Part A
A.1 For the purposes of comparing three Internet search engines, we decided to use www.yahoo.com, www.google.com, and www.altavista.com. We will be comparing them on a scale from one to five, one being the worst and five being the best. We will compare nine categories in the following table.
|
|
Yahoo.com |
Google.com |
Altavista.com |
|
Attractiveness |
5 |
3 |
3 |
|
Color |
4 |
5 |
2 |
|
Font |
5 |
4 |
2 |
|
Appearance |
4 |
4 |
1 |
|
Navigation |
5 |
5 |
5 |
|
Links |
5 |
3 |
3 |
|
Info. Available |
5 |
4 |
4 |
|
Info. Provided |
5 |
4 |
4 |
|
Customer Service |
2 |
5 |
2 |
Although all three search engines displayed basically the same results for our search of “yellow hats,” we found that Yahoo provided more relevant results. On the homepage for links Yahoo reigned supreme; however, all three sites provided several useful links. Once the search was performed, all three sites displayed direct links to websites relevant to our search and sponsored links. Yahoo had more content supported and maintained by the company than the other three. Yahoo’s content included games, music, videos, etc. Altavista.com, by contrast, was very plain and not appealing. Even though Google wasn’t as flashy as Yahoo, we were impressed by its simplicity and functionality. We found that each of these search engines served their purpose, although their purpose is differed.
A.2 We further investigated into three news sites: www.CNN.com, www.NYTimes.com, www.ENSNews.com. We will be exploring 9 different categories and ranking them on a one to five scale once again in the chart that follows.
|
|
CNN.com |
NYTimes.com |
ENSNews.com |
|
Attractiveness |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
Color |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
Font |
4 |
4 |
1 |
|
Appearance |
5 |
3 |
1 |
|
Navigation |
5 |
3 |
1 |
|
Links |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
Info. Available |
5 |
5 |
1 |
|
Info. Provided |
5 |
5 |
1 |
|
Customer Service |
2 |
3 |
1 |
After reviewing all three websites, our team has concluded that CNN.com is the superior web news source of all three. CNN.com and NYTimes.com had free registration to utilize the website to its full potential, whereas ENSNews.com charged you a fee. CNN.com is very patriotic displaying lots of red, white, and blue vibrant colors throughout the page. One great aspect of this website is that you are able to watch videos on current news topics. The search is powered by Yahoo, which we felt to be a superior search engine. NYTimes.com is slightly duller in its color scheme and layout. This website isn’t as eye catching as CNN.com. There is definitely less news on the main page, but there seemed to be similar amounts of links. ENSNews.com is completely bland, had very little color, and seemed to contain very few links. Its monochromatic layout is boring and unappealing. It seemed to contain very little news and few news links.
Part B
B.1 For our business to consumer investigation we chose www.NewEgg.com and www.BestBuy.com as our two websites. We compared them in four categories and the results are summarized in the following table on a scale from one to five.
|
|
NewEgg.com |
BestBuy.com |
|
Price |
5 |
3 |
|
|
5 |
4 |
|
Ancillary Costs |
4 |
3 |
|
Security |
5 |
5 |
We decided on price, product range, and ancillary cost as our three categories in addition to security. Price will be determined by conducting a comparison of the prices of ten identical items listed on both sites. The number of items listed in specific computer categories will determine product range. Ancillary cost will be determined by adding the ten items for price into an order and comparing the total cost shipped (includes shipping, tax, insurance, and any additional fees required to get the products delivered) to the original price of the items themselves. NewEgg.com specializes in computers and computer components; however, BestBuy.com has a broader range of products. This may be one of the reasons that NewEgg.com was superior to BestBuy.com because they specialized in the items at which we were looking.
After looking at the ten predetermined items, we found NewEgg’s prices to be cheaper and therefore superior. BestBuy had only two items where the price came even close to the price of NewEgg’s and no items that were cheaper. In the categories we selected, NewEgg had more products listed. This was in part due to the fact that they carried many different versions of similar products. However, the superior number of choices led us to choose NewEgg.com as the better website. All of NewEgg’s items are shipped with insurance and tracking numbers, some of which are included in the price of the product. They also do not charge tax, whereas BestBuy does. Overall, the additional cost for shipping on all items and the tax made BestBuy’s ancillary costs higher and therefore we chose NewEgg once again. We found that for both websites there were encrypted pages where personal or secure data might be transmitted. Both had independent servers with passwords and user accounts. We realize this is only a small part of Internet security, however it was the only part visible to us. As both seemed as secure as they could, we gave them both an equal top score.
