Topic 12: Web Analytics

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

Visits:

Whenever someone opens the page of website it is called visit. A visitor can have multiple visits means he can open the website many times, each times visitor starts its session is counted as one visit.

Page views:

According to eBusiness glossary page views are the pages which will be logged each time that the tracking code will be executed.

Pages/visit:

It is the average page view of all visitors.

Bounce Rate:

According to eBusiness glossary, The Bounce Rate stands as the percentage of visitors who will first enter the web site and then leave it (bounce) rather than viewing other pages within the same site. It can be calculated as,   

Total number of visits viewing only one page

                                                           Total number of visits

2) Now look at the traffic sources report. What are the three sources of traffic and where has most of the traffic come from?

Below are the three sources of traffic,

1.      Search Engines

2.      Direct Traffic

3.      Referring Traffic

ü  The search engines such as Google enable people to search for something. People enter the keywords in search engine and search engine provides links to the websites relating to the keywords. A simple click enables people to go to the web site they were looking for.

ü  The direct traffic is from people typing the address of the web directly into the address bar.

ü  The referring traffic is the traffic which comes as a result of referring the website by other sites or some reference

Most of the traffic of the website has come from the direct traffic as we can analyze from below figures,

1	Direct traffic	44 %
2	Referring traffic	24 %
3	Search Engines	33 %

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

Internet Explorer was the most popular web browser to access the site.

4) How many countries did visitors to Folio spaces come from and what were the top four countries?

Visitors came from about 86 countries and top four countries were Australia, USA , UK and Canada.

5) Having clicked every possible link on my analytics, make a few comments on (a) What you can track, (b) What you can track over time and (c) What you can’t track.

a)

By clicking on web analytics i could track,

Ø  Visitors,

Ø  Map overlay,

Ø  Visitors overview,

Ø  Technical profile,

Ø  Visitor profiles,

Ø  Browser profile,

Ø  Traffic sources overview,

Ø  Content overview,

Ø  Search engines,

Ø  Referring engines,

Ø  Direct engines,

Ø  Visits,

Ø  Unique visitors,

Ø  Time on site,

Ø  Bounce rate,

Ø  New visits,

Ø  Detail of visitor’s country

b)

I can track all above over the time

c)

I was unable to track information about did visitors make purchases or just visited the website or how many visitors made purchases.

6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few, you may like to add some more yourself.

High bounce rate

Bounce rate is the measurement in percentage of how many Web site visitors view only one page within website. High bounce rate means higher percentage of single page viewers.

Key words:

Key words are the specific words that are used by the people to search for the relevant required information.

Average Page Depth:

It is the average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/average_page_depth.html

Click through rate:

The percentage of individuals viewing a web page who click on a specific advertisement that appears on the page. Click-through rate measures how successful an ad has been in capturing users' interest.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/clickthroughrates.asp

Click

In his book, Schneider has defined click as below,

A click is an action taken when the visitor clicks a banner ad to open an advertiser’s page.

Cookie

A cookie is a small text file placed on Web client computers, to identify returning visitors (Schneider, 2007). Its small stream of data is passed between a web site and a user’s browser. When a user comes to the web site, the first thing a web site will do is to communicate with that browser, and ask it to return a cookie, this stream of data that was set by the server.

Impression

An impression is each time a banner ad loads.

Hyperlink

A hyperlink “points to another location in the same or another HTML document” (Schneider, 2007, p. 58). This link there for navigates a user to another section of the page or to a new page or site altogether.

Navigation

Navigation refers to how you find your way from one page to another on a Web site.

Page view

A page view is each page loaded by a visitor

Session

The period of time that a Web client is connected to the Web site is called a session.

Unique Visitors (or Absolute Unique Visitors)

A unique visitor is a statistic describing a unit of traffic to a Web site, counting each visitor only once in the time frame of the report.

URL:

Schneider has defined URL in following words,

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is “the combination of the protocol name and the domain name” . This is used to uniquely identify and navigate to a web page.

Visitor

The person who visits the website is called visitor.

Visitor Session

The time period each visitor spends using website is called that visitor’s session

Comparison shopping

Comparison shopping is when purchaser makes comparison of quality, price and features of the commodities before purchasing them.

Cost per click

Cost-per-click is the average cost you paid for each click on your search ad(s).

