumer described how they were a victim of the above untrustworthy site.

References :

ebay (2015) Ebay Logo. [image online] Available at: http://www.ebay.com.au [Accessed: 27 May 2015]. – Used in accordance with eBays rules and policies

Topic 9 – Channel conflict

As millions of consumers flock online to purchase just about anything and everything — new and used, large and small, cheap and expensive, from near and afar — how will the interaction between buyers and sellers change?

Buyers hold a significant proportion of control in the buyer/seller relationship. Buyers are able to search the internet and therefore the world for the products and services they desire and are able to easily and quickly compare the attributes of each product (quality, price, shipping etc) thus allowing buyers to make an informed decision about whether or not to purchase. The rating and customer feedback of a seller can significantly influence the buyer. For example, a negative user rating may drive buyers to try to locate and purchase the product from a more trusted seller removing some of the risk for the buyer.

Online sellers are given the opportunity to list a wide variety of products and services for buyers, however the challenge is to make sure that their product stands out from other online retailers as well as bricks and mortar only stores. This may be accomplished through cheaper prices, cheaper and quicker shipping helping to attract buyers. It is in offering such competitive prices and deals that will help sellers create a loyal customer base helping to retain as well as attract customers. This word of mouth advertising is particularly important as there has been an increase in people sharing information especially in regards to their online shopping experiences and any negative reviews can be detrimental to the success of the retailer.

Overall the buyer is in a more powerful position in the buyer/seller relationship than the seller. The seller is more reliant on the buyer than the buyer is on the seller. If buyers are not completely satisfied with a product or service they are able to search for a product/service which is offered at a better price or of a higher quality or better addresses their needs where as a seller will struggle to find buyers if they cannot retain buyers who may damage the reputation of the seller through publishing negative feedback online accessible at any time, by anyone or are unable to lure them away from their competitors impacting on the seller’s success and profits.

If you purchase something from a retail outlet is it then ok for you to get email promotions or is it SPAM?

For me it largely depends on the type of email promotions they are sending out. I am not terribly keen on receiving constant emails about new arrivals which I see as spam. Yet, in contrast, I am incredibly interested when the email promotions are offering some form of discount or are running a special promotion i.e. free shipping or a gift with purchase. It can be extremely effective and I admit I am a sucker for a good deal and am able to justify a purchase more than if it hadn’t been offered it resulting in a sale which may not have come about had the offer not exist.

Should you buy key words to protect your brand?

Brand awareness plays a major role in a consumer’s buying decision making process and key words play an incredibly important role in achieving instant brand recognition, customer recall and perceptions of the company or product/service. A large percentage of the world’s most successful companies have trademarked certain phrases and words to ensure that they are the only ones able to use it. For example, L’Oreal with the advertising slogan Because You’re Worth It or Nike – Just Do It or Subway – Eat Fresh.

Topic 8 – Online Auctions

Task

This weeks topic is online auctions. I am sure you have all heard of eBay, and many of you may have bought or sold goods by online auction. The nature of (online) auctions has changed fromm selling mainly collectable goods, to selling everyday items. There are now thousands of businesses that get the majority of their income from auction listings.

Refer to Managing the Digital Enterprise find additional information yourself then answer the following questions –

(ebay.com.au)

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 is a website which allows people to buy and sell objects over the internet. EBay business model is the broker model. The broker model is when people buy and sell over the internet making a transaction. EBay has been rather successful because most people have a rather good experience. EBay is a website which tries to ensure that people are being genuine. If and account seems to be fraudulent then eBay would delete their account. EBay has safety measures to ensure that people are not being ripped off.

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 has been able to maintain its dominant position because of how eBay has been operated. Amazon allows consumers go onto the website and buy items which Amazon has in stock. Amazon is more of a company where as eBay allows anyone to put items up for auction. After an item has been sold on eBay, the website receives a commission from the sale. EBay allows consumers to bid for items and who ever offers the most for the item wins the bid. EBay taps into people competitive nature which for some consumers makes it more worthwhile to bid and try to win.

