Week 10 - Trust

Trust

 

1) What does this meant by the following statements?

Trust is not associative (non-symmetric): In terms of buyers and sellers, non-symmetric trust is generally when the trust they have for each other is not the same. For example a seller may trust that the money will be delivered, but the buyer may lack trust that the seller will deliver the good.

Trust is not transitive: This really depends on the buyer and sellers. Usually people will develop their own trust in a relationship usually based on first impressions; however on occasions if someone close to the buyer tells them about a positive transaction they have had with the seller, they may be more willing to trust the seller than before.

Trust is always between exactly 2 parties: This is generally true but in fact when you go back further than just the ‘buyer-seller relationship’ you will find that it is false. For example sellers usually buy the product off other sellers, in the form of suppliers and manufacturers which means that trust can be between a whole number of parties in the one transaction.

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommended trust: This is true as trust can either be developed through a person’s first impressions and personal experience or it can come from someone else, where someone refers them to the seller because of a positive transaction which is referred to as recommended trust.


2a) Have a look at the following websites. What are some of the elements that have been incorporated to increase your trust in the sites? If there are also some aspects which decrease your level of trust describe them as well.

· eBay biggest aspect which would increase trust is their ‘Security & Resolution Centre’. This allows all users of this site to trust that their transactions can be dealt with an appropriate manner and be fixed if need be.
· The layout is also another factor which may increase trust. It allows users to view items with all details, such as price and description. It also enables users to search the website which sows they are not hiding anything
· The ‘Contact Us’ option is also a HUGE help in increasing trust allowing customers to get assistance if need be.
http://www.eBay.com.au

· This site also offers the ‘Contact Us’ options, giving customers the opportunity to speak to someone in person about their banking issues
· It also offers customers the option of reading about the company to see whether they would like to join up with ANZ by incorporating the ‘About Us’ Tab.
· It also had its privacy statement down the bottom for customers to read in case of doubt and the fact that it has security alerts will definitely increase customer trust
http://www.anz.com.au

· Well seeing this is Ian’s site, I better not criticize it too much. It is obvious going from the others sites to this site that Oz Rural is not as established and large as the other two.
· It does however have great layout which is easy to navigate around and also gives contact details which is always a winner when increasing customer trust.
· It is definitely a positive influence with the lonely planet books, adding more trust as people realize the affiliation with a larger company
http://www.ozrural.com

· Using Security Center, as mentioned before, is a positive way of increasing customer trust
· Also the option to find out more about Pay Pal is one which will increase trust, as it dispels myths people have made about the organization as well.
· In the ‘About Pay Pal’ tab it mentions that it ‘uses the most advanced proprietary fraud prevention systems’ which can only add confidence to users.
http://www.paypal.com.au

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

This website just looks a little amateur! I probably won’t be buying anything from here anytime!!
http://cobrastrike.com/

Week 8 - Online auctions

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?

e-Bay's business model is consumer to consumer.  e-Bay is globalization and adopt person-to-person trading. which has traditionally been conducted through such forms as garage sales, collectibles shows, flea markets and more, with their web interface. This facilitates easy exploration for buyers and enables the sellers to immediately list an item for sale within minutes of registering.

http:/www.allbusiness.com/sales/internet-ebay/3251-1.html#axzz1vUz2dQ99

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?

e-Bay is one of the only major Internet "Pure Plays".  It means that e-Bay allows anybody to bid the items and allows anybody post their products on internet.  After that, when the products are bid and sale out, e-Bay receives a commission from them.  So, e-Bay has been able to maintain its dominant position. 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.  e-Bay taps into people competitive nature which for some consumers makes it more worthwhile to bid and try to win

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?

e-Bay apply the security system to ensure that consumer and supplier have a safety environment in the website.  e-Bay is using Paypal security system. This is a function which eBay trusts and has a protection element for buyers and consumers (eBay, 2009). 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). e-Bay also provide a feedback to know about who is being fraudulent. This allows e-Bay to know about people trying to scam the system.  The types of fraud eBay users are identity thief, fraudulent emails, buyers fraud and seller fraud.