CPM

This stands for cost-per-thousand impressions. A CPM pricing model means advertisers pay for impressions received.

Topic 11: Web 2.0/3.0

Exercise - select five applications that you have not heard of before from Popular URL's, or the webware awards and describe on your blog page how they could be useful to a business. 

Jamendo.Com – Music Website (http://www.jamendo.com/en/welcome)

Jamendo is an open community of music authors and a music website. It is known as the world's largest digital service for free music. Below is the information about it,

·         Jamendo is based on an economic model that grants free music downloads for web users, and also provides revenue opportunities for artists through commercial uses, via the licensing platform Jamendo PRO which sells licenses for music synchronization and background music.

·         Website is based in Luxembourg and has a community of 1.4 million members.

·         The site is available in 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Polish.

·         The name "Jamendo" is derived from a fusion of two musical terms: "jam session" and "crescendo".

·         Users can listen to MP3 encoded audio files and download in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis formats. Listening and downloading is free, unlimited and without advertisements.

·         Each user has a personal account in which user enjoys extended features like creating playlists, bookmarking songs and albums, becoming a fan of an artist, sharing on social networks, reviewing tracks or albums, and donating to their favorite artists.

·         Latest version of the website features more promoting abilities. User can search songs by artists or titles and also by tag which are chosen by artists to describe their songs (genre, instrument, etc.). Jamendo is integrated within media players like VLC media player, Songbird, Clementine and Amarok 2.

Style hive-Fashion website: (http://www.stylehive.com/)

Stylehive.com is an online style club for people who live for fashion, design and shopping. It's where you meet your style muses and follow them as they discover and share their latest finds.

Part social-networking club, part pop-culture lab , Stylehive.com is one big ensemble cast of trendsetters creating, discovering and buying the next big thing!

A hip hybrid that connects online style addicts with one another, as well as to their favorite fashion, home goods, and other fun stuff, Stylehive.com has become the go-to address for all things fresh, hip, and now.becasue,

• Every kind of retailer (from mass to the super-edgy) is here reaching shoppers on a global scale.
• Artists with new fashion or design creations are introducing themselves and their wares to the public through Stylehive.com, gaining notoriety with customers, and developing mass followings through the intense word-of-mouth buzz the Hive creates.
• Incredibly cool products discovered by Stylehivers all over the world pop up almost every minute of the day, with top names in retail, and trend spotters in every style field, gushing over their favorite new Stylehive finds.

By Adding Stylehive's style entertainment blog HiveDaily and new lookbook site StyleDiary into the mix we can have an unmatched destination for connecting the people who live for style, and want to share

Another exciting feature about stylehive is that you don't have to join the hive to enjoy it. Casual readers can just browse, search or subscribe to it via RSS. You'll discover and share what you find in the hive by exploring tags, individual people's hives, popular or recent bookmarks, and popular sites in the hive. Or, you can simply check out HiveDaily, which covers what trends our editors are seeing emerge in the Hive.

ZOHO: ONLINE OFFICE SUITE (http://www.zoho.com)

Zoho.com offers a comprehensive suite of award-winning online business, productivity & collaboration applications. Customers use Zoho Applications to run their business processes, manage their information and be more productive while at the office or on the go, without having to worry about expensive or outdated hardware or software.

To date, Zoho.com has launched 25+ online applications — from CRM to Mail, Office Suite, Project Management, Invoicing, Web conferencing and more. Zoho has received numerous awards, including an InfoWorld 2009 "Product of the Year" award, a 2008 PC World "25 Most Innovative Products Award" and a 2007 TechCrunch "Best Enterprise Start-up."

Zoho.com is a division of Zoho Corporation, a privately-held and profitable company. With offices in CA, Austin, Chennai, Yokohama and Beijing, Zoho Corporation serves the technology needs of more than 9 million customers worldwide.

Time tracking: (http://tiktrac.com/)

Tiktrac.com has below amazing features,

·         Tiktrac makes you feel at home when you sign in with a comprehensive dashboard view. Any tasks that you're working on can be edited in place using Ajax, so there's no time lost managing your time.

·         Assign costs to times, using a flexible system that even includes tax calculations.

·         Tiktrac's sheets are incredibly flexible: creating anything from traditional time sheets to expense reports without the headaches of a spreadsheet. You can even Import existing time sheets from your spreadsheets!