B.2 1.) www.ebay.com is an auction site that sells anything that the sell wants. You can get anything from clothes, video games, cars, parts, computers, posters, books and pretty much anything else. These are all the fees that eBay charges you when you sell something on eBay:
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Reserve Fees (fully
refunded if item sells): |
|
|
Reserve Price |
Fee |
|
$0.01 - $49.99 |
$1.00 |
|
$50.00 - $199.99 |
$2.00 |
|
$200.00 and up |
1% of Reserve Price (up to $100) |
|
Buy It Now Fees
in US$ |
|
|
Buy It Now Price (US$) |
Fee (US$) |
|
$0.01 - US$9.99 |
$0.05 |
|
$10.00 - US$24.99 |
$0.10 |
|
$25.00 – US$49.99 |
$0.20 |
|
$50.00 or more |
$0.25 |
|
eBay Picture
Services Fees |
|
|
Feature |
Fee |
|
First picture |
Free |
|
Each additional Picture |
$0.15 |
|
Preview Picture |
Free |
|
Picture Show |
$0.25 |
|
Super size Picture |
$0.75 |
|
Picture Pack |
$1.00 |
eBay’s privacy policy depends on how you go about doing transactions; you can use money orders, or use PayPal which are the safest. However, you can still just give the buyer your credit card number and she/he would charge the credit card. With PayPal it is a lot safer because PayPal bills your credit card and the other individual only sees your PayPal account username. PayPal is also a safer ways to go if you have not received an item that you were supposed to get because it is easier to track if the person took the money and that PayPal gives your money back. With your personal information like your telephone number and home are not given unless someone requests a personal information form and then the information is sent to both parties. The only thing that is given to the seller or buyer is your shipping address and your eBay username. eBay got some good privacy policy but the security is not great, because eBay states that they themselves are not liable for any non-paid or non-received items. So if you were to get in trouble and you paid with a money order, eBay will not do anything at all about it.
2.) www.amazon.com auctions are similar to eBay’s
auctions as it has pretty much anything, from jewelry, electronics, toys,
games, and home fashions. These are the fees that Amazon charges you to sell
something on their auction site:
|
|
Domestic
Standard
|
Domestic
Expedited |
International
Standard
|
|
Books |
$1.23 |
$0.44 |
$0.84 |
|
Music |
$0.65 |
$1.14 |
$0.54 |
|
Videos
|
$0.65 |
$1.14 |
$0.54 |
|
DVDs |
$0.65 |
$1.14 |
$0.84 |
|
Video
Games |
$1.23 |
$0.44 |
Not available |
|
Software
& Computer Games |
$1.23 |
$0.44 |
Not available |
|
Electronics
|
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Camera
& Photo |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Tools
& Hardware |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Kitchen
& Housewares |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Outdoor
Living |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Computer
|
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Sports
& Outdoors |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Cell
Phones & Service |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Musical
Instruments |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Office
Products |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Toy
& Baby |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
|
Everything
Else |
$0.45 + $0.05/lb |
$0.65 + $0.10/lb |
Not available |
Amazon auctions site uses the same policy as eBay does by saying that they are not responsible for any of the things sold on Amazon auctions.
There privacy is also the same as they do not show anyone your personal information, all they give is email and username. Amazon is PayPal certified and they use to deal with Bid Pay also, which is another paying company like PayPal, although Bid Pay is out of business now.
|
|
eBay |
Amazon Auctions |
|
Design |
5 |
4 |
|
Ease of Use |
5 |
2 |
|
Content Scope |
2 |
5 |
|
Customer Service |
4 |
5 |
Part C
C.1 Covisint Connect offers a service, for a fee, where documents can be sent back and forth between two parties. These documents can be transmitted in any format and received in any format and are translated as part of the courier service. The documents are also translated into an .XML format for uniformity and database storage. This service can be useful to the automotive industry because there is no standard format for documents between the manufacturer, part supplier, and service mechanics even within the same branding of automobile. This service might be particularly useful for mechanics who service more than one brand of automobile and for any cross brand cooperative production efforts. In summation this service lends itself to the automotive industry but can easily be applied to many other industries worldwide.
C.2 With the evolution of the Internet in the late 1990’s, companies around the world took advantage of this new technology to further expand on their client to customer relationships. National Gypsum, a wallboard and building materials company, capitalized on this opportunity to not only increase their levels of customer service, but to increase the return on investment for the business. “It Rocks the Web”, written by CIO.com’s Elana Varon in August of 2005, interviews CIO 100 honoree Tom Nelson of National Gypsum on the company’s strategy to create an extranet for their customers to submit, track, and process orders from the Internet. After it’s rebound from bankruptcy and privatization, National Gypsum constructed a sophisticated extranet that allowed them to operate more efficiently with their customer base.
During the planning and risk management portion of the project, National Gypsum surveyed their customers to gauge the level of customer service that was currently being provided. Their biggest fear was for the project to backfire and make it more complicated for their customers to work with them. This, along with the large amount of capital to complete such a large project, were the two major risks CIO Tom Nelson had to deal with. He made a good point by stating, “The fact that it wouldn’t work would be the biggest risk – that our customers suddenly realize we’re not easy to do business with” (Varon, 2005, p. 2). Building up good rapport with a customer can take years of hard work and should be the number one concern when making such a monumental change. Tom also mentions the tough decision on whether to use an outside vendor to execute the project, or to keep it in-house. He states, “But we had people who knew our existing systems, who knew our customers, and who knew what we were trying to achieve” (Varon, 2005, p. 2). This is always a dilemma in IT, whether to contract the work to an outside vendor, or to use the existing IT staff within the company to do the project. One thing to always keep in mind when outsourcing the work is the impact it will have on the rest of the organization and the complications of it alienating the current IT staff. I agree with National Gypsum’s decision to keep the project in house. This gives them full control of the project and all the decision making stays within the organization.