 

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?

It allows customers to feel part of a community in order for them to feel comfortable in the auction environment. This allows them to be familiarized with other customers and discuss different items which in the long run will allow more buying and selling to be done on eBay, that is further benefit effort to conceptualize.

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?

It is a win-win situation for both businesses. Because of eBay’s leading reputation in the virtual auction marketplace people are more likely to go there first to bid on goods rather than search for a particular business, as they know they will find it on eBay. Therefore by setting up shop on eBay other businesses are getting promoted there as well as through their own business. However, at the same time, eBay would be getting some profit off businesses using their site.

Q6. I have a few businesses, and I have used eBay for about 12 years on and off. Currently I have about 600 books listed on eBay (seller name ozrural). I stopped selling on eBay for a few years but they changed the rules this July and it is viable again (for me). What do you think changed?

Week 7 - Introduction to Digital Automata

Introduction to Digital Automata

2) Write a one paragraph describing the Turing test and another paragraph describing an argument against the Turing Test, known as the about the Chinese room.

The turing test is a test of a machine's ability to show intelligent behavior.  For example, a computer engages in a natural language conversation with a human and than the computer will learn people to speaking that it sound is as same as human being.

 An argument that has been put forward against the Turing Test is known as the Chinese room.  According to John Searle said that in 1980 in his paper title 'Minds, Brains and Programs' which he had determined through experimentation (Wikipedia, 2011).  Searle argued that software could pass the Turing Test simply by mainpulating symbols of which they had not understanding.

In Wikipedia.Retrieved (14 May 2012 at 14:46) The Turing Test.From <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_test.>

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. 

Yes. I think a virtual agents can succeed in delivering high-quality customer service over the Web? As agents who want to earn profit, who will provide a good customer service.  They will provide a clearly and information and help the customer step by step to follow the instruction.  Until the customers willing to purchase a products.  Therefore, a virtual agents can delivering high-quality customer service.

Week 6 - Digital Markets Notes and Exercises

Question 1

a) What experiences have you had with shopping online?

Although I didn't have any shopping online, I know that shopping online is very easy and convenience for customers to select their favours.

 

b) Describe a good experience.

I am no any experience in shopping online.

 

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

 If I want to purchase some products, I also go to the online store (e.g. Healthy & Heartwise, Harvey Norman...etc.) to navigating the product's introduction and price.

 

d) Describe a bad experience.

Because of I never go to the online store, so, I am not bad experience anymore.

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

I think that the online store have many advantages and disadvantages.  An advantages are convenience-it provide 24/7 online.  Customers want to purchase at anytime and anywhere.  Disadvantages are very convenience.  Customers easy to buy, sellers easy to earn. 

 

f) What features make an online store more appealing?

 The features of products photo are more appealing at the online store.

 

g) What features make an online store less appealing?

The less appealing of online store is too complex and to many words.

 

h) Should we expect to see the prices of goods and services rise or fall due to the migration of consumers online?Yes. This is good point.  The prices of products rise or fall will affect the customer's behaviour and the elastic of demand.  Furthermore, in the perfect competition market, there is not price taker, the sellers, whose products is the highest quality and low price, they will get profit. 

Question 2

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

However, several studies find substantial
and persistent dispersion in prices on the Internet. This price dispersion may be explained, in
part, by heterogeneity in retailer-specific factors such as trust and awareness. In addition, we
note that Internet markets are still in an early stage of development and may change dramatically
in the coming years with the development of cross-channel sales strategies, infomediaries and
shopbots, improved supply chain management, and new information markets.

