E-commerce chapters 1-6

Explain some of the modern-day flaws associated with encryption. Why is encryption not as secure today as it was earlier in the century?

Encryption is used so much more commonly than in previous years- there are now common algorithms and weaknesses that are becoming all too easy to find to malicious users.

What is a marketing automation system and how is it used?

A marketing automation system is a software tool that marketers use to track all the steps in the lead generation part of the marketing process. It's used to design and develop marketing campaigns, provide appropriate customer date, deliver contacts from leads to customers, etc.

What are some of the steps a company can take to curtail cybercriminal activity from within a business?

Cyber tools and network protection.

Why is Web server bandwidth an important issue for e-commerce sites?

Having the correct bandwidth for your site to handle the traffic and flow you get every day is critical. Too much is costing you more than it's worth, and too little means your site isn't efficiently handling the traffic it gets every day.

What are the basic capabilities of a Web server?

Host websites and deliver web content.

Why is system testing important? Name the types of testing and their relation to each other.

How do you know if the system works if you don't test it? Unit testing, system testing, acceptance testing

Would you say that Amazon and eBay are direct or indirect competitors? (You may have to visit the Web sites to answer.)

Indirect. eBay makes it much easier for anyone who would like to sell things to sell, whereas Amazon caters much more to businesses looking to sell their products online.

Why is offline advertising still important?

Internet campaigns can be strengthened by offline tactics such as e-mail, TV, print and radio.

Why was the development of the browser so significant for the growth of the Web?

It makes searching the web ten times as easy.

Is a computer with anti-virus software protected from viruses? Why or why not?

No. Though viruses are not as like to infect the computer, there are still many backdoors and sneaky methods in which your computer can become infected.

What is 5G?

5th generation wireless technology for digital cellular networks

How would you protect your firm against a Denial of Service attack?

A well placed and kept firewall.

Why are smartphones a disruptive technology?

Because their power and ease of access rival personal computers.

Name the major points of vulnerability in a typical online transaction.

Client level, server level, and internet communication channels.

Discuss the differences between a simple logical and simple physical Web site design.

Logical design: Processing functions, databases, data flow diagramsPhysical: software components, models

What is PHP and how is it used in Web development?

PHP is a server-side scripting language. It's used for developing static websites or dynamic websites and web applications.

What are the main differences between single-tier and multi-tier site architectures?

Single tier means you put all the components on one server, multi-tier allows you to split up the backend and frontend components on separate servers

What are the main factors to consider when choosing the best hardware platform for your Web site?

Speed, capacity, and scalability.

Why is adware or spyware considered to be a security threat?

Spyware can track all of your keystrokes, stealing your passwords as soon as you enter them.

Explain why an e-commerce site might not want to report being the target of cybercriminals.

That would instantly destroy your customer trust factor, and people would start to avoid going to your website.

What are some of the unique features of e-commerce technology?

Ubiquity, global reach, interactivity.

What are Amazon's primary customer value propositions?

Unparalleled selection and convenience.

Why is targeting a market niche generally smarter for a community provider than targeting a large market segment?

compete with small sub-segments of larger markets have more potential opportunity to growth without strong competitive pressure

1. What is a business model? How does it differ from a business plan?

A design for operation of a business, identifying revenue sources, customer base, products, and details of financing. It differs from a business plan since a business plan is usually just a document that states future objectives and strategies to achieve them- it doesn't lay out the entire operation for the business with all the bells and whistles.

Would you say that the Internet fosters or impedes social activity? Explain your position.

A mix. It fosters social activity by providing users communities in which they are free to explore and express their hobbies and likes with other users of similar interests. This can then either foster more social activity (for example, if the user found a local facebook page for a knitting group and started attending their in-person knitting sessions) or impede social activity. An example of this is a Netflix addiction, where someone will avoid social activities just to go binge watch Netflix.

What is a reverse auction? What company is an example of this type of business?

A reverse auction is like a regular auction, but the roles of buyer and seller are reversed. There is one buyer and many potential sellers. I believe Freemarkets has a good software for reverse auctions, iirc.

What is cloud computing, and how has it impacted the Internet?

Cloud computing is storing data on the internet rather than a hard drive. It makes it accessible from any computer that has access to the data-service it is stored on.

What pricing strategy turned out to be deadly for many e-commerce ventures during the early days of e-commerce? Why?

Companies sold products at actual cost or below cost to increase customer baseProfit margins shrank and survival became difficultPost sale services became poor and customers began doubting on quality

What technological innovation made client/server computing possible?

Personal Computer

List the differences among databases, data warehouses, and data mining.

Database: software application that stores records and attributesData Warehouse: Database that collects a firm's transactional and customer data in a single location for offline analysisData Mining: The process of analyzing data to draw useful information that look for patterns in the data of a database or data warehouse; or seek to model the behavior of customers.

What is e-commerce? How does it differ from e-business? Where does it intersect with e-business?

Ecommerce is commercial transactions that are conducted on the internet. Ebusiness refers to all business online, while ecommerce is just the selling and buying. It intersects at the point of selling and buying.

What are some of the specific ways that a company can obtain a competitive advantage?

Investing deeper in customer relationships is one I always like to bring up. Along with that, having a lower price for the same products is always a good idea.

Compare and contrast firewalls and proxy servers and their security functions.

Firewalls block ports and programs from unauthorized access of your computer, whereas proxy servers hide your internal network from the internet.

