Ch. 11 Summary - Social Networks, Auctions, and Portals

• Social Networks have many characteristics
• a group of people
• shared social interaction
• common ties among members
• a shared area for some period of time
• Difference between social networks and portals
• a social network is a network of social connections with other individuals
• a portal is more of a "homepage" where Internet users start and link to other locations from there
• Types of social networks
• general communications
• practice networks
• interest-based communities
• affinity communities
• sponsored communities
• Types of auctions
• English auctions
• Traditional Dutch auction
• Internet Dutch auction
• Name your own price auction
• Group buying auction
• Benefits of auctions
• liquidity
• price discovery
• price transparency
• market efficiency
• lower transaction costs
• consumer aggregation
• network effects
• market-maker benefits
• Costs of auctions
• delayed consumption
• monitoring costs
• equipment costs
• trust risks
• fulfillment costs
• Methods to reduce auction risks
• rating system
• watch lists
• proxy bidding
• Factors for businesses to consider when using auctions
• the type of product
• the product life cycle
• channel management
• the type of auction
• initial pricing
• bid increments
• auction length
• number of items
• price allocation rule
• closed vs open bidding
• Abuses of auctions
• bid rigging
• price matching
• shill feedback
• feedback extortion
• transaction interference
• bid manipulation
• non-payment after winning
• blocking legitimate buyers by bidding high then no paying
• shill bidding
• transaction non-performance
• non-selling seller
• bid siphoning
• Major types of Internet portals
• Enterprise portals
• general purpose portals
• vertical market portals
• affinity groups
• focused content portals
• Business model of portals
• Revenue sources
• ISP services
• general advertising
• tenancy deals
• subscription fees
• commissions on sales
  

Dr. Michael Bruce - Anderson Univerisity

Dr. Bruce is a market professor at Anderson University.

E-commerce has made business much more impersonal.

Everybody connected to a system have different needs, and values.

• Stakeholder Concept
• A method of looking at ethical relationships by identifying any group or individual who is, or can be, affected by the process under scrutiny
• Employees, members of society, consumers, owners
• Social Responsibility
• An organization’s impact on society
• Organization must be constantly monitoring to understand situation
• Ethics
• A set of moral principles or values
• Big Picture
• Inputs
• Individual
• Key family
• Literature
• Life experiences
• External
• Corporate culture
• Stakeholders
• Governmental entities
• Organizational Relationships
• Coworkers and superiors can create ethical problems
• Corporate Culture – shared values of the organization
• Situations
• Opportunity
• A favorable set of conditions that limit, punish, encourage, or reward ethical/unethical decisions
• Elements within the business environment that help create opportunities include
• Rewards
• Absence of punishment
• Worldview
• How we see the word
• All the inputs put together help to create this worldview
• Humanistic worldview
• Teleological frameworks - the ends justify the means
• Egoism – as long as I come out on top, then nothing else matters
• Utilitarianism – the needs of the many outnumber the needs of the few
• Deontological frameworks
• Existentialism – its not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game that matters
• Contractarianism – what makes life the best for all of us is the best
• Combiniation (Hybrid) – mix and match – end result / process
• Moral development concept
• More aware of ethical issues
• Religious worldview
• In almost all christian religions, there is a golden rule concept
• Nature of Ethical Decisions
• Being socially responsible and ethical is not easy
• Situations are rarely black and white
• Having personal implications
• Extended or long term effects
• Outcomes will be uncertain
• Has positive and negative outcomes
• Ethical Reasoning
• Definition of the ethical problem
• Selection of an ethical standard
• Application of the ethical standard

