Week 5 - Questions

Business Models

Brokerage Model
The "market makers". Brokers bring together buyers and sellers, and can take part in the negotiation and sales process on behalf of either or both parties. They generate revenue by charging a commission on all sales attributed to them. The best known example would be eBay

Advertising Model
An advertising business generates revenue by - you guessed it - advertising! This covers a wide variety of different sub-sects (as does brokerage) but the main types would be paid placement advertising where a company (generally a search engine) with high traffic will charge companies a fee to get favourable positions in search results or prominence in sidebar advertisements. The obvious choice for an example here is

Infomediarie Model
A business that sells information to gain revenue. Call lists, purchasing habits, etc are all compiled into large chunks of data which are then sold off to other companies, usually to aid them in product development or consumer behaviour studies. Infomediaries also run sites of their own where people can subscribe to register opinions. These opinions are then collated into reports and sold off to other companies with a vested interest in the opinions. http://www.google.com/ would most likely fall under this category.

Merchant Model
Wholesalers and retailers of good and services. Basically an electronic version of a bricks and mortar shop. http://www.woolworths.com/

Manufacturer (Direct) Model
Allows a manufacturer to directly sell their goods and improve efficiency and profitability by cutting out the intermediary (usually a wholesaler) and taking some of the profit margin that a wholesaler would otherwise get for themselves.

Affiliate Model
Provides a purchase point click through service for affiliated merchant sites. This is growing in popularity, as it is relatively low cost. It is a pay-for-performance structure, so if the affiliate does not generate increased revenue, the merchant incurs no costs.

Subscription Model
Generates income by charging users (subscribers) a periodic fee to stay registered with the site and gain the benefits obtained for being a subscriber (e.g downloading articles, music or movies). These fees are generally charged at a flat rate, so regardless of if you are downloading 300GB or 300Mb, the charge remains the same.

Utility Model
Also known as the "on-demand" model. It is the reverse idea of a subscription model, this model charges users for what they actually use ("metering") rather than charging a flat rate for subscription. iTunes is probably a good example of a metered service, as you pay individually for what you choose to download.


References

http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html#Brokerage

Week 4 - Questions

Web Analytics



1. Looking at the site usage, what do the terms visits, page views, and pages/visit mean? What does the bounce rate mean and does it vary much from day to day?


Bounce Rate - the rate at which people who access the site leave before navigating to another page on the site. It doesn't seem to be particularly stable at all, the variance can change quite significantly from day to day


Visits - the amount of people who click into the site


Page Views - the amount of pages on the site, and how often they are visited


Pages/Visit - the amount of pages that people access while on the site



2. What are the three sources of traffic, and where has most of the traffic come from?

The three sources of traffic are direct traffic, search engines & referring sites.

The biggest source of traffic in this instance was direct traffic.

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

The most popular browser used to access the site was Internet Explorer. As a metric, this is important because it allows for the administrator of the site to optimize the site in favour of IE users, being that they are the most common visitors.

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

This Foliospaces blog had visitors from approximately 130 countries, with the top four countries for amounts of visits being

1. Australia



2. US



3. UK



4. Canada

References

www.google.com/analytics/

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

Week 3 - Questions

1. Explain why a customer-centric website design is so important, yet so difficult to achieve?




The difficulty in creating a customer-centric website lies within the customers using the website. Customers will all look at a website and evaluate it differently, based on things such as ease of use, level of technological aptitude needed to navigate the page, use of graphics and video, use of fonts, and countless other things that are seemingly small, but can have an impact on the customer. Therefore while I might look at a website and consider it to be "customer-centric", my grandfather may look at it and have an entirely different view, based on his personal outlook as a consumer.




Another important point to note is that where websites may have once been used only to convey information or deals to a customer, we are now seeing a growing numbers of entities that have transactional capabilities on their website - that is to say, customers are now able to purchase direct from the website, rather than using it as a tool to decide or do research on a product. This change in how websites are used has led to it being far more important to focus on the customer, rather than the product.





2. Define the term "presence"

Well, its definitely not the presents above (sorry for the bad humour, but this used to be a pet hate of mine, people using presents and meaning presence or vice versa)

Presence (in an online sense) basically means how easy it is to find yourself or your company online, it measures how pervasive you are as an online entity. Nowadays, with the growing fad of people using social networking for marketing, it is a lot easier to make your entities presence grow on the internet. Its just a matter of getting a Twitter, a Facebook, a Picasa, a blog... The more you can push your entity online, the greater your presence will be.