(teamcaffeine, 2015)

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?
EBay has such methods of having information on their website to ensure that people know about security on their website. Such information on their website is in the security centre. The security centre tells consumers and sellers about what to do to reduce risk such as using Paypal. This is a function which eBay trusts and has a protection element for buyers and consumers. Such programs as Paypal are put in place to protect buyers and sellers if they use this program on eBay. If the buyer/seller uses another paying method then the Paypal protection does not apply to them (eBay, 2009). EBay also relies on feedback to know about who is being fraudulent. This allows EBay to know about people trying to scam the system.
The types of fraud eBay users are susceptible to are:
· Identity thief
· Sellers fraud
· Buyers fraud
· Fraudulent emails

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 does this because eBay wants people to come back onto the website. EBay interacts as a community to give people a good experience since people can buy and sell not having to rely on a shop. EBay allows people to search for items which might be unusual or items which you cannot purchase in stores. This means people rely on trying to sell products. Such items as concert tickets people try and sell for the best price because the tickets may be hard to get. People sell items on eBay such as tickets to try and receive a profit. EBay gains because more people will come back to eBay since items are different and ordinary everyday people sell the products.

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?
In my opinion brand name vendors would set up shop on eBay because more people are buying items online. With the internet being more convenient more people are shopping online. With eBay increasing in popularity it would be logical to think that more businesses would sell on eBay to increase in popularity and increase recognition. EBay would allow consumers to buy brand items at a bidding price which might not be extremely high.

References :

ebay (2015) Ebay Logo. [image online] Available at: http://www.ebay.com.au [Accessed: 12 May 2015]. – Used in accordance with eBays rules and policies

Team Caffeine (2015) Ebay process. [image online] Available at: http://teamcaffeine.wikidot.com/ebay [Accessed: 12 May 2015].

Topic 7 – Automata

1) I was using a ‘cybertwin’ for many years now but like many good (free) things, it has been taken over by IBM (watson) and the free service has been shut down. I am playing with a new agent from botlibre that has some potential I think. Think of the opportunities. Imagine if we had a cybertwin that could answer your questions about the course. Or perhaps a shopping assistant? I know the header (below) is squashed, but I didn’t want to take up too much space.

The dream of scientists and business leaders alike is a machine that can think. Sounds like science fiction but it is closer than you may think. Alan Turing first wrote about the possibilities in the 1940’s.

The responses provided by Ian’s Cyber twin varied, I could tell that they were generated as sometimes they didn’t make sense and his answers were limited but I think with a lot of training a cyber twin would be great for people to have in order to act as themselves to others maybe respond to non sensitive emails or just reply to every spam email you get.

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 video (linked in the PowerPoint) ‘Creativity: The Mind, Machines, and Mathematics: Public Debate’ is a debate which asks the question ‘will machines one day achieve consciousness’. Following on from this debate consider the following question

The Turing test is a test of a machines ability to exhibit intelligent behavior to that of a human. The test consists of asking a question to two parties (A and B) and the responses of the two are put forward two person C. Person C then has to decide which response whether A or B is the computer response or the human response(Wikipedia,2000)

The Chinese room test suggests that the test cannot be used to determine whether machines could think or not. The test claims that computers use symbols to recognize information and if these symbols are manipulated the Turing test would indeed fail as they would have no understanding of this occurring. Without this understanding they could not be described as really thinking in the way in which humans do.(Wikipedia, 2000)

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. Try botlibre.com or find an alternative bot.

My answer could not be added to the voxopop audio discussion board as my computer is missing a java plug in which I downloaded but still the recorder didn’t want to work.

Virtual agents can succeed in providing customer support over the web but are limited to the responses in which they can provide. I think to a degree they can be used well and this has been shown by big companies such as Telstra and Centre link using them to provide customer support in there busy telecommunications departments. They use virtual agents in order to answer simple problems people have and if further assistance is needed you are then transferred on to a human operator. This is effective as its weed out numerous callers and would save a lot of money for big companies that receive large amounts of customer calls daily and have to set up large call centres.

Wikipedia (2000) Turing test . [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test#The_Chinese_room [Accessed: 5 May 2015].

Topic Six – Digital Markets ( web page )

Question 1

a) What experiences have you had with shopping online?

I shop online regularly; I try to avoid buying clothes from retail stores as I would rather order from the comfort of my own home. Generally the only risk is with sizing, as you cannot try before you buy.

http://e-strategyblog.com/2011/07/daily-numbers-the-online-shopping-preference/#.UXOV97Rpsy4

b)Describe a good experience.

A good experience would be last week when I purchased a lot of clothes from surfstitch.com.au, this site is quiet cheap and Australian owned based in Sydney and has an array of popular brands on offer for competitive prices.

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

I liked the free express shipping the best and the fact that I could get free express shipping without having to purchase a certain amount of clothes as they have no purchase minimum in which you have to buy to receive free shipping.

d) Describe a bad experience.