·         Unparalleled reporting

·         Improve customer service: Search tasks and generate reports to produce more accurate quotes or invoices.

·         Track staff: Easily see what people are working on; create reports to analyze their performance.

·         Track costs: Keep tabs on clients owing money, see which clients bring in the most money, and create expense reports.

·         Export data as CSV, compatible with Excel or other popular spreadsheet programs. Or even export data with XML.

Data.com-Buy and sell Sales contacts (previously Jigsaw) https://connect.data.com/

Data.com is a dynamic community with connections to millions of B2B decision makers. It's the fastest way to reach the right people, and never waste time hunting down the wrong person again. Features of data.com include,

·         Continuously updated and accurate

·         All contacts complete with title, phone, and business email

·         Every level: staff to C-level

Topic 10: Trust (Web Page)

1) What does this meant by the following statements?

Trust is not associative (non-symmetric)

Symmetric means having similarity in size, shape, and relative position of corresponding parts (dictionary meaning), but trust is non-symmetric which means that both the parties may not have same level of trust on each other. For example if buyer has confidence in some seller that he will give the right things to the buyer then this does not mean that seller must be confident in trusting the buyer in same extent that buyer can be fair in paying price or any other dealing matter.

 

Trust is not transitive

Dictionary meaning of transition are ‘’the act of passing from one state or place to the next’’. Trust is not transitive means it cannot flow from one person to the next, for example if we trust some trainer doesn’t mean that we will trust in same degree on the persons to whom he has trained.

Trust is always between exactly 2 parties

These days it is common that more than two parties are involved in business transactions who support the process of business transactions. Trust will be between exactly two parties not in all the parties, it means that if we trust in the transaction being carried out doesn’t mean we trust all the parties related to transactions, level of trust with all the parties to transaction will be of different level. With each of the parties there will be different trust level and we may say that with each party trust will be exactly between two parties.it can be further explained by the example that in a transaction of buying a heater there are parties buyer, seller , bank, distributor. Buyer enters in transaction with seller to purchase the heater there is trust between buyer and seller(trust between two parties), buyer pays cash to bank there is trust between buyer and bank (between two parties), may be buyer do not have trust on distributor so trust is always between two parties differently. 

 

Trust will involve either direct trust or recommender trust

Direct trust will be established by the self-experience of relationship with other party, and recommended trust will be on the bases of trust experience and recommendation of some other person. We will enter in transaction with person we trust and this trust will either be from our on direct experience with that party or it will be because some other person recommended that the party is trust worthy. 

2a) Have a look at the following websites. What are some of the elements that have been incorporated to increase your trust in the sites? If there are also some aspects which decrease your level of trust describe them as well.

http://www.eBay.com.au

Main feature of eBay which makes it highly trustworthy is its work association with PayPal which is secured payment system. The site of eBay is easy to navigate, its architecture is professional, I can search easily the product of my requirement, these things add to the trust level. There is also feedback corner and policies of the site are also defined on this site these are also trust building factors.

http://www.anz.com.au

ANZ provides range of banking and financial products and services around 8 million customers worldwide. They have very attractive and expert professional website which gives strong overview of the business. Security and privacy statement gives image of how secure information is kept. There is login facility for users which is also a tool to build up trust and privacy level of customers.

http://www.thinkgeek.com

It is a commercial site offering a wide variety of goods. There is login facility for the customers and a detailed privacy and security policy which details how information is kept safe by encryption or many other tools. Wish lists help and different categories choosing links add to the ease of use of the website. Although it is not that colorful but it’s a good trustworthy website.

http://www.paypal.com.au

PayPal is a very well-known website for transfer of money securely. It provides business and consumers with an email address to securely conveniently and cost effectively send and receive payments online. There is security center tab on the website which tells comprehensively how securely buying and selling can be done through PayPal. Online safety essentials are also detailed .Login facility and comprehensive privacy disclaimers and repute of the business adds to trustworthiness of the website.

2b) Find a web site yourself that you think looks untrustworthy.

The below site I visited and felt like it is untrustworthy as it tells it is shopping website but when we open it, it gives links of other websites which feels misleading.

http://website.informer.com/cariszone.com

Topic:9 Channel Conflict

See microsoft article. Discuss the case on your blog in terms of channel conflict. 12 months on after the release of Windows 8, is it still an issue? 