That being said, having too great a presence online can be detrimental to your business. Whilst having multiple accounts on different sites can help you establish presence, if you flood the Net with it, you risk alienating consumers, or them becoming apathetic towards your business. It is a fine balance between creating an effective presence without overdoing it.

3. What can Real Estate agents best accomplish through

a) Their Websites

Having a digital presence online would be of great benefit to real estate agents, as it allows people to preliminarily view a house that they may not have been able to otherwise, thus opening the market up to a previously un-engageable consumer. It really widens the market base, and takes a lot of the burden and time management hassles out of their jobs.

b) Mass Media advertising

Similar to the above point, but also captures that portion of the market who may not use the internet, or if they do, would not use if for the purpose of looking at houses. Also catches "spontaneous" buyers who may not be particularly looking for property, but have the wherewithal to purchase a property on the fly.

c) Personal Contact

The personal contact facet would be the closing of the sale, and establishing of rapport with the potential customer. The website and/or mass media advertising are really what generates interest and contributes largely to the actual sale of the house, so in this way the sale is almost process-driven, and without the first two methods, personal contact would be pretty much negligible.

References

"Digital Design" Lecture by Michael Rappa (transcript)

http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/design_tr.html

Weeks 3 - 6

Wow, doesn't take long to fall behind. Things were fairly cruisy at the start but all of a sudden all these assessments and tutorial questions are building up quite fast. I'll need to endeavour to catch up on these blog posts so I can get back on track!

Week 2 - Questions (Part 2)

What are the 6 Webs?

The six webs, as described by Bill Joy are:

The "Near Web" - the version of the internet that is "near" to you. For example when you log on to the internet at home to check your e-mail or Moodle (:P) This is a 'tangible' web that is often associated with a PC or notebook, or like device, which includes a keyboard

The "Here Web" - refers to the devices which enable you to access the internet "here and now" - iPhones, iPads, Android phones, tablets, etc all allow for you to take the internet with you, and use it wherever you may be. Another 'tangible' web.

The "Far Web" - accessing the internet remotely through a remote control or the like. I am not 100% sure of the examples for this form of web, as it seems a lot more technical than the first two and I am not sure that my understanding of it is as complete. I would assume it relates to the new range of internet-capable TV's though, as these devices seem to fit the "Weird" web criteria.

The 'Weird" Web - new applications for the internet, most notably voice commands enabling all the things which we usually require a keyboard for. According to Joy, this is where a lot of entrepeneurial activity is heading towards now. With the "Weird" web, a voice scripting would allow you to ask for information vocally, and the internet would recognize your request and bring you results, which up till now has traditionally been achieved by a keyboard or stylus.

The "B2B" web - this is an 'intangible' web, which allows for direct communication between businesses computers. It would not have any user interface (hence being intangible) but would be used to smooth out and streamline otherwise tedious or time consuming business processes

The "D2D" web - the second of the 'intangible' webs and previously known as the "pervasive" web. This web would allow for an almost omniscient web of information, which would be collected and self monitored by sensors. In theory, it would allow for monitoring and managing a whole building with a machine intelligence. This web does not exist yet though.


What does this mean for business?

The theory of the Six Webs means that eBusiness and eCommerce are definitely the way of doing business in the future, given that between the Six webs, the internet is becoming not just a tool, but a way of life and ever more present in every aspect of our lives. Businesses which do not embrace the internet and the opportunities for reaching customers through this medium (on ALL of the 'Six Webs' are falling behind in profitability and sales, as we increasingly become dependant on the internet and it becomes available to us on more and more devices. Proactive businesses are already trying to transition themselves from being purely "Near" web companies to trying to encompass the "Here", "Far" and "Weird" webs as well, to increase brand recognition and marketing opportunities.


Could there be more webs?

I think that down the track there will be more webs, as technology advances, the capabilities of machines and the internet will only grow, and thus more webs will need to be "invented" to allow for the newer functions and abilities of the internet which are not yet covered by any of the existing webs.