Ch 8 - Ethical, Social, and Political Issues in E-Commerce

• Because e-commerce is such a new field, there really aren't a lot of set standards for ethical or socially correct ways of doing things. This has raised many issues that are discussed in detail in this chapter.
• Issues
• Information Rights
• This has to do with the rights of individuals to ensure their privacy and not allow their personal information to be collected somewhere on the Internet.
• Property Rights
• This has to do with the fact that things on the internet can easily be copied and redistributed. This infringes on the traditional intellectual property rights of individuals.
• Governance
• This is the issue of whether or not the Internet should be governed by public laws. And if they should, who has the authority to uphold those laws in various places throughout the world?
• Public Safety and Welfare
• This has to do with the fact that some online content may potentially pose a threat to public safety and welfare.
• The chapter went on to discuss how to identify these ethical, social, and political dilemmas.
• The chapter went through a long process of how to identify these dilemmas and fully analyze them.
• In order to fully understand the issues about online privacy, the chapter described some basic concepts that must first be understood.
• Privacy - the moral right of individuals to be left alone
• Information Privacy - the claim that certain information should not be collected, and also that individuals should have control over the use of their personal information.
• Due Process - informed consent, and opt-in/opt-out policies.
• There are several different methods to protect your online privacy.
• Legal Protection - includes all laws and such that ensure privacy.
• Industry Self-Regulation - seek to gain voluntary adherence to industry privacy guidelines.
• Privacy-enhancing Technologies - various technologies that help to ensure privacy.
• Various forms of intellectual property
• Copyright Law - protects original forms of expression
  
• Patent Law - grants owner exclusive monopoly on ideas behind an invention
• Trademark Protection - ensures public gets what it pays for
• Evolution of Governance over time
• Government control
• Privatization
• Self-regulation
• Government regulation
• Why taxation raises issues
• How to tax remote sales
• Current taxation system does not carry over into Internet
• Major public safety issues in e-commerce
• Protecting children from pornography
• Restricting access to cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs.

Rob Hanlon

Rob Hanlon is the CIO of TreeHouse Foods. He came and spoke to us today about his experience in following career goals and how to reach those goals. Below are some of the main points that he made during his lecture.

• There are two groups of people when it comes to new technology
  
• nay sayers - those who think it will only cause harm
• those who hop right on board
• this is a gamble. you either hit it big are you lose big
• About 2-3% of a companies income should go into IT
• Rob told a story about how he spent $1.3 million on a system that saved the company $50 million ever year
• Your resume should be a story of your career goals
• Jobs
• For your first job, you should just get into the game
• After your first job, your resume changes from you GPA and courses to what you produced in previous positions
• You should do what you enjoy, and don't just take a job because it offers more money
• Don't have regrets
• Take chances on what you're interested in while you're still young
• Take the risk
• Courage has tremendous value in the marketplace
• Seek council often
• Don't give up on getting into a good graduate school
• Don't give up period.
• Don't hop quickly between jobs
• Never pay a recruiter, they are paid by employers to find you
• In all your great success, be respectful and humble. It will set you apart from the more secular employees.

In all the Rob Hanlon said, I found the most interesting to be his story about getting into grad school. It took him four tries to get in, but he never gave up. This courage to continue against all odds is both inspiring and reassuring.

Google + DoubleClick = Love

Accorder to new statistics recently release be Attributor, Google's acquisition of DoubleClick gives them 69% of the online advertising market share. This is way ahead of Yahoo! at 11.54% and MSN at 9.86%. Google recently warned about the implications of MSN and Yahoo! merging. This may have been slightly hypocritical.

Despite the enormous market share domination, the European Union’s antitrust regulator has approved this $3.1 billion deal without conditions. Shortly after this approval was given, the deal was completed.

As of April 2, 2008, approximately 300 employees have been laid off from a total of 1,500 as a result of the Google-DoubleClick acquisition. This is said to be the largest cut that Google has ever had to make. Also, the search engine section of DoubleClick, called Performics, will soon be sold by Google because it is in direct opposition to their own search engine. This may result in further layoffs down the line.

This merger of Google and DoubleClick means that other online advertising organizations such as Yahoo! and MSN will need to step up their performance significantly to even provide minor competition to Google.



http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080331-130043
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/11/the-eu-approves-googles-doubleclick-deal/
http://mashable.com/2008/04/02/google-doubleclick-layoffs-2/

Ch 7 Questions 9-11

9. What are some of the advantages of direct e-mail marketing?
- targeted interested consumers
- high response rate
- more effective than purchases e-mail lists

10. Why is offline advertising still important?
- not only attract people who are already on-line but also attract those who will be on-line in the near future.
- nearly 100% market penetration into American households
- target a broader range of consumers

