Tutorial 9: Electronic Commerce

E-Commerce Categories

E-commerce refers to the process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing, and paying for products online

Business-to-Consumer: Selling goods or services to individuals

• Subscription
• Content providers
• Transaction brokers
• Service providers
• Portals

Business-to-Business: Selling goods and services to other businesses or nonprofit organizations

• Online retailers
• Liquidation brokers
• Business service providers

Consumer-to-Consumer: Individuals selling to other individuals

• Online auctons
• Social network sites used for e-commerce

Business-to-Government: Performing transactions with the government

• Tax filings
• Tax payments
• Financial reporting to government agencies

 Why Use the Internet for Commerce?

1. Ubiquity
2. Global Reach
3. Social Technology
4. Universal standards
5. Information richness
6. Interactivity
7. Information density
8. Personalization & Customization

Companies must consider...

How to sell, advertise and market on the Internet

How to use the above mentioned features of the Internet to do business

How to include the Internet basics in their business

• Facebook
• Youtube
• Twitter
• Blogs
• Websites  

Advertising and Marketing on the Internet

Advertising: a paid announcement that attracts attention to a product, service, business, person, or idea.

The most successful advertising is directed at a very specific audience 

Banner Ads: appear at the top of a Web page

Pop-up Ads: open in a new window

Text Ads: text links that appear within a Web page

Contextual Ads: change based on the viewed content

Sponsorship Ads: often a logo or simple statement

Video Ads: video formatted, appear prior to online videos

Interstitial Ads: appear as visitors browse between pages

Advertorials: paid editorial ads that contain opinions

Classified Ads: description of items for sale or something wanted

Building and E-commerce Business

Management Challenges

1. Developing a clear understanding of your business objectives, these drive the plan
2. Knowing the right technology to use to achieve objectives, these drive your costs, functionality, and policies

 Business model: Set of planned activities designed to result in a profit in the marketplace

1. Value Proposition
2. Revenue model
3. Market opportunity
4. Competitive environment
5. Competitive advantage
6. Market strategy
7. Organizational Development
8. Management team

An E-commerce business model uses the unique qualities of the Internet to support the business model

Tutorial 8: Creating Effective Web Pages

Understanding Markup Languages 

A markup language is a general term that indicates the separation of the formatting of a document and the content of a document

 

SGML: Standard Generalized Markup Language - a metalanguage that is used to create other languages, was the standard for formatting document that were not dependent on the operating system or environment in which the documents were created or viewed (think Latin compared to English)

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language

XML: another popular markup language that is used to describe the format and structure of data

XHTML : the most recent markup language specification from the W3C, combines the formatting features of HTML with a stricter syntax that works to combine HTML and XML so that Web content is more readily and easily delivered to all devices that are connected to the Internet

Tags and Attributes

Tags: identify all the elements within a Web page

Attributes: Specify additional information about the content being formatted

Creating an HTML Document

HTML Tutorial for Beginners

Planning the Content of your Website
A storyboard can help identify the general content for each page, the number of pages in the site, and the relationship between the site's pages

Securing a Domain Name

•  You can use a registrar such as register.com to enter your proposed domain name and check its availability
• If the domain name you want us available, see if the Web hosting service (see below) can purchase it as a part of your hosting agreement and assist you to establish the company as the Web site's host
• When you renew your Web site hosting contract, ask the company is it provides domain name renewal service so it will automatically renew your domain for you

Choosing a Web Hosting Service

Secure Server: encrypts data, which changes it into a format that prevents unauthorized parties from being able to read or use it

Dedicated Server: a Web server that hosts only one site

Shared Server: hosts several sites

Tutorial 7: Wireless Networking

Data Transfer

Wireless vs. Wired

Wired connections use wires to transfer data on the Internet

Wireless communication takes place via radio frequencies, microwaves, or infrared communication

Networks: used to transfer data with wireless communications

• WPAN: Wireless Personal Area Network
• Very short distances (PC to peripheral devices, Bluetooth)
• WLAN: Wireless Local Area Network
• Usually a home or hotspot
• WMAN: Wireless Metropolitan Area Network
• Usually a city
• WWAN: Wireless Wide Area Network
• Country/World (Cell phone technology)

 

A wired connection is one in which a device and the ISP are connected using a cable

A wireless connection occurs when data is transferred to another location with the use of any wires

Security Concerns for Wireless Networks

Protecting a wireless network is complicated by the fact that a wireless network send its data through the air using waves that are subject to interception

WPA: Wi-Fi Protected Access, a standard

• WPA uses a pre-shared key to encrypt data and individual data packets are encrypted with different keys
• Although WPA provides good protection, one drawback is that all devices in the network need to use WPA

MAC: Media Access Control address, protects a network by only allowing registered devices to connect to the network

• The MAC address for detachable network interface cards is usually printed on the card or USB device
• A MAC address appears in the format 00:00:00:0A:0B:0C, as a combination of digits and letters
• If you enable MAC address filtering for a wireless router or access point, then it will only accept connections from the devices with the MAC addresses that you enter...don't expect your guests to be happy

Disabling the SSID Broadcast

• When a wireless router or access point sends out its signal, it also broadcasts its service set identifier (SSID) as a way of identifying the network's name
• The SSID makes it possible for roaming devices to discover the network and enables you to log in to the correct network
• Wardriving is a malicious activity that involves driving through a neighborhood with a wireless-enabled notebook computer with the goal of locating homes or businesses that have wireless networks in order to gain access to them
• DISABLE THE SSID BROADCAST

Methods for Securing Wireless Networks

1. Buy software that prevents unauthorized use, protects against threats, and monitors network
2. Be aware of other people when using your wireless device in a public place. DO NOT ONLINE BANK AT STARBUCKS
3. Change passwords regularly
4. Check usage statistics for unauthorized usage
5. Disable auto-connect feature
6. Do not store login information on your device

Tutorial 6: Internet Security

Security Basics

Security is broadly defined as the protection of assets from unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction.

