Thursday, April 11, 2013



















 

Week 5 - Business models & advertising model issues

Hey everyone welcome to week 5, this week we are discussing the different types of business models found on the web.


Brokerage – Brings buyers and sellers together to facilitate transactions. Brokers play a frequent role in business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), or consumer-to-consumer (B2C) markets. Usually a broker charges a fee or commission for each transaction. Examples of this could be Kogan or carsguide online.

Advertising – a web advertising model is an extension of the traditional media broadcast model. A website provides content and services mixed with advertising media, usually in the form of banner ads.
For example a portal such as google includes various data but has banner ads along the side.

Infomediary –
Some firms function as infomediaries assisting buyers and/or sellers understand a given market. Information is collected carefully and analyzed and used to target marketing campaigns. This is useful to consumers when considering a purchase, such as flybuys – a customer loyalty program that provides incentives to customers such as redeemable points.

Merchant –
Apple iTunes is a good example of a merchant model as it retails goods and services, the sales are based on a price list.
Or something like Dick Smiths that has a traditional brick-and-mortar retail establishment but also has a web store.

Manufacturer (Direct) –
The web allows the manufacturer to reach buyers directly and thereby compress the distribution channel.
The consumer can purchase, lease, license and brand integrated content on items.
For example, Alien computers do this very well because you can order your personal, customized new computer and deliver it to your house.

Affiliate –
Provides purchase opportunities where ever an individual is on the web including banners, pay per click and revenue sharing. It does this by offering financial incentives to affiliated partner sites, it is a pay for performance model if an affiliate does not generate sales, it represents no cost to the merchant, such as Amazon.com.

Community –
based on user loyalty and the revenue is usually tied to advertising. An open content model such as Wikipedia was developed collaboratively by a global community or social networking services such as Facebook.

Subscription – where users are charged a periodic fee to subscribe to a service, they are usually incurred irrespective of actual usage rates and advertising models are frequently combined.
Online digital media providers like NBA.com and JB Hi-Fi online are  good examples of this.


Utility – can also be named ‘on demand’ based on metering usage or a pay as you go approach. Unlike the subscription model the metered services are based on actual usage rates, for example electricity and water or websites such as wordpress.com where you can buy usage for a certain amount of time (Rappa, 2010).




Question Two – Spend some time looking at the Technology report, particularly the country profiles and rankings. Use some of the data analysis tools to answer the following.
1) What is the Mobile phone use /100 population – compare Australia, USA, China, India.

The mobile phone use of Australia was ranked sixth with a 53.1 value. United States ranked  8th with a value of 50.6. India was ranked 107th with a value of 0.1 and China ranked 82nd with a value of 1.8.

2) Internet use / 100 population – compare Australia, USA, China, India.
For individuals using the internet Australia ranked 19th with a value of 76.0.
The USA ranked 22nd with a value of 74.0, China ranked 76th with a value of 34.3 but India ranked the lowest, 124th with a value of 7.5.


3) Compare main strengths and weaknesses of Australia in the survey.
Australia ranked above 20 in each individual survey except for the mobile phone subscriptions making this a weakness.
One must consider that in the past in Australia much effort had been made to develop land line infrastructure.


Developing countries like India and China did not have the likes of national phone line infrastructure like the developed countries such as Australia and the U.S. 
Therefore mobile phone subscriptions continue to grow due to the limited number of wired phone lines. (G Jenkins,2002)

Australia has many strengths in the area of data protection, compared to other countries, particularly when it comes to copyright law and protection. http://www.copyright.org.au/

4) What does the survey suggest to you about the Information Technology readiness of Australian business compared to Australian consumers?
 
The survey to me indicates that Australia's information technology readiness in business  is about on the same level  with  Australian consumers.
The results of the survey indicate that the technology and the consumers are both ready.





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References:
 Rappa, M. (2010) Business models on the web. Retrieved 8 April, 2013 from http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

 Wilson R. F. (2009).The Four Basic Online Business Models. Retrieved 11 April, 2013 from http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/marko-hurst-business-models/

Jenkins G. (2002). Observations from the trenches of Electronic Government. Published by Ubiquity. Retrieved 11 April, 2013 from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=504686

Copyright Council, Australia. (2013). About us. Retrieved 11 April, 2013 from http://www.copyright.org.au/about-us/

Wednesday, April 10, 2013























Week 4 - Digital design : more than just beauty


Hey web surfers this week our topic is digital design.

What is digital design you say? 

 

"Digital design, a term used to describe a wide variety of computer related skills, includes work in fields such as web design,

  digital imaging and 3D modeling. 

The term can further be expanded to any digitally created 

visual media." http://www.soyouwanna.com/digital-design-1063.html




 




 

However one particular area I want to share with you is webpage design,  and the change from desktop to mobile webpage design.



 

A recent article in the Business insider discusses the evolution of webpage design and the need to simplify and not overfill webpages with text, media and ads.


 

Originally webpage viewing was limited to 

"slow modems, tiny monitors, and a limited colour palett", on desktop computers.  http://au.businessinsider.com/mobile-web-design-2013-3


 

In the  turn of the century,  a market was created for mobile online services.