11. What is the difference between hits and page views? Why are these not the best measurements of Web traffic? Which is the preferred metric for traffic counts?
- Page Hits – number of http requests received by a firm’s server
- misleading metric because a single page can generate multiple hits
- Page Views – number of pages requested by visitors
- misleading because a page of multiple frames will generate multiple views
- Of these two metrics, Page Views is the preferred metric because it generally much more accurate

Loopy Ewe

Mrs. Berger

Trained as an educator

Did scrap booking for 15 years

- scrap booking industry started to slump with coming of digital cameras

Really enjoyed sitting

Didn’t want to do a shop because of the hours

Didn’t understand how God would use an online yarn shop

Challenge of an E-commerce business

- never meet the customers face-to-face

o impact on customers

§ find your niche

§ not much of a business for sock yarn

§ sock nitters are very passionate

§ expanded to lace yarn

§ very narrow niche market so they can do it very well

o make them want to come back

§ find your competitive advantage

§ build your website from the ground up

· don’t use a framework

· individualize it

§ good customer service

§ catch customer’s attention

· hand written notes

· good packaging

· need really good photos of your products

o turn customer satisfaction into customer loyalty

§ answering emails

§ answering phone calls

§ writing a blog

· relate to the owner of the business

· start to think you’re they’re friend

§ blog contest

· people leave comments and random person gets a prize

§ lots of customer involvement

o how to get people to tell their friends

§ give them more than they expect

§ free gift with every sale

§ two people processing the orders

§ when you make a mistake, admit it and make it right immediately

- challenging to make your products unique

Ch 2 Notes

There are 8 key elements of a business model:

• Value proposition - how the product or service fulfills the needs of the customers
  
• Revenue model - how the company plans to make money
  
• Market opportunity - the revenue potential within the intended marketplace
  
• Competitive environment - competitors doing business in the same marketplace
  
• Competitive advantage - how the company is different from its competitors
  
• Market strategy - how the company will enter the market and attract customers
  
• Organizational development - recruiting and hiring strong employees
  
• Management team - the people who guide the company's growth and expansion

Major B2C business Models:

• Portal
• E-tailer
• Content provider
• Transaction broker
• Market creator
• Service provider
• Community provider

Major B2B business Models:

• E-distributor
• E-procurement
• Exchange
• Industry consortium industry
• Private industrial network industry

Other business models of e-commerce:

• C2C
• P2P
• M-commerce
• E-commerce

Key business concepts of e-commerce:

• Industry structure
• Industry value chains
• Firm value chains
• Business strategy

Two Document Selling Websites

Socratek - sells legal documents
http://www.socratek.com/

gazhoo - sells various types of documents - allows uploading
http://www.gazhoo.com/index.aspx

2/19 Assignment - 2

Assessment of Buy.com

Ubiquity
Although I have not tried accessing Buy.com from another country, it is always accessibly from the United States. I have never experienced the website having downtime. I would assume that it can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

Global Reach
Buy.com has global reach because it is accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. So no matter where in the world you live, if you can get online, you can purchase items from Buy.com.

Universal Standards
Although I am not aware of the specifics of universal standards, Buy.com provides easy product searching, price comparisons with other websites, and other useful features.

Richness
Buy.com gives a rich presentation of each product. This includes multiple images, clearly listed specifications, similar products, and consumer reviews.

Interactivity
Buy.com provides interaction with it's customers through a suggestion box. Users can enter comments, problems, or any other information they feel the business could use.

Information Density
A large amount of information is presented with each product. I have listed some of this information previously. Some of the most helpful information comes in the form of specifications, images, and user reviews. Also, prices from other websites are displayed to the user.

Personalization/Customization
Buy.com personalizes its presentation of the website by monitoring the products that the user has recently viewed. They can then suggest other products that might be of interest to the user.

Social Technology
Users can communicate to other users and transfer information about products through User Reviews. This includes a rating of value, performance, ease of use, and overall satisfaction with the product. In addition to this rating, users can provide a brief summary of their experience with the product and Buy.com in general.

One of the aspects of ecommerce that Buy.com can work on is the interactivity of users with the business. Besides the Suggestion Box, there is no easy way of getting in contact with a person in order to ask questions, get guidance, or seek customer service. One thing they might consider would be a chat system where customers could chat with a business representative about products they are considering.

2/19 Assignment - 1

Business-to-business
http://www.staples.com/
Staples sells products to other businesses and is therefore uses business-to-business ecommerce.

