Week4 Exercises

1) Looking at the site usage, what doe 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: A visit occurs when a visitor requests a page from the Web site (Schneider, 2007, p. 186).

Page view: Each page loaded by a visitor counts as a page view (Schneider, 2007, p. 186).

Page/visit: Generally, a Web site has several Web page, this term means page per visitor.

Bounce rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppgfjo6IIf4

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

The three sources of traffic are search engines, direct traffic and referring sites.

The most of the traffic come form Search Engines (79.31%), for example, Google (72.99%visits).

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

The most popular web browser used today is Internet Explorer.

4) How many countries did visitors to OZRURAL come from and what were the top three countries?

Visitors are come from 24 countries.
The top three countries are: 1.Ausrealia; 2.Unitied States; 3.United Kindom.

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) What you can track.On this Google Analytics page you can track Visitor information. This is broken up into four sections:

• Visitor Trendso Number of visitorso Number of absolute unique visitorso Number of page views per visito Number of page views, averageo The average time spend on the Web siteo The bounce rate

• Visitor Loyaltyo Number of times one person has visited the Web siteo How recent the last time a visitor visited the Web siteo Length of visito Depth of visit

• Browser Capabilitieso Browser typeo Operating Systemo Browser and operating system combinationso Screen colourso screen resolutiono Flash versiono Java support

• Network Propertieso Network locationso Hostnameso Connection speedsThe visitor section also includes new vs. returning visitors, languages of visitors and where the visitors have come from (what country or territory). You can also trace the traffic sources of the visitor which are broken into direct traffic, referring sites and search engines. This includes tracing the specific traffic source that they used and if they have used a search engine the key words that they have searched.

(b) What you can track over time.You can trace all this information over time through the timeline feature on the Web site.

(c) What you can’t track. You can’t trace whether or not visitors have made purchases or not.

6) What do the following terms mean? These are just a few, you may like to add some more and perhaps include them on the Moodle glossary.

High bounce rate: a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors.

Key words: In computer programming, a keyword is a word or identifier that has a particular meaning to the programming language. The meaning of keywords — and, indeed, the meaning of the notion of keyword — differs widely from language to language. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_(computer_programming)

Average Page Depth: The average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session. The Content Optimization > Content Performance > Depth of Visit report shows page depth figures over a specified period of time. ( http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=32974)

Click through rate: Click through rate is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions).

Click: If the visitor clicks the banner ad to open the advertiser’s page, that action is called a click or click-though (Schneider, 2007, p. 187).

Cookie: A cookie is simply a small stream of data that’s passed between a web site and a user’s browser (From Digital Enterprise podcast).

Impression: An impression is the overall effect of something.

Hyperlink: Hyperlink is a link from a hypertext file to another location or file; typically activated by clicking on a highlighted word or icon at a particular location

Navigation: Navigation is the process of reading, and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.[1] It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks.

Page view: Each page loaded by a visitor counts as a page view (Schneider, 2007, p. 186).

Session: a session is a semi-permanent interactive information exchange, also known as a dialogue, a conversation or a meeting, between two or more communicating devices, or between a computer and user. A session is set up or established at a certain point in time, and torn down at a later point in time. An established communication session may involve more than one message in each direction. A session is typically, but not always, meaning that at least one of the communicating parts needs to save information about the session history in order to be able to communicate, as opposed to stateless communication, where the communication consists of independent requests with responses.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_(computer_science)

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: Uniform Resource Locator. It allows the user to locate a resource (the web page) on another computer (the web server) (Schneider, 2007, p. 67).

Visitor: People who come to visit Web site.

Visitor Session: A Visitor Session is a defined period of interaction between a Visitor (both unique and untrackable visitor types) and a website. (http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=33095)

Comparison shopping

Additional reading:

This Techcrunch article on Hitwise questions the reliability of some data collection
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/QTdCl2iAHhM/

A Video on Google Analytics (not great quality or very exciting but good content)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsPzslyV1U4

Summary

Obviously, there’s a great wealth of information and data about customers and users that can be collected as people interact with you in the digital world. There are commercial and non-commercial tools out there that help you analyze this data, as well as for very large enterprises, home-grown tools which enable you to understand what it is that your customers are looking for, how they interact with you, and how you might be able to optimize that interaction.

Clearly the most sophisticated digital enterprises are moving along quite quickly to do just precisely that. And so the Amazons, and Ebays, and
Googles of the world are doing everything they can to understand and draw meaning from this data.


In the future, the challenge will be – too much data, too much information, and a high noise to signal ratio. And so the kinds of things that we can do to build analytics that help us really understand the nature of our customers, and how to serve them better is still going to be a major issue as we move forward.

Answers to Week 3 Questions

1. In two paragraphs explain why a customer centric Web site design is so important, yet so difficult to accomplish

Since navigating web site and finding useful information are the main activities which customers do online, weather they can find out what they are looking for when they navigate your web site has great impact on digital organizations. A customer centric Web site design is important because organizations could use the web as a medium to interact with its customers, its employees, its suppliers, and others in an online world.

Web design is also a great challenge for enterprise. Online business is a totally new business format to manage. The web site must catch customers’ attention in one second. The web team must think what customers think. They must build up the web site at the customers' view

2. Define the term 'presence'. Write an additional paragraph that describes why firms that do business on the Web should be more concerned about presence than firms that operate in the physical world.