When I purchased jean from an overseas retailer in which I waited ages for and when they got here they were the wrong size and were stonewashed but didn’t look similar to the picture posted online.

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

The fact that they poorly communicated with me on my order status, no email confirmation of purchase being sent or tracking details to trace my orders where abouts.

f) What features make an online store more appealing?

Free shipping especially when it is express and order tracking so you can see where and when your order will arrive.

g) What features make an online store less appealing?

When they only accept credit cards, as I prefer my payment method protected such as PayPal.

h) Should we expect to see the prices of goods and services rise or fall due to the migration of consumers online?  Marketplace elements include: Communications infrastructure Structured environment Transaction mechanism Delivery

I think prices will fall as more competitors are entering the market and it will grow into such a competitive market place in which there are so many retailers of specific items that you can shop around and get cheaper prices from different retailers online.

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

This article is also over 10 years old, so a lot has changed. Early on (low) price was king on the Internet. Now many other factors are also critical such as service, speed of delivery, free postage to name a few.

Question 2

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

Yes as competition in the market rises the price dispersion will be reduced as retailers have to have competitive prices with other retailers to stay in the market.

b) The importance of brand names will decrease.

No as brand names represent a brands previous success in the market. Consumers will always continue to purchase brand name goods as they have previous knowledge of the brand and know of its quality in the market.

c) Price competition will make all products cheaper.

Yes as more competitors in the market, retailers will have to lower prices and the Internet enables consumers to shop around in order to get the lowest price at the click of a button.

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

Yes as these sites get a lot more traffic and are more commonly known in the marketplace therefore consumer will always turn to these sites first.

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

I think the balance will fall to the buyers as there is so much competition in the market the buyer can always shop around online for the best price.

f) Prices are clustered online.

Yes prices are generally clustered online as competitors have to match others in which to continue to grow within the market.

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

Prices will always change when demand changes as both retailers and consumers are always eager to get the best prices out of each other.

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

Yes prices are more transparent online as consumers are more likely to shop around for the best price from others sites online.

Question 3

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

Telstra offers apps, live TV, Media streaming , Movie and song downloads and Foxtel packages available for purchase by consumers.

b) Which of these services do you use?

I steer clear of these add on functions as they do cost a lot and I try to keep my phone bill to the price my cap includes each month and use it for normal calls and SMS’s.

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

I purchase items from eBay on my mobile phone and pay via PayPal on my mobile. This is quick and easy when not at home and unable to use my computer.

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

I would like to be able to use apps and download things without the cost of data usage on mobile devices being so high. Going over your phone bill generally comes with a pretty hefty price tag.

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

I think the way the market is nowadays advertising is everywhere and its always going to be on your phone and applications. I tend just to disregard advertisements and marketing.

Topic Five – Business Models

Questions

Now look at the list of business models below and describe the features of each of these business models, on your blog page, giving an example of each.

Brokerage
Advertising
Infomediary
Merchant
Manufacturer (Direct)
Affiliate
Community
Subscription
Utility.

Brokerage: brokers bring buyers and sellers together and facilitate transactions. Brokers play a frequent role in business-to-business, business-to-consume,or consumer-to-consumer markets. Usually a broker charges a fee or commission for each transaction it enables.

Advertising: the advertising model is an extension of the traditional media broadcast model. The broadcaster, in this case, a web site, provides content and services mixed with advertising messages in the form of banner ads. The banner ads may be the major or sole source of revenue for the broadcaster.

Infomediary 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.

Merchant: wholesalers and retailers of goods and services. Sales may be made based on list prices or through auction.

Manufacturer (Direct): the manufacturer or “direct model”, it is predicated on the power of the web to allow a manufacturer 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.

Affiliate: the affiliate model, provides purchase opportunities wherever people may be surfing. It does this by offering financial incentives to affiliated partner sites. The affiliates 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.

Community: the community model 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.

Subscription: users are charged a periodic – daily, monthly or annual – fee to subscribe to a service. It is not uncommon for sites to combine free content with “premium” content. Subscription fees are incurred irrespective of actual usage rates.

Utility: The utility or “on-demand” model 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. Internet service providers in some parts of the world operate as utilities, charging customers for connection minutes, as opposed to the subscriber model common in the U.S.