Early on mobiles/cellphones and PDA devices could not properly view webpages that were designed for desktop viewing, certainly for a number of years fine tuning was needed for webpages to fit the borders of handheld devices.


 

This void was somewhat filled with the introduction of tablet computers,  the apple ipad being one of the leading pioneers.


 

webpage viewing majority is moving to mobile viewing, so to make the most of these booming trends the focus needs to move away from the desktop and on to developing webpages well suited to mobile devices.

 

A quote from Owen Thomas, writer for the business insider, "those who designed tablet experiences from scratch were amply rewarded; we now regularly hear about online retailers who do 40 or 50 per cent of their sales on mobile, most of that from tablets". http://au.businessinsider.com/mobile-web-design-2013-3


 

Q1.  A customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish?


In order to create a customer centric website it would first be a good idea to ask customers, and yes I mean market research.

What is Customer centric website design? Well it involves making a website that meets the needs and wants of a brand's customers and prospects.

 

 


By proactively considering customer preferences and behaviour, you will be making more effective decisions on the content, product offerings, design, and transaction processes on your site.

 

 

Therefore a customer centric website must be designed to help customers with their problems, and should resolve issues that customers face when viewing the website.

 

When this is done well... sales and success will follow.

We must consider that websites fall into two categories, 

for profit and non for profit.

A succesful charity website makes the financial transaction 

of donating easy by offering several different 

financial institutions e.g. Visa, Paypal, Mastercard 

and the ability to share pages across social networks e.g. Facebook,Twitter and Friendster.

 

 

A good example of a succesful charity website is GoFundme.com

 

Go fund me makes raising funds easy, anyone can create a page to raise funds from anything to personal fundraisers to a charity association fundraiser.


Why is it  so difficult to succesfully create a customer centric website? 

One of the reasons is because creating  a transaction process for a product or service is a fairly complicated thing to express effectively. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/design_tr.html

 

 


Q2. Define the term ‘presence’ describe why firms that do business on the Web should be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world.


 " Presence " is the appearance of a person or organization on the World Wide Web, the state of its virtual existence.

There are so many more facets to organizations that do business online.

Firstly it is important to show customers full specifications on products with several photos to show its ability and design. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/design_tr.html

 

BenQ created a pamphlet to show the full specifications of its top end projector, so you can know what it is capable of doing.

 


 



But seeing is also believing.
For a potential customer seeing this photo makes the projector more desirable in their mind because the picture makes them imagine what they could do with a BenQ projector, you could attach your computer, DVD player or a WiiU.


Customers also want to compare products, and find similar items based on price and capability.

 

 


The information age we live in means it is harder to make a connection with customers.


A person shopping for a small car could compare and analyze all new small cars on the market,
without ever visiting a car yard to be hustled by a car salesman.



 

Ford Australia try to avoid this fact in their television ads, by showing 'personal testimonies' of Ford customers.

 

 

People have more common sense then to walk up to a dealership and say "I want that blue one" and also believe that they are getting the best deal on the best finance available to them.

 

 

Most people have a budget and actually do research on competing car models, finance and take other cars for test drives before finally buying a car!

 

 

Ford in their 2013-2014 television ads are asking the audience to be naive, gullible and impulsive just like the people in their ads.

Ford refuse reality and substitute reality for some make believe fantasy where customers do not compare their cars to the competition.


 

Online stores like itunes or Kogan.com show you related items after you have made a purchase, with a tailored statement that says something like this... "people that purchased this item, also bought these", showing a list of products that will catch your attention due to their related use or genre.


If you bought a ipad mini on Kogan or were just viewing the ipad mini, an ad bar below shows ipad mini covers, stands, and protective screen covers.


More importantly you have to show customers that they can trust you, that your business is legitimate and capable of delivering the goods, in a timely manner.


There is very little tangibility to show this compared to a physical store, which is why big companies spend millions on their online presence, not only to be noticed but respected. http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/design_tr.html


Q3. A website that doesn't suck and why, list its features

Luckily I'm not wasting your time with an example of a website that sucks, no I will show you a website that I love and that is so widely respected that it has to get your attention.





Yes I am referring to the itunes store, its pure and simple.

The only difficult part is creating your account, but once you've started searching for products and purchased a few, the itunes store will remember your previous transactions and show you this statement "people that purchased this item, also bought these".


You don't have to go searching high and low for new music in the genre you love, it comes to you!

Or if you are simply clueless where to start you can search music by genre and know that there are bound to be songs that you will love at the top of the selling list.


 


This website is beautiful not just because of its artistic features.

 

Notice that the helpful functions like play and search are spaced well apart at the top of each corner. 


Search results are shown in a simple manner, and you can have a preview listen to any song before buying it.


The colour scheme and spacing is well done, the background is a white and gray leaving the *colour all to the album covers, making the products 'STAND OUT' therefore easier to see.


(*If your wondering I didn't spell it as 'color' because I am an Australian, which is also why we pronounce it differently to Americans.)






 

You can also use your 'F' keys to control the music on the itunes store press 'F7' to play or pause, 'F6' and 'F8' to rewind or fast forward.







Thanks for looking next week - week 5 we will be looking at business models, with particular focus on issues with advertising models.

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