References:

"The Six Webs you might have overlooked" Gretchen Hyman (iMedia Communications
Posted March 7th, 2011, viewed 25th August 2011
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/03/07/the-6-webs-you-might-have-overlooked/

Video - Bill Joy talks about the Six Webs
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/324/

*I used a transcript of the Bill Joy interview, but I cannot find it again. I used the video as a reference as the transcript was derived word for word from the video

Week 2 - Questions (Part One)

PART 1 - Navigation




A) What are the 4 main points Michael Rappa makes about search?

1. The volume of data and information out there on the internet is already incredible, and is growing bigger every day. The true challenge of searching isn't finding information, but being able to find relevant and meaningful information that is pertinent to what you are searching for.






2. Using a single search engine doesn't give you access to every piece of information on the internet. Certain servers and databases are not linked in to certain search engines, so to do an extensive and thorough search, a variety of search engines and online journals and sources must be used, which will ensure the user gets a full choice of information to peruse.






3. Understanding the underlying structure of how search engines work can improve the search results given. By having a basic understanding of ranking algorithms and the proper sentence structure to input, a lot of useless information can be weeded out and the most relevant result will be delivered first during the search, which can improve the efficiency of the search. (Ranking algorithms prioritise the result, while sentence structure washes the search of nonsense)






4. Search engines are growing in both the business world and in a broader everyday sense as well. Google is a classic example of this, growing at an almost exponential rate and expanding into a lot of other markets lately - i.e. social media, browsers, etc. Search engines really are a bit of a boom market at the moment, and have shown themselves to be an innovative and competitive industry.
   
   

B) Marissa Meyer Interview - Synopsis

The first important/interesting fact that I found in the interview was that Google fosters a real sense of enpowerment in their employees by having a culture whereby they have a large number of small teams working on many different projects. As Marissa said

"Well, we have nine engineers and right now they do about three different things. So if we double and we had eighteen engineers, would we want them to do three things twice as well? Or would we want to do twice as many things?"

This approach has led to Google being on the forefront of innovation for their industry, as well as allowing their significant expansion and allowing them to rise from a less than glamorous start in a basement to one of the most recognisable brand names in the entire worlld, so much so that the term "google" has been included in the Websters dictionary as a synonym for search.

The smaller teams also allow for the business to be a lot more proactive and agile in their business decisions. Mayer states herself that the small teams allow for all the members of the team to work in the same office, thus avoiding the need for formal meetings and wasting time. Instead, informal meetings can be held whenever called for, as all members of the team are in the same area.

References from Google Employees regarding the Small Team Culture
(Sorry guys, I tried to embed them, but it kept screwing up, might need some remedial blogging classes LOL)

http://youtu.be/qGlvIgzTJ7o
http://youtu.be/5irITQTiw5A

The other interesting point I found was the discussion on privacy between the interviewer and Marissa Mayer. Marissa asserts that there is a trade-off that has to be made between user privacy and better functionality. She also makes it clear that the importance is in the user being made aware of what information is collected, and for what use. It was also very interesting to read about the discrepancy in the ages and how different generations have differing levels of trust towards the collection of information by Google. It was also quite intriguing reading the anecdote of the guy who turned off his Facebook wall and then was viewed with suspicion for doing so, when in fact he was doing so to try and maintain some sense of digital privacy.

References:

Marissa Meyer Interview (Transcript)

http://techcrunch.com/2009/03/06/marissa-mayer-on-charlie-rose-the-future-of-google/

Michael Rappa - "Navigating the Web" (Transcript)

http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/navigation_tr.html

Week 2 - Class Notes

It's a bit late, but better late than never. Week 2 I missed the face-to-face class, but apparently it was just a bit of an introduction to some of the systems we will be using. So really there is probably not too much to talk about I guess, but I thought I had better make a post about it so the blog has a bit of symmetry to it.

Just for reference, I had some issues with the podcasts and videos, so I instead used transcripts (which I find easier usually) but in retrospect, it was perhaps harder to put the information into context or establish emphasis on particular points of information, so I just went with my gut feeling on it. Also, I had a lot of problems trying to embed videos in there. I have been able to import images with no problems (becomes a bit of a pain trying to move them around in there, as they displace all the text) but the videos just cause a lot of issues and shut-downs of IE.
If anyone knows an easier way to place images or embed videos please let me know!

Week 1 - Questions

1) What can go wrong with a transactional site?

