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