Business-to-consumer
http://www.buy.com/
Buy.com is a business that sells products to consumers and is therefore using business-to-consumer ecommerce.

Consumer-to-consumer
http://www.half.ebay.com/
Half.com meets the requirements of consumer-to-consumer ecommerce because consumers are selling products to other consumers.

Peer-to-peer
www.kazaa.com
Kazaa is a peer-to-peer file sharing network in which people can share their files with others through the Internet.

M-commerce
http://movies.aol.com/
AOL Moviefone is a service that allows people to receive movie information on their mobile phones.

Ch1 Notes

Define Ecommerce

- started in 1995

- digital means to have some sort of transaction involving two organizations or an organization and a person

- current trend - new business models based on social technologies and user-generated content

- continued conflict over copyrights, content regulation, taxation, privacy, fraud, etc.

- definition – digitally enabled commercial transactions between and among organizations and individuals

e-business – digital transaction and processes WITHIN a firm, involving systems under firm’s control

ubiquitous – seemingly everywhere

global reach – can reach everyone in the world

universal standards – everything does the same everywhere

information richness – don’t have to sacrifice anything in getting your word out

interactive

information density

personalization / customization

social technology

types of ecommerce

b2c – business to consumer

b2b – business to business – trillions of dollars

c2c – consumer to consumer

p2p – peer to peer

m-commerce – mobile commerce

limits on growth of b2b ecommerce

- expensive technology

- complex software interface

- sophisticated skill set

- persistent cultural attraction of physical markets and traditional shopping experiences

- persistent global inequality limiting access to telephones and computers

E-commerce at Taylor University

Rod Ide and Rob Leniham came and spoke to us about the current E-commerce utilizations at Taylor University. It was an interesting discussion about the issues that come with E-commerce and why Taylor has been reluctant to implement this technology.

We started off our discussion by listing some of the reasons we as students use E-commerce in our every day lives. Some of these reasons included ease, efficiency, speed, and convenience. Convenience is the main reason. We find it much more convenient to get on the Internet and purchase a product than travel to the store for the same item.

Companies have different reasons for implementing E-commerce technology. Some of these reasons include organization, low overhead, can reach more people, track customer information, and less risk of chasing bad debt. All these characteristics come into play when deciding how, or even if, E-commerce should be used.

Taylor University has been slow to adopt E-commerce into its economic infrastructure. There are various reasons why this has occurred. Below is a list of the reasons and a short description of each:

• Discount Rates - Money taken from credit card payments is not necessarily the amount the University will receive. Credit card processors take a percentage of the money as a handling fee for processing the transaction.
• Credit card data storage - Storing credit card data would require an exponential increase in the security implementation at Taylor University. The security standard provided by the credit card industry, know as PCIDSS, is very detailed and specific on how the data is to be managed.
• Background complexity - Each department that has a store-front is required to have their own custom background implementation in order to hand to transactions. This increase of complexity cannot be handled by the current IT staff at Taylor University.

Rob and Rod tied all these issues together in simplified terms in order to define the current state of E-commerce at Taylor University. Although small steps are being taken around the campus, it will be some time before E-commerce becomes a prominent technology at Taylor.

John Peebles - Sentry Data Systems

John Peebles is the CIO of Sentry Data Systems in Florida. He is 26 years old and graduated from Taylor University in 2003. He is a laid back young man who has had trouble with academic life before starting his own business and taking on random programming jobs before finding his current position at Sentry Systems.

One of the first topics John talked about was the how best to run a remote development organization. In order to do this, it is very important to have good people. There is a large difference between a good programmer and an average or poor programmer. Another important attribute is a fast Internet connection. This ensures a constant line of communication between remote developers and managers. Bug tracking and organized documentation are tools that have also proven very useful.

Another principle John Peebles concentrated on was the community of the organization. Sometimes it takes a crazy project that developers can pour their creativity into in order to build up the community and bring people together.

I felt John Peebles presented his information well. He kept the students' attention and delivered his points in a way that was fun and interesting. Although I do not plan on pursuing a career at Sentry Data Systems, I can appreciate the principles of the development process that are in place there.

Blog has been created

This is my blog for eCommerce - Spring 08


Jason Love