The first thing that springs to mind is customers details being leaked through insufficient security measures - such as the recent case with Sega

http://news.hitb.org/content/sega-pass-hacked-customer-details-leaked
Worse still, rather than mundane information being taken, like date of birth, email addresses and passwords (as in the case above), transactional sites which collect banking details are especially reliant on security. This leads people to be very wary of websites that ask for this information, so a sizeable portion of the market may simply be unwilling to register these details.

Online orders also have a bit of a reputation for being wrong, late or delivered incorrectly. This can be through user error or an error in programming, but is a very real problem. Overly complicated ordering systems, or products which have very little in terms of specification or images can lead to the problems listed above.


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

Another area which can cause issue is the difficulty with after sales service, particularly in a high volume transactional business. Automated e-mails might be able to scheduled at a particular time to ensure the customers satisfaction with the product/service, but if the customer has any issues with the product or services given, it can sometimes be a more fluid process if the customer can come back to the business (as in face-to-face dealings)

Other issues would arise, but I see the aforementioned problems as perhaps the biggest issues with starting or running a transactional site, the first two being things that may "go wrong" and the second being somewhat more of a deterrent to sales.


2. Define eCommerce and eBusiness

eCommerce and eBusiness are directly involved with one another, as demonstrated by the figure to the right.

eBusiness can be roughly defined as an "umbrella" term, encompassing any use of internet or associated technology for any facet of running a business - i.e. procurement, logistics and ordering, deliveries, marketing, etc. It is also used in some cases to describe businesses that run entirely online (i.e. http://www.amazon.com/ or http://www.ebay.com.au/ )

eCommerce is a term which describes a much narrower focus within the wider subset of eBusiness (as demonstrated by the diagram above) eCommerce, as a term, is used to describe any transactional activities of a business that are conducted online. This is generally assumed to be of a financial nature (i.e. buying and selling) but could also be used to mean any correspondence with customers, as that could be classed as a transaction of information.

Some activities that businesses undertake can fall under both categories

Sourced from http://www.davechaffey.com/E-business/C1-Introduction/E-business-E-commerce-defined


3. What is the difference between buy side and sell side eCommerce?

Buy side commerce refers to the transactional activities of the business which enable it to supply its customers with goods or services. It is the branch of eCommerce that can be said to deal exclusively with suppliers and third parties (banks, etc) excluding customers

Sell side eCommerce is the opposite of buy side eCommerce. It is all the transactional activities which deal with the customers and other third parties which are responsible for allowing the business to run profitably (i.e. bringing money into the business)






Information sourced from http://www.davechaffey.com/E-business/C1-Introduction/E-business-E-commerce-defined

Diagram sourced from http://bisrhul.blogspot.com/2010/10/in-1989-rob-mcewen-inherited-through.html



4. Describe the different types of eBusiness

Consumer to Consumer (C2C)
C2C eBusinesses are also called online auction sites or online marketplaces. They generally allow a consumer to post products/services which they can provide and then allow other consumers to bid on or buy them. The most famous example would be http://www.ebay.com/, but another would be http://www.trademe.co.nz/. Other non-financial examples are social networking sites, and Skype.


Consumer to Business (C2B)
C2B eBusiness generally involves the consumer being able to return feedbacks or ratings to businesses. It can also include consumers being commisioned to advertise businesses on their websites (www.google.com/adsense)


Consumer to Government (C2G)
Similar to C2B eBusiness, except feedback is instead forwarded to government departments


Business to Consumer (B2C)
B2C eBusiness (such as http://www.amazon.com/ or http://www.jeanswest.com.au/) are eBusinesses where the business itself sells directly through to the consumer. They would probably be the most common type of eBusiness.


Business to Business (B2B)
B2B eBusinesses are any eBusiness which interacts with other businesses. This can include advertising sites, wholesalers and the like, but can also include B2B marketplaces. Examples would be http://www.ec21.com/ and http://www.yellowpages.com.au/


Business to Goverment (B2G)
Similar to C2G eBusinesses in the sense that they are primarily used to correspond and/or provide feedback to government departments.

Government to Consumer (G2C)
G2C eBusinesses provide consumers with information, transactional opportunities, and other services. http://www.ato.gov.au/ would be the most well known example


Government to Business (G2B)
As G2C eBusiness with Businesses being the targets for information, services, etc. http://www.ato.gov.au/ would also serve as an example for this type of business.


