Week 10 Questions

Questions

1) What does this meant by the following statements?

Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)
That means trust is not mutual. For example, if A trust B, that does not mean B trust A.
Trust is not transitive
Trust is always between exactly 2 parties
Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender 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.

http://www.eBay.com.au eBay provides support for protecting users' eBay account, policies to protect users' privacymrules and policies to promote a safe trading environmant,feedback system for buyers.

http://www.thinkgeek.com There's customer service option on the bottom of the website providing returns and exchanges.

http://www.anz.com.au There's a ANZ Website security and privacy statement which describe how they provides security in detail.
http://www.paypal.com.au Paypal gains trust from users by claiming the huge number of their users - "Join over 3 million Australian PayPal members".It set up the sucurity centre that provides praud protection, buyer protection and it has set a few limittions and restrictions before you actually provide evidences states your identity and demonstrate that you are the rightful owner of your PayPal account.

Week 7 Introduction to Digital Automata

Introduction to Digital Automata

Many businesses have the opportunity to introduce some elements of digital automation. As the podcast on the Digital Enterprise points out, customer service is easy to conceptualise and to introduce at a simple level. A businesses Q&A page is a type of basic automata.

1) Check this link to my ‘intelligent’ cybertwin which I also mentioned in the Powerpoint. You may like to create your own cybertwin as well. The more you 'train' your twin, the better the responses will be. While it is just a fun exercise, Think of the opportunities. Imagine if we had a cybertwin that could answer your questions about the course. Or perhaps a shopping assistant?

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.

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 machine's ability ti exhibit intelligent behaviour, a proposal for a test of a machine's capability to demonstrate thought. The test was introducted by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence'. The power and appeal of the Turing test derives frrom ots simplicity, it provides something that can actually be measured to define "intelligence" and "thinking" which are sufficiently precise and general to be applied to machines. The format of the test allows the interrogator to give the machine a wide variety of intellectual tasks. However, the Turing test can be used as a measure of a machine of a machine's abilty to thinkonly if one assumes that an interrogator can determine if a machine is thinking by comparing its behaviour with human behaviour. Also, Turing himself did not explicity state that the Turing test could be used as a measure of intelligence, or any other human quality. But still the test has proven to be both highly influential and widely criticized in the years since 1950, and it is an essential concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.
There was a proposal of argument against the Turing Test known as the "Chinese room". Jonn Searle's 1980 paper concludes the Turing Test cannot prove that a  machine can think. The argument has been widely criticied, and it has been endorsed as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

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 -

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 or express an opinion on this voice discussion board (it's simple to join). If you choose this option please link (live in an hour or so) to it from your blog page.

Week 8

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's business model is brokerage model. It brings sellers and buyers together and provids facilitate transactions. eBay's business-to-business(B2B), business-to-consumer(B2C) and consumer-to-consumer(C2C) commerce type makes online transaction much more easier.

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?

There have been differences between eBay and other major website, for example, there is no claims process and no holds when you perchace something on Yahoo!. In addition to controlling the money, sellers have the right to cancel the transaction after it ends. But eBay provides power to the buyers.
Because of the differences in payment, protection, and ratings, people get to make choices which websit to go. The entire system of eBay is set up to entice buyers to come because it's not easy foe sellers to switch over to different website and it's successful to focus to make the site more buyer friendly.

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 provide users claimes processes between sellers and buyers. There's "holds" in the middle. When you pruchase products on eBay, intermediate programs keep your money until you conform that you've got the things already, than the sell will get the money from the middile man. It's simply more safe and reduce the the potential for fraud among traders.

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 earns the trust from the buyer by make every  effort to conceptualize its users as a community.
As I described above, eBay has been friendly to their buyers. That's the reason that buyers are attracted.


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?
As eBay is a huge, publicly visible market, it has created a great deal of interest from economists, who have used it to analyze many aspects of buying and selling behavior, auction formats, etc., and compare these with previous theoretical and empirical findings.
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 6

Question 1

a) What experiences have you had with shopping online?

    I do have experiences of several times buying things online. Most of them are clothes  and books because they are usually cheaper online than in the actual store. I got very confused first time transfering money online and sometimes the products that I bought turn out to be not very good.

b) Describe a good experience.

Once I bought wholesale from a Korean online clothesing website and sold retail though my own little shop online. I purchase lots of clothes as the price were low. As it's a Korean online store accessing business from many other countries, the products are set with American dollars, I had to transfer the money though Paypal. That's the first time I get to know Paypal.

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

 For example , Taobao is a chinese large-scale online shopping website as same as Ebay. It's easy for to find what I need and compare the same products from different stores. And the best things is that sometimes I can find things that I can't get in the real store.

d) Describe a bad experience.

 Like I purchase something online for the first time. It's really confused that the website made me go though complicated processes doing banking transaction.

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

Sometimes the products that they send are not exactly the same as they were shown in the online store and you don't know if you can trust the seller especially when you buy things that aren't real such as things in the virtual games. I bought  virtual money several and several equipments for the game before and I got worried everytime.

f) What features make an online store more appealing?

 Cheaper, easier and faster.
24/7  and in the world-wide

g) What features make an online store less appealing?

Complicated banking transcation and hard to rely.

h) Should we expect to see the prices of goods and services rise or fall due to the migration of consumers online?

I thinks so. Maybe in the futrue we are expect to see the prices of good change to the migration of consumers online.