Channel conflict may be defined as the situation that occurs when manufacturers start selling their products directly to their customers by disintermediating distributors and retailers. Microsoft kept the Surface out of channel because it lacked distribution strategy. Microsoft sold it directly until December 2012 when flagging sales forced it to open reseller agreement with best buy and staples.

Microsoft’s announcement of Surface tablet was threatening for its competitors but side by side as discussed in the article by CEO ‘s of competitor firms that they were expecting that surface would not be a success as Wang the CEO of Taiwanese PC maker Acer, lashed out at Microsoft's upcoming Surface tablet, saying that the software giant's decision to compete with its OEM partners will be detrimental to the worldwide computing ecosystem, reports the UK's Financial Times.

He criticized Microsoft's decision since the Surface was announced. Wang told the Financial Times, "We have said [to Microsoft]: think it over. Think twice. It will create a huge negative impact on the industry and other brands may take a negative reaction. It is not something you are good at so please think twice." In a way I agree with Mr. Wang’s statement.

According to the Channeleconomics article of 20^th march 2014,

‘’Microsoft released Surface in October 2012 with the release of Windows 8, its first operating system designed for touch-based devices. Windows 8 was intended to get Microsoft into the tablet game with Apple Inc., the device market leader, and Google Inc., the platform market leader. Surface was Microsoft’s emulation of the integrated product and go-to-market stack pioneered by Apple.

From the beginning, Microsoft had a weak channel story for Surface. At the Worldwide Partner Conference in 2012, months before the Surface launch, Microsoft evaded distributors requests for information about distribution plans or the need for support. Surface wasn’t even on display even though Windows 8 was everywhere.

When Surface launch, Microsoft said it wasn’t ready for channel sales and support. It wasn’t until sales tanked out of the gate that Microsoft added retail resellers to the strategy. In July 2013, Microsoft authorized a series of direct market resellers — or those specialized in volume sales — to resell Surface. Today, about 130 DMRs in 29 countries are selling Surface.’’

channelnomics.com/2014/03/20/microsoft-confirms-delta-surface-deal-direct/#.U4TS6yj4Jk0

According to Channelweb article dated 5^th Nov 2013,

In the survey by the 2112 group, reseller ranked Microsoft a close second only to dell for poor channel conflict management.Reseller partners and traditional OEM allies felt this conflict.

http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2304976/new-microsoft-channel-chief-on-surface-strategy

This is still an issue as the conflict is not yet resolved according to article of channel economics ,

‘’Reports say Microsoft is readying a new cover typepad for Surface that includes an external battery. The power-boosting accessory, some analysts say, is positioning Surface as a more apt notebook replacement that will make the device more palatable to business users. It will also make Surface more marketable, and that elevate discontent of Microsoft channel partners locked out of the Surface opportunity.

Despite media inquiries and partner complaints, Microsoft isn’t moving any quicker to clarify when Surface will be released to general channel distribution. Sorgen is consistent in saying Microsoft will not release Surface to partners until it felt ready with support and logistics. When asked by Channelnomics which would come first, Surface 3 or general channel availability, Sorgen repeated the official stance. ‘’

channelnomics.com/2014/03/20/microsoft-confirms-delta-surface-deal-direct/#.U4TS6yj4Jk0

References:

http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2304976/new-microsoft-channel-chief-on-surface-strategy
http://channelnomics.com/2014/03/20/microsoft-confirms-delta-surface-deal-direct/#.U4TS6yj4Jk0

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043386/microsoft-channel-program-will-push-surface-to-businesses.html

Topic:8 Online Auctions

Q1: eBay is one of the only major Internet "pure plays" to consistently make a profit from its inception. What is eBay's business model? Why has it been so successful?

The company eBay Inc. is an American multinational corporation; headquartered in San Jose, California whose business model is CONSUMER TO CONNSUMER. The company manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. The latest earnings figures for eBay are, as usual, good and getting better. Even more impressive is the fact that eBay's share price has resolutely defied the dotcom downturn. Such an across-the-board success cries out for an explanation. Reasons of eBay’s success IS eBay has always fed off the enthusiasms - some would say obsessions - of its users, further reason eBay is so successful is because it offers something quite amazing.