Price dispersion is typically seen as arising from high search costs (Burdett and Judd 1983; Stahl
1989, 1996)dispersion to retailer segmentation strategiesand, in one case, to price discrimination.This price dispersion may be explained by heterogeneity in retailer-specific factors such as branding and trust, retailer efforts to build consumer lock-in, and various retailer price discrimination strategies.

http://ecommerce.mit.edu/papers/ude

Forthcoming in Erik Brynjolfsson and Brian Kahin, eds, Understanding the Digital Economy,
MIT Press, 1999.

b) The importance of brand names will decrease.

 I disagree.  It is because brand names is the part of marketing strategies. Positioning strategies are use brand names to keep in the customer's mind.

 

c) Price competition will make all products cheaper.

According in economic foundatmental, the price competition, which the number of supplier increase or the government give the subsitive the supplier.  The supply cure will righshift and the prices of products will be decreased.

 

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

I disagree.  It is because if the sellers can created a good marketing plan and strategies.  Keep the customers have a good in trust. I believed that everyone can be become dominated.

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

I think that the change in demand or supply will change the balance of power between buyer and seller.  If change in demand in the determinant of income.  For example, the buyer's income decreased, than, the buyer will buy less normal goods and buy more inferior goods.

 

f) Prices are clustered online.

I disagreed.  It is because many seller unwillingness to reveal their product's price online.  This means that there have many competitors are online.  Therefore, the sellers create many form for their customer to become their member. After that, only member can review the product's price.

 

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

I agreed.  Price elasticity measures the responsiveness of demand and supply quantities to changes in price.  

 

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

When the prices are reveal to the public that everyone can be review, even if, the buyers or sellers. (e.g. eBay, Price.com ... etc.)

Question 3

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

GPS services, Internet, SMS, Games and entertainment...etc.

 

b) Which of these services do you use?

 SMS, Internet and GPS.

 

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

 Banking with ANZ bank to made a transaction to settle the rental fee.

 

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

Not yet.

 

e) What is your opinion of wireless advertising/mobile marketing?
Very disturb.  It waste the customer's time to look at this.

Week 5

Week 5

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

Australia 104.96, Thailand 92.01, USA 86.79, China 47.95 and India 29.36

http://www.networkedreadiness.com/gitr/main/analysis/showcountrydetails.cfm

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

USA 74, Australia 71.98, Thailand 23.89, China 22.28 and India 4.38

http://www.networkedreadiness.com/gitr/main/analysis/showcountrydetails.cfm


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

The main strengths of Australia in the survey are that overall Australia is fairly technology ready. Also Australian Government readiness and usage have been ranked both within the top 15. The weakness of Australia in the survey is that the individual and government Information Technology usage is ranked higher than Australian businesses as well as their readiness. This might result in Australian businesses been left behind in Information Technology. Apart from that there does not appear to be many weaknesses as Australia’s ranking are all good.
 

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

Information Technology readiness of Australian business is ranked lower in the world at 22 compared with Information Technology readiness of Australian consumers who rank 13 in the world. This suggests that Australian businesses are not as Information Technology ready as Australian consumers

Week 4

Week 4

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 are visits to the site - they are not page-specific A page view occurs every time that page is loaded into a browser. A single person could view the same page and each view would count as a separate page view. A visit on the other hand is essentially a "collection" of page views. Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. It varies quite a lot from day to day.

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, referral and direct Most traffic is from referrals (Blog post) , direct for folio spaces



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

Firefox (Blog-post), explorer (folio spaces)

4) How many countries did visitors to Folio spaces come from and what were the top four countries?

10 altogether, top 4 were UK, Australia, US and Canada


5) Having clicked every possible link on my analytic, make a few comments on (a) What you can track, (b) What you can track over time and (c) What you can’t track.

Later I will post the answers!