Question 2

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

I don't agree with it.
The dispersion of prices in e-business markets is substancial and no narrower than in the convercial markets.

b) The importance of brand names will decrease.

I do not agree with it.

As long as the different brands keep update their teconology and skills, there will be differences of products such as different quality and appearances  between different brands. Brand names do matters importantly.

c) Price competition will make all products cheaper.

I do't think so.
There're people willing to pay more to get the best products. Price competition may make some products cheaper but not all.

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

In my opion, not the whole digital markets will become dominated by website like Amazon.com.
Those small-scale retail stores may be dominated but not those standard and reputable brands that have individual brand website which sell their products derictly to the customers.

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

f) Prices are clustered online.

Yes, it is.
There have been a price competition that most seller who are selling similar products want to get more consumers to pruchase their products. The prices are clustered.

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

I don't agree with it.
Online prices are easily to change up and down with demand of consumers.

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

I agree with that online prices are geneally transparent.

Question 3

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

Contants

Banking and financial services
Wireless advertising
Location-based services
Games and entertainment

b) Which of these services do you use?

 All of them

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

 Though my cell phone.

It makes me feel more safe and comfortable.

d) What types of transactions would you like to perform, but are currently unable to?
Currency of different countries can be transfered easily is what I hope.

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

It's functional.

Wireless advertising/mobile marketing makes it convenient for people to get information anytime and anywhere.

Week 5

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. The basic categories of business models discussed in the table below include:

Brokerage
 In brokerage model brokers are market-makers, they make profit from commission for transactions between sellers and buyers.
Advertising
In advertising model, the revernue is made from the banner ads which go with services provided by the broadcaster.
Infomediary
There is value in this personal data and the infomediary seeks to act as a trusted agent, providing the opportunity and means for clients to monetize and profit from their own information profiles. Infomediary helps buyers or sellers understand a given market.
Merchant
Wholesalers and retails of goods and services.
Manufacturer (Direct)
Direct model is a model that manufacturers creat its own website reaching the consumers directly. It based on effiency, improved customer service and a better understanding of customer preferences.
Affiliate
It's a pay-for-performance model. Profit is made in the form of percentage of revenue by offering finacial incentives to people.
Community
It's a model that based on user loyalty.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
Subscription fees are incurred irrespective of autual usage rates. Subscription and advertising models are frequently combined.
Utility
Utility model is also called 'on-demand' model. It's based on metering usage or a 'pay as you go' approach.

Week4


Questions

I have one of my Google Analytics pages accessible for you. Go to www.google.com/analytics/ and logon using the email address:

myebusinessanalytics@gmail.com and password ballarat. This is a read only view (I hope) of my ePortfolio Business Foliosapces and my blog (which is associated with the business).

Whilst the numbers are interesting it is important to realise that you really need to know the business objectives to apply much sense to the data. It is a good marketing trick to just pluck numbers that sound impressive for clients (who don't really understand). For example the Foliospaces total page views look great!

Then click on view report and answer the following questions:-

1) Looking at the site useage, 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 ： is the number of visitors that coming to your site or blog
Page views:  is the number of page viewed on your site
Pages/visit: average number of pages viewed per visit
Bounce rate: percent of single-page visits
It doesn't vary much from day to day as it is shown by percentage.

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

Referral Traffic

Search Engine

The search engine is where the most of traffic come from

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

Internet Explorer

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

Vistitors are from 71 countries.
 The top four were Australia , United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan .
5) Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on (a) What you can track, (b) What you can track over time and (c) What you can’t track.
Comparing Metrics, when you are viewing the default metric Visits (number of visits per day), you can compare that to % New Visits to see how many of those visitors are viewing your site for the first time.
Using interactive table to see different top-level metrics for the most commonly viewed visitor dimensions.
6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few, you may like to add some more yourself.

high bounce rate :  high percent of single-page visits

key words: the words that academics use to reveal the internal structure of an author's reasoning

Average Page Depth : the average length of pages

click through rate:  (CRT) is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website.

click:  a gesture made with a computer input device such as a mouse

Cookie: messages sended to the users from the owner of the site

Impression: comments of the visitors

Hyperlink: data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically.^[

Navigation:  is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.

Pageview: is the number of page viewed on your site.

Session: a semi-permanent interactive information exchange between communicating devices

Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors): total number of unique visitors to your site

URL :  Uniform resource locator

Visitor:  people who come to view your site


Comparison shopping: allows individuals to see different lists of prices for specific products.

Week3

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

Customer-centric website design involves creating a commercial website that meets the wants and needs of a business's customers and prospects.  By proactively considering the needs, wants, and beneficial preferences of your customers, you can make more effective decisions about the content, offerings, design, and processes available on your site. Therefore customer centric website need to be designed help customer with their problems, use it easier and learning information about the company, and meanwhile generating Sales. So customer centric web site design is very important for the company.
There's few reasons that make it difficult to accomplish. First of all, it is extreme expensive to design a website so getting it right is a challenge. And it is hard to know what the customers need; haard to design a good transaction or other digital business processes. An effective customer-centric design process requires the creator to put herself in the customer's place to develop a site that is user-friendly, while providing all the information needed to make a buying decision.


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 " is the appearance of a person or organization on the World Wide Web, the state of fact being present.
Customers can go through a web site anytime and anywhere. The benefits of a good presence on the web site are obvious: a company  can  present a professional and credible image and reach new markets with a global audience faster and easier than operating in the physucal world; safe time and money on printing and distribution costs and improve customer service; get more costumer feedback  and promote the products.


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