Government to Government (G2G)
G2G eBusinesses are used for inter-departmental communications.


Sources:

http://www.eservglobal.com/uploads/files/index.pdf




5. Which digital technology has the highest penetration rate? Explain and source your answer.

I would say that mobile phones have the highest penetration rate in the market, given that nowadays mobile phones are capable of being much more than simple communication now. The recent advances to technology mean that mobiles are now used more as portable PC's and diaries, which enables the modern businessperson to be much more efficient with their time.

The below figure shows an upwards trend in mobile phone penetration

(hyperlink leads to figure)
http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/ict/graphs/mobile.jpg

Information also sourced from: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/ict/index.html


6. List 4 drivers to adoption of sell side eCommerce by business

• Avoidance of losing customers to competitors who ARE adopting an eCommerce environment within their business




• Reduces operating costs if moving to an entirely online environment (can cut costs of staffing by cutting need) and by lowering start-up costs if beginning an entirely new venture




• Expanding market share by reaching customers who they may not have otherwise been able to access the business




• Reducing the risk of loss through theft and other means

7. List 4 barriers to adoption of sell side eCommerce by business

• Lack of knowledge. A lot of business owners do not have the technological know-how to properly manage an eCommerce site and would have to employ the sservices of an IT or design professional to set up and maintain the site, which can be costly.




• Costly to set-up/run. As mentioned above, the business owner would most likely not have the programming knowledge to set up a professional transactional website, and would need to employ an IT professional or multimedia designer to build the site, which could be costly




• Not relevant to market. For certain markets (although it would be an extremely small percentage) the option of adopting a sell side eCommerce site would simply not make good business sense.




• No access to a reliable internet service. For geographically isolated locations, a reliable internet connection is not always possible. Like the example above, it is a very very small percentage of businesses that would apply to this, but it is still a viable barrier.

Source:
http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/IBIMABR/volume2/v2n5.pdf
http://wigebusiness.blogspot.com/2009/09/benefits-of-sell-side-e-commerce-in.html




8. How might a restaurant in Sturt Street Ballarat benefit from an online presence?

An online presence for a restaurant enables them to market to a very wide demographic, and to expand their customer flow by reaching people who previously may have not known about the restaurant.

It could be a great way to advertise deals to a wide variety of people at one time, and considering that Ballarat has a university, it could tailor deals for university students to try and increase their customer base in that demographic. University students are very avid users of the internet, and as such, it would most likely be the easiest way to increase business from this sector.

It would also benefit the buy side of the business, as they could source other, cheaper suppliers, thus reducing costs and allowing for a higher profit.

In terms of competitors with online presence, it would allow the restaurant to check on the current deals and allow them to maintain competitiveness and check the general state of the industry in Ballarat. If competitors did not have an online presence, it would be a point of difference, as the restaurant would be seen as innovative and more modern than its competition.


9. What are some examples of digital information?

Digital information is a very broad term. It simply means a form of information that has certain properties, (which differentiate them from analog information)

These being:

• Synchronization Since digital information is a sequence that is transmitted in Binary form, it must be able to be determined where the sequence begins. An analogy would be that a human speaking without synchronization would have no pauses between words
  



• Language To make sense of the sequence, both the sender and the receiver of the information must be aware of the language of the information being sent. If only one party knew the language of the information, the other would be hard pressed to comprehend it.




• Errors Compared to analog information, digital information being transmitted is relatively error free, due to the more simple nature of digital information as compared with analog information.




• Copying Because of the relatively error free nature of digital information, it is much better suited to making copies of, as with analog information, each successive copy will be of a lesser quality, whilst digital information remains the same




• Granularity An example of analog information that includes a continuous variable (i.e. temperature) will always have some degree of error if represented digitally (which is limited to a discrete or fixed number of symbols. With the temperature example, it may be 31.84665 degrees, but a digital thermometer that is set with only three digits will show 31.8, with an error margin of .04665 degrees. This is called "quantization error"
  

In terms of computers and the internet, digital information can come in many formats that can be stored. Digital sound files (.mp3, .mp4, .wav etc) digital video/tv files (.divx, .mpg etc) digital picture files, and digital word processing files are the most commonly used examples of digital information, although not the only digital information formats out there.