Spend some time looking at the Technology report, particularly the country profiles and rankings. Use some of the data analysis tools to answer the following –

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

Mobile phone subscriptions/100 population

Australia – 133
USA – 103.1
China – 93.2
India – 77.58

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

Australia – 82.3
USA – 85.75
China -45.04
India – 20.01

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

Strengths of Australia:
Intensity and quality of local competition
Availability of scientists and engineers
Extent of staff training
Local supplier quality
Availability of new telephone lines
Prevalence of foreign technology
Firm-level technology absorption
Capacity for innovation

Weaknesses of Australia:
Extent and effect taxation
Residential telephone connection charge
Business telephone connection charge

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

The survey suggests the readiness of Australian business is ranked higher in the world. Compared with Information Technology readiness of Australian consumers who rank in the Top 20 in the world. This suggests that Australian businesses are very much Information Technology ready as Australian consumers and other world partners.

References

Mobithinking.com,. (2015). mobiForge – Mobile Web Development. Retrieved April 30, 2015, from http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#topmobilemarkets

Data.worldbank.org,. (2015). Internet users (per 100 people) | Data | Table. Retrieved April 30, 2015, from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2

Topic 4 – Digital Design

Questions

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

Creating a customer centric site is important as your business relies on customers having a positive purchasing experience and want to return and purchase from you again. Your website must not only meet the needs and wants of your consumers but also leave them with a positive purchasing experience after check out. The Internet offers consumers an array of products available from all over the world at different prices. Generally consumers will purchase from a site that is the cheapest but by having a visually appealing website and user friendly purchasing process this could result gaining an advantage over other sites that may not have an as well developed site.

This is becoming increasingly more difficult as creating a good site that offers all of the above is quiet expensive as generally you have to employ a web developer in which to do so. Also developing a good business process for your site takes time as generally it will take more then one take to build the right site. Websites are constantly getting tweaked with new innovations and companies nowadays are hiring web developer’s full time in order to do this.

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

Presence refers to the existence of someone or something in a certain place at a given time. Having a presence online is harder to achieve then in the physical world as it is a lot harder to market online. In the physical world businesses can use all types of advertising to increase business such as signage, stickers, advertisements, use bright colors and there location. Whereas online there is a lot more competition with other websites so the advertising your website and gaining exposure Is more limited then in the physical world. To promote your business online you need to get traffic to your site, to do this search engines play a vital role. Getting your website to return at the top in the results of a potential consumers simple “Google or “yahoo” search, to do this you need to either pay a reasonable amount of money. Creating banners on other websites that link to your site is also a way of gaining business but with so many competitors based online businesses need to be constantly marketing and advertising online in order to direct traffic to there site.

An example of a poorly designed website featured on webpagesthatsuck.com
(militarycorruption.com)

3. *Usable Doesn’t Have To Mean Ugly ‘for a web design to be truly beautiful, it has to be functional, have purpose and contribute in some way to the website’s intuitiveness, usefulness and branding. All of these things contribute to the overall effect of a design’. This is a quote from one of the articles on web design linked on Web pages that suck. Find a web page that ‘does not suck’ and discuss the features that make it work

Generalpants.com.au is an Australian fashion retailer that has taken over the online fashion industry. This site is very user friendly, located at the top of the page is a simple drop box for each category of fashion you are looking for. Whether it be men’s or women’s, denim or locations for all there physical stores. The main page offers a bright advertisement for this month’s special of “Jackets”. This site works, as it is very simple to use, nothing fancy just well presented with multiple images of items so customers know exactly what the item in questions looks like. The color scheme they have used is very basic consisting of black, white and grey for all web boxes and bright red for some fonts. This color scheme yet very basic is very effective in drawing attention to the red coloured items such as sales products and new items to the site. When purchasing items of clothing users can add items to their gift cart before using a secure SSL checkout method. Various payment methods are accepted and customers are notified when stock is shipped and provided with a tracking number for all purchases.

My experience with this website was positive as all items were clearly displayed well on the site and I was happy with the quality of all the products. The site was user friendly and checkout only took a matter of minutes. The biggest test for an online retailer is whether consumers will purchase again in future and I can safely say id be more then happy to purchase from general pants again as my previous purchasing experience was positive.

References:

Rappa, M. (2005). Untitled, Digital Design. [podcast] 9 September 2005. Retrieved from: http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/design_tr.html [Accessed: April 27, 2015].

Webpagesthatsuck.com (2011). Web Pages That Suck – learn good web design by looking at bad web design – Home Page. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com [Accessed: April 27, 2015].