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 - The percentage of people who visit the first page and then leave is quite high 
Cookie – a stream a data transferred between the sites server and the computer the user is using

Hyperlink – a link that take you to another web page when you click on it

Page-view – request for a specific page by a visitor

Session – each time a visitor visits the site

Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors) – the amount of individual users that visit a site

URL- web address

Visitor – user of a web site

Week 3

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

In the digital world, many customer alway thought the web site to purchase their faviour items.  This is very common today.   But if you want to create your business web site,  you have to be expressed in a very sort of narrow digital construct.  And, not just transactions, but a whole set of business processes that need to be expressed in the digital format.  We are beginning to understand some of the more or less standardized of how to do this well.  According some early work by an industry analyst, Jodie Dalgleish, who wrote a book call "Customer Effective Web Site", she talks about 5 basic things that users are generally looking for: 1) Evaluate completing business and products;  2) Select a product and make a transaction; 3) Help; 4) Feeback.  This is very important to help the customers and the users to make a decision are important what are valued.  So being able to search through products in atargeted way to browse through them, to compare them, mix and match them, to understand how various ancillary products and services may fit in with their particular product - understanding everything that you possibly can about that product or service before having to make a decision seems to be a critical element in designing a successful business process.

But at the same time, there are a fairly complicated process for a few reason, there are a lot of detail to this: shipping cost, shipping time; warranties; in stock; out of stock and people are purchasing something as a gift for someone else, and so there might be a separate shipping from a billing address. So, at a few reason of above, you will very difficult to keep it smoothly.  In addition, we create many message and set to custome by e-mail that they many customer to get filtered out as spam. And the last point of difficult to accomplish is to make the web visually compelling, but to the extent that it's over-designed or that the visual appeal trumps the practicality of expressing a complex business process well.

http://digitalenterprise.org/podcasts/design.mp3

For more information, please visit: digitalenterprise.org

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.

The term of presence, it mean that the company is exist in somewhere.  Customer can easy to find thenm on outside.   Running the business on the Web is more concerned about presence and operate in the physical world.  It means that in the physical world that a firm is not famous or nobody know.  What is a firm exist except when a customer go to on-line to find it.  This is very difficult to find and they do not how to find.  On the other hand, a firm run a business with presence and operate in the physical world.  It mean that the customers are easy to find a firm and know what they can buy.  In addition, a firm had on-line for the customers who are busy on the day times, they can easy to get a firm's information from the website.  They can easy to purchase the items from the web.

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.

1)  Real Estate Agents web sites are consistency, logical. 
2) Mass media advertising: they through newspaper, magazine, on-line, radio, word of mouth and television.
3) Personal contact: They had created a customer's feedback, which is a customer feefback form.  It provide customer's e-mail address, comments and they also created some questions about the products.

Week 2

1. A search engine is composed of a database.
And there has to be some mechanism for collecting that data, imply a database of urls, and associated key words, and text, and or images which get compiled through some kind of collection mechanism. 

2. And the second important point to understand is that all of these databases are, in a sense, an approximation, a portion of the vast amount of digital information that's out there.
The collection mechanisms for search engines are not able to crawl and collect all of the information that's out there, especially realizing the fact that the amount of information is growing quite fast each year. And also a fair amount of that information is in servers and databases, which although attached to the internet, are not accessible for search engines to basically cull, and collect, and store in their own databases.
And what exactly is a search engine, you might ask? And I think many people don't really have a good conceptualization of what it is a search engine does, and how it does it. But a search engine is

3.The third important element really is the search protocol, that is what you use to query the database. 
So do people use language, for example? Can they ask a question and get a result? Do they use some kind of key word structure? Is there a kind of logical set of expressions or Boolean type logic that can be used? This and that. This or that. This and not that. Those kinds of structures can be essential for improving the accurancy of a search.

Of course here, one promising goal has always been - and of course on the user side is more or less typical - the desire to simply ask questions, just as if we were talking to another person, to use natural language. Who is the president? What is the largest manufacturer in a particular industry? You can think up questions, and naturally that would be the way people would in all likelihood love to approach a search engine, is to ask them questions as if they were asking any expert who might know the answer.

 

4.The fourth basic element of a search engine is what might be called the ranking algorithm for listing the results, that is once a user searches on a key word or phrase, a set of links are returned. 
Frequently those links may number literally in the millions.  So the question becomes: how does one rank those results, setting aside what we talked about earlier - using paid placement.  What kind of algorithm is used to rank or order the results, with the goal of providing the user with the things that they are most likely looking for at the top?