Secrecy threat: when data is disclosed to an unauthorized party

Integrity threat: unauthorized data modification

Necessity threat: causes data delays or denials

A countermeasure is a physical or logical procedure that recognizes, reduces, or eliminate a threat.

• The best way to safeguard against a threat is to prevent it from occuring in the first place

• In some cases, you need to plan for losses in service or theft by purchasing insurance or installing backup systems 

  

 

The process of risk management focuses on identifying threats and determining available and affordable countermeasures.

Using Encryption
Encryption is the process of coding information using an algorithm to produce a string of characters that is unreadable

Algorithm: a formula or set of steps that solves a particular problem

Cryptography: the study of securing information via encryption

Key: is used to decrypt cipher text

Decryption: the process of using a key to reverse encrypted text is called decryption

Cipher Text: encrypted information

Plain Text: unencrypted information

Using a Firewall 

Check out this tutorial on "How to use a Firewall"

The computer version of a firewall is a software program or hardware device that controls access between two networks or between the Internet and a computer

• Can be used on both Web servers and Web clients

• A Web client firewall might be a dedicated hardware device or a program running on a computer

Communication Channel Security

Identification

• User authentication is the process of associating a person and his identification with a very high level of assurance.
• Usually consists of a User ID and Password
• The more hoops, the more secure (Multi-factor Authentication)
• A digital certificate is an encrypted and password protected file that contains sufficient to authenticate a person's indentity.

 

Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product.  The resources to provide that service are shared with other users.  Users obtain computer power, storage and software over the Internet.   

• On-demand self service
• Broad network access
• Resource pooling
• Rapid elasticity
• Measured service  

Tutorial 5: User-Generated Content on the Internet

Pull Technology

Pull technology has subscribers "pull" content to their computers when they want it...

Newsgroups

Feeds

Mashups

Mailing List

Podcasts

Push Technology

Push technology sends content to users who have requested it...

Chat

Instant Messaging

Online social networks

Photo and video sharing sites

Blogs 

Email Based Communication

Mailing list: Uses a list server to send subscribers messages from other list members

Usenet: One of the first large, distributed information databases in the world

Newsgroups:Are similar to mailing lists in that they accept messages from users and make them generally available to other users.

Do not use a list server to forward copies of submitted messages to subscribers.

Feeds 

Syndication: Right of others to distribute, making content available for use.

Aggregation:  Collection of items gathered together.

Feeds are similar to newsgroups in that they let you subscribe to content that you want to receive on your device. 

Feeds differ from newsgroups because of the way that content is delivered to subscribers: 

1. Newsgroup postings are delivered via email messages

2. Feeds are delivered through a program that includes a summary and a link to the published or actual content

Chat  

Chat is a general term for real-time communication that occurs over the Internet using software that is installed on Internet devices.

Voice: Speak

Video: Speak and See

Text: Type

Private: occurs between individuals who know each other and are invited to participate in 

the chat 

Public: occurs in a public area, sometimes called a chat room, in which people come and go 

by visiting a Web page that hosts the chat

Online Social Networks

Social networks connect people with specific common interests

Facebook began in 2004 as a closed network for college students; now open to anyone 13 and older with an email address

 

• Most social networks rely heavily on advertising to profit 
• Many corporation now use social networks to connect with their consumers   

 Other Social Networks

1. Meetups 
2. Bookmarking 
3. Interest 
4. Classmates 
5. Support 
6. Parenting

Tutorial 4: Information Resources on the Web

Finding Current and Specific Information on the Web

• Use a search engine that  allows date-range searches
• Comes news portals are dedicated to "current" news.
• News aggregation Web sites collect and display content from several other news Web sites.
• A wire service is an organization that gathers and distributes news to newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, Web sites, and other organizations that pay a fee to the wire service.

 Finding Up-to-date Weather Information

There are local, nationwide, and worldwide weather forecast Web sites. 

Features:

• Live Radar
• Graphs
• 10-day forecasts
• Trip planners
• Severe weather reports
• School Closings
• Satellite Views
• Desktop weather apps
• Video Forecasts      

Find People and Businesses Online

Search by name of person or business, location, phone number, type of business, and more...

 

Yellow Page Directories: Web sites that store information about businesses only, similar to the printed yellow pages phone book.

White Pages: Let you search for individuals’ names, addresses, and telephone numbers

–Collect information from published telephone directories and other publicly available information and index it by last name

–Some Web sites make unpublished and unlisted telephone numbers available for public use

–Response to concerns about privacy violations has led most white pages sites to offer people a way to remove their listing.  If it concerns you, you can request removal from the white pages directory itself

Find Products and Services Online

E-commerce: The process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing, and paying for products and services online.  

• Some retailers have both a physical location and a Web site; others are online only without a storefront/brick-and mortar store. 

Examples of "online only" companies: Amazon, Ebay, New Egg

Copyright and Fair Use

Copyright: Government granted rights to the author or creator of an original work.

Intellectual Property: Creations of the human mind.

Public Domain: Once a copyright has expired, anyone can use the work without requesting permission from the original author.

Fair Use: U.S. copyright law allows  people to use portions of copyrighted works without obtaining permission from the the copyright holder.

Fair Use Determinants

1. The purpose and character of the new work
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.
4. The effect of the use on the potential market, or value, of the copyrighted work.    

Plagiarism: Failure to site the source of material the you use

• Plagiarism is a serious legal violation that can lead to a failing grade, being expelled from school, being fired from a job, or being subjected to a hefty fine or prosecution