Macmillandictionary.com (2009). presence – definition of presence by Macmillan Dictionary. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/presence [Accessed: April 27, 2015].

Generalpants.com.au (2008). Online Shopping . [online] Retrieved from: http://www.generalpants.com.au [Accessed: April 27, 2015].

Topic 3 – Security and Privacy

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?

Passport numbers, dates of birth and visa details of leaders attending the Brisbane summit were mistakenly emailed by a department official to a member of the Asian Cup Local Organising Committee. United States president Barack Obama, Russian president Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel were among the world leaders at the G20 summit. The department described it as an “isolated example of human error” and it considered the risks of the breach to be “very low”, given personal data such as address or other contact details were not included. The email to the privacy commissioner said then immigration minister Scott Morrison was notified but the department did not consider it necessary to notify the leaders involved. A department spokesman today released a statement that said the “data was immediately deleted by the recipient and was not distributed further”. The spokesman said the breach was referred to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. “The department has reviewed and strengthened its email protocols to limit and contain future breaches,” he said in a statement. (ABC News, 2015)

Question 2
Intellectual Property (IP) online, particularly copyright is keeping many lawyers in a job, but are they losing the battle? Topics such as plagiarism are still popular in universities, and occasionally a politician will get caught using someone else’s words. The Internet is not a copyright free zone, but it is certainly a battle ground. Watch the following video and and discuss your rights to use copies or make mashups.

Most Ambient Iintelligence (AmI) scenarios illustrate its benefits. The dark scenarios, developed by the SWAMI (Safeguards in a World of Ambient Intelligence) project, are different as they point out the risks that must be mediated if AMI is to be a future success story. The scenario we present here hinges on the theft of data from a multinational company. The company suffers from the illusion of security—that is, the belief it has implemented more than adequate security measures— only to discover it has not.

Consider the following case (below) then –

complete a comprehensive analysis of the facts and issues in the case. Some questions to consider –

What AmI technologies are identified in the case?

The vast amounts of Data storage collected by gathering data from various sources and compiling it and reselling it back to its original sources I some cases. These sources included insurance companies, retail chains, mobile phone companies, law enforcement agencies, custom and immigration.

What drives DMC’s officers to take the actions they took?

DMC officers took the actions of searching high and low for the employees as the loss of data would be a massive flaw in the companies privacy of information. Reputation of a company is everything in business and the release of such sensitive information could cost the company not only a lot of money but the reputation of the company in the market.

DMC is the clear market leader in the aggregation of AmI data. Are there any comparisons you can make to technology companies today?

Not to the extent that DMC uses, but companies and businesses alike all need to have a knowledge of consumer behavior and what drives the consumers to purchase from therer companies. For example through the use of surveys which provide an insight into who is buying what product, why they are buying the product and even the demographics of those who are purchasing the products. The Australian government use the census to gather data of its citizens in order to put together figures and statistics for our country. These are important in determining population growth, infrastructure and also knowing where our citizens reside.

How realistic is the description of governments using the technology and prohibiting immigration from states with no AmI data aggregation information?

Generally countries don’t allow immigrants to reside in the country before knowing a lot about them. The collection of Aml data aggregation information could make the immigration process easier as they would know more about the person in which they are letting enter the country.

What would be the impact of this digital divide?

The company could lose its reputation in the market, which could cause detrimental affects to the future revenue of the company Ands its standing within the market.

List some of the ‘unintended consequences’ described in the case.

With dealing with so much sensitive and private information the company assumed it had the information secure. But nowadays with technology and hackers being so advanced any information especially large amounts of personal data is always under threat as it can always attract the attention of the wrong types as It can be invaluable to the right people.

With the amount of information that was stolen the company could not assume it would be able to be swept under the rug and the public not to hear about it like they did. Generally nowadays companies try to keep it in house for as long as they can but then will issue a statement to the public when they realize the issue is going to be brought to light.

Do members of the class all agree on the issues raised by this case? What were the main points of difference (if any) in discussions?

Fellow Students in the classed seemed to have a good grasp of the issues of security and privacy, in the topic three forums on Moodle students presented cases of security and privacy issues that have happened in the last six months. The class all seemed to understand the importance of technology and the sensitivity of privacy and how big companies were effected by the release of personal information.

Nan Jiang 30133184 e-Business Fundamentals

Created a blog for the Subject e-Business Fundamentals. In this blog i will regularly update with Questions,Notes and Classwork