In computer and telecommunications networks, presence information is a status indicator that conveys ability and willingness of a potential communication partner--for example a user--to communicate. A user's client provides presence information (presence state) via a network connection to a presence service, which is stored in what constitutes his personal availability record (called a presentity) and can be made available for distribution to other users (called watchers) to convey his availability for communication. Presence information has wide application in many communication services and is one of the innovations driving the popularity of instant messaging or recent implementations of voice over IP clients.

Now customers want to have a real-time contact with companies. Since customers will typically want to be able to get help.(http://digitalenterprise.org/transcripts/design_tr.html) They want to know a number of issues which can include anything about your products or services. If you concern about presence, you can provide feedback on products and services to customer immediately, even if it’s negative feedback. That is better than customer going somewhere else to provide negative feedback on your product or service.

3. Write three paragraphs to briefly describe the things that Real Estate Agents can best accomplish through (1) their web sites (2) Mass media advertising (3) Personal contact

(1) The web sites of Real Estate Agents are clear and attractive. You can find something you like easily. The suburb you want, the functions you like and some useful tools are already presented for you on the web site.

(2) As to mass media advertising, we can find various ads of Real Estate Agents, such as newspaper, magazine, online advertising and advertising board on street. The agent use different types to give publicity to people.

(3) Real Estate Agent has a convenient personal contact system. You can directly e-mail your nearest agent, which is very personal and effective. Or people could use the list of the contact information of Real Estate Agents on the web site; and contact the agent by phone and fax. Moreover, as a member of Real Estate Agents, one can receive e-mails and mails frequently.

Answers to Week 2 Questions

Part 1 - Navigation

One of the biggest challenges for businesses and customers alike is navigating the Internet. This week please -

1) Listen to the podcast on Navigation which can be found on the Digital Enterprise Page (Google - the digital enterprise).

a) What are the four (4) main points Michael Rappa makes about search? Please write them on your blog page.

1. Vast amount of data generated as a result of ordinary things we do each day

2. Information was relatively scarce; the task of collecting, transmitting and storing data was costly and time-consuming. But soon we will be flooded with information--a digital tsunami.

3. The challenge of finding information has led to the early development of web directories and search engines.

4. Finding a business on the web

b) Watch or read the Marissa Mayer interview. Write a paragraph or two, on four points made by Marissa Mayer, that you think were the most interesting or significant for business. There is no right or wrong answers here; I just want your opinion.

First of all, in my opinion, human talent is very important for business. Because human recourse is the most basic part of a business; and it services the basic for the development for business. Human talent determines how successful a business is to some extent. As a result, organization who wants to win at the beginning should hold human talent.

Secondly, the speed is another great problem for business. Since we are living in an information age, the world and the environment change a lot. Marissa Mayer said that one of the goals behind developing Google’s Chrome browser is to “make the web as fast as turning the page in a magazine.” So time is the soul of a business. The man who can manage time could win the game called business.

Moreover, idea is also significant for business. We can learn from the interview that Google started with an idea. Ideas always give business power and vitality. Sometimes a wonderful idea could save a business.
Last but not the least; culture plays an important role in an organization. Marissa Mayer mentioned that she think there is a lot of different elements of the culture that have really fostered innovation. And they like to work with really small teams. Corporate culture is the total sum of the values, customs, traditions and meanings that make a company unique. Corporate culture is often called "the character of an organization" since it embodies the vision of the company’s founders. The values of a corporate culture influence the ethical standards within a corporation, as well as managerial behavior.

Answers to Topic1 Questions

1) Internet risks – give examples of four things that can go wrong with a transactional site?

E-mail; log on Internet bank; register some website that needs your personal information; Server Application Vulnerabilities; Sample Scripts; Hidden directories; Administrative Back-ends

2) Write down a definition for each:

a) E-commerce: Electronic commerce or e-commerce refers to a wide range of online business activities for products and services. It also pertains to “any form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically rather than by physical exchanges or direct physical contact.”

b) E-business: e-business has a broad meaning. It includes all digital information exchanges supporting business process that are mediated through Internet technology including transactions within and between organizations.


3) What is the difference between buy side and sell side e-Commerce?

Buy-side e-commerce refers to transactions to procure resources needed by an organization from its suppliers.Sell-side e-commerce refers to transactions involved with selling products to an organization’s customers

4) Describe the different types of e-Business
There are several types of e-Business:

1. business-to-business (B2B): is a term commonly used to describe commerce transactions between businesses like the one between a manufacturer and a wholesaler or a wholesaler and a retailer, in others words, both the buyer and the seller are business entity.

2. business-to-consumer (B2C): describes activities of businesses serving end consumers with products and/or services.

3. consumer-to-consumer (C2C)


5) Which digital technology has the highest penetration rate? Explain and source your answer.

Using a mobil phone. From the powerpoint on lecture 1.

6) List: Four drivers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.

1. Large amount of customers and potential customers
2. information change rapidly
3. low cost, easy to set up
4. easy to manage



7) Four barriers to adoption of sell-side e-commerce by business.

Security problem. Customer demandImproving the range quality of services offeredAvoid losing market share to businesses already using e-commerce

8) How might a restaurant in Sturt Street Ballarat benefit from an online presence?

1. Attract more customers through the internet
2. Online presence also helps the restaurant to establish a wide reputation.

9) What are some examples of Digital information?

Online video, music, picture, news and so on.

10) What is the semantic web? Are we there yet?

The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the content. The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for integration and combination of data drawn from diverse sources, where on the original Web mainly concentrated on the interchange of documents. It is also about language for recording how the data relates to real world objects. That allows a person, or a machine, to start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same thing.

We are not there yet, however, we will be there in the near further.

The following vedios and website is helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVFY52CH6Bc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGg8A2zfWKg&feature=related
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/