Digital information can also be a non-computer term. Morse code and the abacus are both older examples of digital information in use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital#Properties_of_digital_information

10. What is the semantic web? Are we there yet?

The semantic web is an idea that hypothesizes that we can, at some point, give computers some form of conciousness and enable them to analyze and interpret information available on the internet, thus making a smarter and more efficient version of the world wide web, by reducing the need for human or user "direction" in certain functions.

The idea behind it is that although the web is full of information, a user is required to input certain terms and perform certain functions to pull up said information, and then sift through all of the sites which are returned. With a semantic web, the search engine would be able to "understand" the words put in as a search and make sense of them, thus performing a much more refined and relevant search, and cutting out the irrelevant or ridiculous sites.

I believe that we are getting closer and closer to a semantic web. In terms of search engines, we no longer use a rating/word counting system, which stop nonsense sites with a certain term repeated over and over from topping the list. We now use much more complicated algorithms which are much more efficient at locating the information we desire, and as such, are edging closer to the possibility of a semantic web.

Sourced from http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/Semantic-Web

References

Sega Pass hacked, customer details leaked. HITBSec News, 18th June 2011, retrieved August 7th 2011

http://news.hitb.org/content/sega-pass-hacked-customer-details-leaked

Online Shopping Article, Wikipedia, n.d, retrieved August 7th 2011

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

Define E-Business and E-Commerce, davechaffey.com, 27th March 2008, retrieved August 8th 2011

http://www.davechaffey.com/E-business/C1-Introduction/E-business-E-commerce-defined

(Diagram) "Networked Organizations", "Goldcorp Inc" Weblog entry, 17th October 2010, retrieved August 8th 2011

http://bisrhul.blogspot.com/2010/10/in-1989-rob-mcewen-inherited-through.html

e-Commerce Models, n.d, retrieved August 8th 2011

http://www.eservglobal.com/uploads/files/index.pdf

(Diagram) "Mobile Phone Subscribers per 100 Inhabitants 1997-2007", n.d, retrieved August 8th 2011

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/ict/index.html

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/ict/graphs/mobile.jpg

ICT Data and Statistics, International Telecommunications Union, 15th July 2008, retrieved August 8th 2011

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/ict/index.html

"Electronic Commerce Adoption Barriers in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Developing Countries: The Case of Libya"
Hunaiti. Z, Masa'Deh. R, Mansour. M, & Al-Nawafleh. A. Published in Ibima Business Review, Volume 2 (2009), retrieved August 9th 2011

http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/IBIMABR/volume2/v2n5.pdf

Wig's e-Business Blog: "Benefits of Sell-Side E-Commerce in Developing Nations" 29th September 2009, retrieved August 9th 2011

http://wigebusiness.blogspot.com/2009/09/benefits-of-sell-side-e-commerce-in.html

Digital Information Article, n.d, retrieved August 9th 2011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital#Properties_of_digital_information

What is Semantic Web? January 2000, retrieved August 9th 2011

http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/Semantic-Web

*Where references and sources are cited, the notes and Powerpoint slide from Week 1 (available on Moodle) were also used as a source of information. I wasn't sure how to reference them.

Week 1 - Introduction

Last Friday we had our first lecture for eBusiness Fundamentals. Our lecturer, Dallas, introduced us to the outline of the course and the assessment tasks and loading that each would be given towards our final mark (as most of our lecturers did in the first classes)

He also gave us a bit of an insight into how he got to where he is now as our lecturer. It was really good to have someone who had come from both an IT and a management background, and who had been out in the industry (rather than a pure IT academic) to teach us.

We started with some foundations of just what the internet is, a brief overview of its development and the rise of both the internet in general and the growing trend of eBusiness and eCommerce. It was quite interesting to learn that the 'internet' and the 'world wide web' were not interchangeable terms, but quite different things - the 'internet' being a massive underlying structure of networks, and the support structure for the 'world wide web' - which is a information sharing model applied "over" the internet.

We also learnt about the rise of Google. It has grown from a project started by two Stanford University students which began in a friends basement, to a company which has a market value of approximately $200 million dollars! I was a bit unsure of where the money would come from, as Google to me has always just been a search engine, but we learnt that Google makes the majority of its money through compiling marketing information on its users, which it then sells off to advertising and marketing companies as consumer data.