Week 10.

• What does this meant by the following statements?

• Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)
• Trust is not transitive
• Trust is always between exactly 2 parties
• Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender trust

• 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
• http://www.anz.com.au
• http://www.thinkgeek.com
• http://www.paypal.com.au

• Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.

Week 8

• 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 was seen to do largely with the C2C area where users goods (stuff found at a garage sale) were sold. Since they ebay have moved onto a more Merchant model that sees more wholesalers and Ebay stores opening up.The reason why Ebay is so successful is due to its high available (can sell/buy goods 24/7), ease of purchase, has no geographical constraints, competitive prices and no site costs that are associated with purchases.

• 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 is the original online auction site, so starting off with a large user base from the beginning has helped. Once Ebay was set up with many users worldwide starting to use everyday, is was hard for smaller auction sites to break the market.

• 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? 
• Fraud is dealt by ebay firstly with the use of the feedback system. Generally if you see 1000 feedback reviews, with 99% of them positive, it would be easier to trust than a site that has 50% positive feedback. Also with paypal partnering with Ebay is makes users feel safer to user the site. 

• 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?
• There are no hosting fees associated with ads on ebay.And a small percentage of the final sale is paid to Ebay at the end of the auction as a broker fee. They find that personalising their business and making the users feel more at home, they can instil trust in the compay therefore makeing users revisit the site over an over again. With out frequent users there would be no Ebay.

• 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?
• Advantages of a brand name setting up shop on Ebay would include:
• Big access to  a large user base
• No Website hosting costs.
• No Admin fees - ebay handles of these transaction costs.
• Low staff costs - this is all dealth with Ebay

• 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?
• In 2010, ebay reintroduced their accepted payments policy. This increases protection of both buying and selling partied which offers them with a few types of different trusted payment methods.

Week 7

Week 7

• 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 advancements that are being made in the field of AI are incredible but we need to remember that we have not go it right, yet. One issue i believe and others would agree is that AI cannot detect manerism that can be communication though face to face conversation, nor the complexities of human language. I think for now that AI should be kept in the development stage and should not be rolled out until they have got it right.

• Write one paragraph describing the Turing test and another paragraph describing an argument against the Turing Test, known as the about the Chinese room.
• As i said in the previous question, programmers are yet to get their AI perfect and the AI will only be as intelligent as the code the is designed for it. I think it is a very clever test, and is a good example of the advancements we have made in the programming world. It was cleverly design and its programmers should be given merit as instead of coding in a function to your code that will give your program 'common sense', programs works by complex algorithms and it is not simple at all.

• 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.
• Automated service support is already started to be rolled, and i think its a very effective and efficient way to cut costs and call volumes in a call centre. This can help callers reach a certain destination of their call, or complete a simple password reset.Due to previous experience in the IT support area - i think this is an intelligent design or idea, AI does not understand the complexity of human language. It would need to recognise different languages, accents and mannerisms in the voice of the caller. Also problem determination is still something to be dealt by humans, due to many issues being too ambiguous for AI support

Week 6.


Question 1

• What experiences have you had with shopping online?

  I regularly use ebay and certain online stores to buy many things, including parts for cars, computer products and clothes. I find it really easy and very rewarding especially when you grab a bargain.

  
  

  
  

• Describe a good experience.

  Buying a legit $200 pair of sunnies for $40

• What did you like about the online store you used?

  
  As i use many i cant really describe just 1, but most the online stores i use accept paypal. I will only make purchases over the web using paypal.
  

• Describe a bad experience.

  A bad experience was when i purchased some blank dual layer DVD and they arrived scratched.

• What problems did you have with the online store?

  Fortunately the seller was kind enough to let me keep them, and send me more free of charge.

• What features make an online store more appealing?

  When they allow for paypal and offer good refund services.

• What features make an online store less appealing?

  When they do not offer paypal, and they do not provide sufficient information

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

  Not really. I think as the online market grows, prices will start to increase. This wont phase too many people as online shopping is a growing trend mainly due to the convenience.