So that algorithm might be called some kind of usefulness metric that says, "Given the user has searched on this term or phrase, these are most likely the useful results that they're looking for at the top." And of course, you can imagine that is quite a challenge.

So to summarize then, a search engine is essentially four things. It's a database. It's a collection mechanism for adding data into that database. It's a search protocol that enables users to query the database. And it's a ranking algorithm that determines how the results are presented to the user. And when we look at the various search engines that are out there, they vary on one or more of these dimensions. This is what a search engine is all about.

http://digitalenterprise.org/podcasts/design.mp3

Week 1

1.) Internet risks - give examples of 4 things that can go wrong with a transactional site?
 The fraud, theft of intellectual property, IT sabotage case data and security.

2) Write down a definition for each:
    a) E-commerce and  b) E-business
E-Business: E-business model is the process of modeling social systems or an ontology, it helps identifying and understanding the relevant elements in a specific domain and the relationships between them (Ushold et al., 1995;Morecroft,1994).

E-Commerce: For perfect competition to exist, not only are many buyers and sellers needed for each particular good, but perfect information about products, demand prices and delivery schedules is also required, so e-commerce shift to the Internet and secure business intranets, better information will more markets closer to the textbook model of perfect competition.

3) What is the different between buy side and sell side eCommerce?
Buy side is supplier, which provide an information about products, demand, prices and delivery schedules shift to the e-Commerce.  Sell side is buyer.

4)  Describe the different types of eBusiness.
There are four types of eBusiness:
a) B2B commerce-it is that business activity in which two firm or business units make electronic transaction in which one can be a producer firm and other are raw material supplier firm.
b) B2C commerce-in B2C commerce, one party is he firm and other party is a customer, on the other hand, customer can seek information can place an order, get some itmes on the Internet and can also make the payment.  On the other hand, a firm can make a survey to know, who buying what and can also know satisfaction level of customer.  A firm can also make delivery of goods likes air and train tickets,etc.
c) Intra B commerce-under this, the parties involved are 2 persons or departments of some business unit.  Use of computer network make it possible for th emarketing department to interact constantly with the production.  A firms transactions or interactions with it employees are some time refer to as B to E commerce.  Employees can use electronic catalogue and ordering form. 
d) C to C commerce-under C to C commerce, both the parties involved are customers.  It is required for buying and selling of those goods for which there is no established markets are available.

5. Which digital technology has the highest penetration rate? Explain and source your answer.
Computer technology is the highest penetration rate.  It is because computers work in a concept called binary.  This means they store information as wither a 1 (ON) or a 0 (OFF).  No matter what you type in your PC, it will stored as a O or a 1. Even this paragraph will be stored in binary, like 11001110, etc.  Your hard disk, USB stick and all other electronic devices use binary to store information.  So, all digital devices work like this, and so computers are counted as digital devices.

6. List 4 drivers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.
Lower cost; Ultimate flexibility;

7. 4 barriers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.
Lower cost; Ultimate flexibility; Easy to pay money.

8. How might a restaurant in Sturt Street Ballarat benefit from an online presence?
There are several benefits from an online presence:-
i) Get lower cost; ii) More customer form anywhere, iii) Collect the information of the customer feedback. and iv) improve their service.

9. What are some example of Digital information?
A digital information is a data technology that use discrete values.  By contrast, non-digital systems use a continous range of values to represent information. Although digital representations are discrete, the information represented can be either discrete, such as numbers, letters or computer icons, or continuous, such as sounds, images, and other measurements of continuous systems.

10. What is the sematic web? Are we there yet?
The semantic web is a vision of information that can be readily interpreted by machines, so machines can perform more of the tedious work involved in finding, combining and acting upon information on the web.  Yes, we are in the sematic web.

http://digitalenterprise.org/podcasts/design.mp3