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!