Question 2

• The dispersion of prices (that is, the spread between the lowest and highest price for a particular product) will narrow.
• Prices will definately start to tightening over stores due to the growing trend of online shoppers.  This wont be so much of an issue to consumers as businesses will start to price match.

• The importance of brand names will decrease.
• I believe in the trust of the product and reading reviews. When i buy anything, whether it be online or offline i do some research and read reviews on the product. If i believe it can be trusted then i will make a purchase. It also boils down to popularity. If a product becomes popular, then it generally has a good name for itself.

• Price competition will make all products cheaper.
• I believe as the online market grows and the competition expands, the option of cheaper prices with increase and online business will need to compete with other online businesses and offline businesses.

• Digital markets will become dominated by a handful of mega-sites, like Amazon.com.
• Many online smaller business rely on their good service and cheap prices. Although large sites can offer the same services, i think many loyal customers will stick to the smaller businesses. Although again it will come down to competition in the market.

• How do you think the balance of power between buyer’s and seller’s will change?
• At offline stores, they can inflate the prices of products due to the limit they may have in competition or stock. Online however this competition is massive, as consumers can purchase items from their home 24/7. Consumers definately make shifts in the market place. 

• Prices are clustered online.
• Definately. Examples on eBay show popular items being relatively the same price accross sellers.

• Online prices are elastic. ( i.e. immune to change up and down with demand)
• Agree. If products are of high demand, then the prices will range from very little to large, but will bring still little profit to the seller. A product that is said to be rare, sellers will try and sell for as much as they can. With no elasticiy between sellers.

• Online prices are generally transparent (the extent to which prices for a given product or service are known by buyers in the marketplace.)
• Generally more transparent than offline markets.

Question 3

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

  I am with telstra, are they are moving forward with their personalisation with online accounts, and the opening of ap stores for new smart phones.

• Which of these services do you use?

  
  I regulary use the app store and online account
  

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

  
  I tend to make most transaction on a computer. But i am regulary checking my eBay, logging into netbank and buying applications for my phone from the app marketplace.
  

  
  

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

  I would have to say that i agree with everyone when they say they would like the ability to make transaction from a phone like an eftpos card. Just swipe and thats it. would be just too easy!

• What is your opinion of wireless advertising/mobile marketing?

  I believe it works well for up and coming app developers who start off with little money. Its a good way to get people into the business.

Week 5.

• What is the Mobile phone use /100 population - compare Australia, USA, China, India, Your Country
• Australia: 104.96
• USA: 86.79
• China: 47.95
• India: 29.36
• UK: 126.34

•  Internet use / 100 population - compare Australia, USA, China, India, Your Country
• Australia: 71.98
• USA: 74
• China: 65.73
• India: 4.38

• Compare main strengths and weaknesses of Australia or your home country in the survey
• It is seen that Australia is far behind other countries when it comes to internet speeds and connections, as well as the amount of bandwidth and total data allowances. We are faced with the expensive bill that comes along with large data plans. 

•  What does the survey suggest to you about the Information Technology readiness of Australian business compared to Australian consumers?
• I find that Australian businesses are behind the consumers when it comes to IT readiness. I think part of the issue of this is the level of regulations and rules that are in place in running a business on the internet.

Week 4.

• 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 - A single visit, otherwise known as computer terms as a 'hit' is a single users complete stay on a website, from when they load the page, until they leave the page.
• Page Views - Websites contain a number of different pages, when a user visits the website and browses through the pages, each page looked at is known as a page view.
• Pages/Visits - This measures how many pages a users looks at before the exit the site.
• Bounce Rate - This measures how many users exit the website without viewing anything other then the first page they reach.     

• Now look at the traffic sources report. What are the three sources of traffic and where has most of the traffic come from? 
• Uniform Resource Locator (URL): the user types the website out in the URL address bar on their browser.
• Search Engine: The user finds the website via the use of a search provider, for example, Google
• Referring Websites: Users visit the website from clicking a link on another website. Statistics show that referring websites phave majority (44.9 %) of users accessing the site come from.
   