Apart from its grand success in auction business, it has also outwitted all the other competitor sites in terms of its consistent rise in revenue generation from the business. It stands as the only website that solely deals in auctions and in this way makes the best out of its enterprise. Below is the list of 10 key reasons of eBay’s success.

·         One: Commitment 

·         Two: Sufficient Start-up Funding, Well Spent 

·         Three: Effective, Persistent Marketing and PR 

·         Four: Find Great Stuff to Sell 

·         Five: Never Sell Junk 

·         Six: Give Great Customer Service 

·         Seven: Create an Efficient, Pleasant Facility 

·         Eight: Create Polished Listings & Photos 

·         Nine: Pay Attention to the Details 

·         Ten: Do Good Recordkeeping

http://www.ebay.com/gds/10-KEYS-TO-SUCCESS-ON-EBAY-/10000000002691984/g.html

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/eBays-secret-of-success

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

Q2: Other major web sites, like Amazon.com and Yahoo!, have entered the auction marketplace with far less success than eBay. How has eBay been able to maintain its dominant position?

eBay’s popularity and ability to reach a large numbers of consumers anytime, day or night, places it far above other major web sites, like Amazon.com and Yahoo! Internet businesses require a URL that is easy to remember, a shopping cart so that customers can select items and continue shopping on your site and a service that allows them to accept credit card for instance PayPal or other account companies. eBay has been able to maintain its dominant position on online auction. The Amazon sells products by itself but eBay does not sell goods by itself. The seller registers and sells through eBay. Everyone can sell and buy on the eBay, it is more freedom.  It delivers good service at lower price, it offers free to bid and has its own safe payment method which provides security to its customers. eBay ticks all of these boxes and continues to lead its competitor market with new innovations and thus remains atop of the online auction marketplace

Q3: What method does eBay use to reduce the potential for fraud among traders on its site? What kinds of fraud, if any, are eBay users most susceptible?

As in any website or a general rule eBay always reminds its users to never reply to emails that ask for your personal information, get a safe browser, update your anti-virus software, check your messages in My eBay, report suspicious emails and choose a strong password but the most significant method which eBay is using to reduce fraud is the feedback system. Feedback is made up of comments and ratings left by other eBay members you've bought from and sold to. These comments and ratings are valuable indicators of user’s reputation as a buyer or seller on eBay. They are included, along with an overall feedback score, in a member profile.

      Commerce can attract fraudsters, and online commerce is no different. The most common attempt of fraud may occur when a seller lists an item they don’t intend to send but accepts money for it. There are so many kinds of fraud such as Fake products or not as described, the second chance offer, feedback scams, lost in the post, to good to be true deals, doubtful payment methods, charge backs ( Buyers can buy items via Paypal, claim that the item was never received, and receive a PayPal refund).

http://help.ebay.com.au/Help/Security/Avoiding_scams/Online_fraud

http://reviews.ebay.com.au/

Q4: eBay makes every effort to conceptualize its users as a community (as opposed to, say "customers" or "clients"). What is the purpose of this conceptual twist and does eBay gain something by doing it?

The disadvantage of online auction is that the user cannot check the items physically. The transaction is totally based on trust. The purpose of the conceptual twist of conceptualizing its users as a community is that the members are more likely to feel like they are part of something. Members won’t just see other members as ‘other members’ but as people in the same community as them, who want the same things and have the same goals and objectives. This means that members of the community see each other as their own potential customers or retailers and eBay is simply the method in which they do business with each other. Yes, eBay goes gain from this conceptual twist as it should make the members more reliable, more trustworthy of each other and less likely to participate in fraud against another member

Q5: eBay has long been a marketplace for used goods and collectibles. Today, it is increasingly a place where major businesses come to auction their wares. Why would a brand name vendor set-up shop on eBay?

The concept of marketing and selling has been changed by the recent concepts totally. E-bay is the place which has gained market repute and share. It is the single portal which helps vendor to reach worldwide customers with a single click. Now the branded stores have been establishing their stores one-bay for the auction of their wares.

By setting shop on E-bay a brand vendor can approach billions of clients at the same time; it is the one of the best source of marketing. Currently many brands are en-cashing this advantage like Dell, Acer, Samsung and Orange.