Why is it less risky to steal online? Explain some of the ways criminals deceive consumers and merchants.

It is harder to pinpoint exactly who did it. Some methods include virus that allow them to commit fraud or interception of emails with important information.

Is price discrimination different from versioning? If so, how?

It's different since you aren't changing the product description or image with price discrimination, whereas you are in versioning.

1. Is growth of the Internet, in terms of users, expected to continue indefinitely? What will cause it to slow, if anything?

For quite a while, yes. Less than 50% of the world's population is connected to the internet at the moment. It will become saturated once the user count on the internet reaches earth's total population. At that point, slowing and stopping may be inevitable.

Name three of the business consequences that can result from growth in information density.

Greater price transparency, greater cost transparency, price discrimination.

What are some of the privacy issues that Facebook has created?

Haha, what isn't a privacy issue that Facebook has created? Being on Facebook is already a privacy issue in my opinion. The second you put your personal information onto that website, it's being shot to as many 3rd parties as their servers can talk to within the second you input it. They constantly mislead their own users just to put another dollar in their pocket, and nobody would've been the wiser if their targeted advertisements weren't so darn creepy.

What are the differences between public, private, and a hybrid cloud?

Hybrid can distribute to public and private clouds, while the public and private clouds hold to their own respectively.

Compare online and traditional transactions in terms of richness.

I believe this is more of a personal opinion answer wise; some people prefer using the internet to complete most of their transactions while others prefer going in to brick-and-mortal businesses to talk face to face with a real person. This preference can also change depending on the type of transaction that is taking place. Richness can vary depending on the ease of the UI or marketplace the customer is attempting to use, or for traditional transactions, the salesman or employee assisting the customer through their experience.

How does spoofing threaten a Web site's operations?

If customers are being redirected to a spoofed website that looks exactly the same, malicious users can be stealing processing and orders from the original website, threatening their business.

What are Java and JavaScript? What role do they play in Web site design?

Javascript is a scripting language, mainly used for client side scripting. Javascript code is commonly written into HTML pages. In web design, it can be used for cool functions such as creating animations on a webpage. JavaScript renders web pages into an interactive and dynamic page.

What are the main factors to consider when developing an e-commerce presence?

Management, software, hardware architecture, design, human resources.

What is the difference between a market opportunity and a marketspace?

Market opportunity is a business possibility, marketspace is a virtual marketplace where sellers and buyers meet.

1. Research has shown that many consumers use the Internet to investigate purchases before actually buying, which is often done in a physical storefront. What implication does this have for online merchants? What can they do to entice more online buying, rather than pure research?

One implication I think of to start with is that now their counts of views on the item doesn't accurately reflect the amount of people that have looked at the item with possible interest of buying it from the merchant online. Making sure your price is within touch of the market is a very tactic to keep online buying at a high rate.

Name some of the drawbacks to the data mining techniques used in Internet marketing.

Millions of rules; nonsensical and of short durationMillion of affinity groups and other patterns in the data that are temporal or meaninglessdifficult to isolate valid, powerful, and profitable patterns in the data then acting on it to make a sale

1. Other than search engines, what are some of the most popular uses of the Internet?

Multiplayer online games and video chatting.

Besides news and articles, what other forms of information or content do content providers offer?

Music, photos, video, artwork, educational materials, etc.

What are the three basic building blocks of the Internet?

Packet Switching, TCP/IP, Server Computing

Besides advertising and product sampling, what are some other market strategies a company might pursue?

Premium, Freemium, sponsorships, events

What are three benefits of universal standards?

Reduced search costs for consumersLower market entry costs for merchantsSimpler and faster with more accurate price discovery.

Compare the costs for system development and system maintenance. Which is more expensive, and why?

System maintenance. In the long run, you'll always be paying for maintenance whereas you only pay once for development.

What are some of the challenges of policing the Internet? Who has the final say when it comes to content?

The furthest (assuming you aren't the government) you can go with policing on the internet is owning the domain or private webpage. Since you're in full control, you have final say on what content can be put on that webpage.

How are e-commerce technologies similar to or different from other technologies that have changed commerce in the past?

The main difference in e-commerce technologies is a focus on elimination of "human touch" during transactions. Most of the e-commerce businesses front off of their customers being able to simply go to a website, click a few buttons and have their product in a short amount of time. There hasn't been a lot of push nor opportunity similar to this from other technologies that have changed commerce in the past.

What is Web 2.0? Give examples of Web 2.0 sites and explain why you included them in your list.

The second stage of development on the WWW (characterized by change from static web pages to dynamic or user generated content).YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook. These are all websites that were given a skeleton base and operations for the users of the website to generate content for the website itself, making them very good examples of Web 2.0 sites.

What are the eight key components of an effective business model?

Value proposition Revenue model Market opportunity Competitive Advantage Market Strategy Organizational Development Management Team

System maintenance. In the long run, you'll always be paying for maintenance whereas you only pay once for development.

Website maintenance needs to happen often and consistently, as well as in a timely manner. There's hosting costs, SSL license, domain registration, technical website maintenance, emergency maintenance, etc.

What is information asymmetry?

When one party of an economic transaction possesses greater knowledge than the other party.

What is a marketspace?

Where information and goods are exchanged, the transaction taking place through computers and networks.

Why are mobile apps the next big thing?

With smartphones almost being a computer within themselves, everyone owns one and uses them constantly. If you can take something that was once only based off of computers and put it onto cellphones, such as being able to check your email, you're about to make big bucks.