• What was the most popular web browser used to access the site?
• Internet Explorer, from Microsoft is the most used web browser.
  
  Internet Explorer 3,194 45.23%
  Safari 1,732 24.53%
  Firefox 1,373 19.44%
  Chrome 711 10.07%
  Opera 25 0.35%
  

• How many countries did visitors to Foliospaces come from and what were the top four countries?
• This website had had 7,062 views from 62 countries. The US, Australia, UK and Canada make the top 4.
  
  1. United States 2,823     9.71     00:07:16     42.61%     50.09%
  2. Australia 2,390     12.65     00:10:14     23.64%     28.83%
  3. United Kingdom  731     9.62     00:09:07     25.31%     43.23%
  4. Canada 205     15.18     00:11:55     30.73%     37.56%
   

• Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on 
• What you can track?
• What you can track over time? 
• What you can’t track?

• Google analytic provides some great tools for users and website owners.This includes the types of browsers being used, the time spent on the website, their location. This can help a website owner/administrator to review Google analytic data and see what parts of their website is and are not successful and perhaps remove any redundancies.
  The service cannot track age or gender, which means a website owners cannot determine their audience via this service.
  

• 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: Many users who are not staying on the site and are leaving after the first page.
• key words: Single words that can be used to describe a site.
• Average Page Depth: the average amount of pages viewed on a single visit by a user
• click through rate: Determines the amount of clicks on an add compared to the amount of views
• click: By 'clicking' a link, it can take you to another location on the web.
• Cookie: Small text based file that stores information that is stored on the computers hard drive, browsers and websites utilise cookies
• Impression: The effect of a website over the user.
• Hyperlink: A hyperlink helps a user navigate to a website.
• Navigation: This is the menu system of a web page, provides all available links on the site, and perhaps links to another site. to help users user their web page.
• Pageview: a view from a single user on a single page
• Session: the total time a user spends on a single website
• Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors): a unique visitor is a visit to the website by 1 user regardless if they visit the site more than once, only 1 visit is counted.
• URL: Uniform Resource Locator, help users remember the website without remembering the IP address of the website
• Visitor: a single user to the website
• Visitor Session: a single visitors total time on a website
• Comparison shopping: comparing prices from different e businesses to find the best price.

Week 3.

• In two paragraphs explain why a customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish.
• It is important to consider a number of things when designing a website. Some of the consideration included the detail and architecture of a website. A web designer has to ensure that when a customer visits their site, that the feel welcomed and enjoy the aesthetics of the website. It only takes 1 minor flaw in a website for a customers to go elsewhere. A web designer should also think about the design of the sites interface using design elements such as typography, colour and page layout. It is important for a web designer to break away from traditional methods of designing a site and try create something new. 

• 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 ensures that businesses online have an impression on the internet that consumers can find, and use as a reliable resource. Remember also that if a consumer can not find your online presence they are unable to buy your products. To be successful online, you would need to ensure that your customers keep coming back and to do this you need to create a positive impression to the consumer. One example of online presences is amazons use of physical analogy's to intrigue users to feel safe and make them come back to shop again. They do this by using tools such as 'shopping carts' and bargains. This is a way to make consumers feel like going shopping, instead of merely purchasing goods online.

• Write three paragraphs to briefly describe the things that Real Estate Agents can best accomplish through;
•  Their web sites - This allows for interaction will a greater audience and potential buyers and sellers. It allows for 24/7 viewing for real estate to website visitors, and can provide extensible and reliable information on each item. Consumers can create specific searches, such as price range, type of property and location of property.
•  Mass media advertising- narrows the complexity of users in terms of finding the house they are looking for. It shows that using mass media to advertise, that show that they can reach a larger market quickly and efficiently.
•  Personal contact - By building relationships through the buyer, seller and agents, it shows to all parties that there is a job to get done and that their agent is willing to deal with the customer one on one, to communicate and attend to any issues that they may have. This is important as it can provide buyers and sellers with a sense of security.