This article can be extremely valuable to a company looking for a way to expand their customer expectations and jump into the global market. It focuses on some key questions posed when determining the advantages and disadvantages of constructing the infrastructure required building an extranet.
The use of an extranet is a very productive way of working with your customers and being able to provide real-time data instantly to the client. The Internet has shown to play a critical role in the global marketplace of today’s world. Currently, it is responsible for 7 trillion dollars in annual revenue across the world. Any company that takes advantage of building an extranet will be able to operate more efficiently, require fewer employees, and be able to survive in the ever-changing global marketplace. I highly recommend this article to anyone that is looking to expand his or her business operations and customer base. CIO 100 honoree Tom Nelson discusses the details on utilizing technology and the Internet to take a company to the next level and stay ahead of the competition.
Executive Summary
This paper covers all ends of the spectrum for the Internet, which is if you want to bid on an object or check the news. We break down and pick at some of the most popular websites around.
When comparing the three search engines, we found that www.yahoo.com served the greatest purpose and had a greater variety of options. Next we compared three different news sites. After registering, at the two websites that allowed us to, we easily found that the website with the greatest attractions, more options, and most of all user friendly.
In Part B we had to compare two business-to-consumer websites and then two consumer-to-consumer websites. The first two websites were NewEgg and Best Buy. Well needles to say BestBuy won by a dominant victory. On the other hand, NewEgg only concerned themselves with electronics that had to deal with a computer. So for general electronics we would choose BestBuy, but for anything computer related, I will now use NewEgg to purchase my gear. For the C2C, we chose Amazon and eBay. Now the main difference here is that Amazon isn’t JUST an auction site. They have their own store where they sell new products. So when we compare the two for an auction site, there is a decisive victory for eBay. When we searched for Gibson Les Paul (a guitar), Amazon only came up with 27 matches, eBay came up with over 2,000 separated into colors, years, and right or left handed.
In Part C we visited a website about a product titles
Covisint Connect. As soon as we read the
first paragraph we were thrilled about this new product. We believe this product could and will
improve the auto industry to an extent unimaginable.
Self-Assessment
Clarke Gilroy
This was a relatively easy project to finish as a group. We simply divided the project into different tasks and assigned them to each person in the group. This allowed each of us to concentrate the most on our specific task at hand. I was responsible for writing the review on the Article dealing with Extranets. I have a job in IT right now and I wasn’t completely familiar with the term Extranet. I previously new the technology behind an extranet, but I didn’t know there was a specific term for it. Before this project I would just refer to it as the intranet. I would say this was a good project and it allowed me to increase my vocabulary as an IT professional.
Jeremy Glefke
This project
has helped me learn how businesses run an E-Commerce business. With all the
privacy and security that they have to have just to get business. I also
learned how to search for certain things on businesses website so I can also
know everything I need to about the business. Also, working in a team is good
for communication skills and to get us ready for real life.
David Saginaw
I
enjoyed working on our first project: Internet services and
E-commerce. These projects are very beneficial because you experience the
importance of teamwork and it also prepares you for the group environments that
are very common in the business world. I enjoyed comparing the different
websites because it allowed me to look more closely into the different details
and services of the Internet.
Ashley Oster
I believe that with doing this project it has benefited me in the sense that I now know which web sites offer more information, are easiest to use, and which that I like the best. It has also opened my eyes to what different web sites offer. Some web sites are a lot easier to use than others, have different color, and have more results. I have also found out which sites that I wouldn’t use in the future. This is helpful because, it will allow me to find the information that I am looking for much faster. Overall, I believe that this project was very useful and worthwhile to me.
Steven Doinidis
If above all other factors, this project has helped me learn and follow through on responsibilities. Being the group leader, I must make the phone calls to reserve a time when we all can meet. Although it doesn’t seem like much, this was a great weight on my shoulders in combination with other events in my life. I learned that a well put website, with sponsors and the whole nine yards, will thrive when compared to a basic website that wasn’t thought through.
Jason Machnik
I
believe that this project was a good exercise because it was both informative
and relevant to the class. It gave me a chance to analyze some web sites I use
daily in depth. It gave me a better understanding of their inner workings I
often take for granted. Since it was in
the format of a group project, it allowed me to gain understanding through
others and share my understanding with them. I would advise keeping this
project in the curriculum for this class with little change.
References
http://www.yahoo.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.google.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.altavista.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.cnn.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.nytimes.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.ensnews.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.newegg.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.bestbuy.com (Retrieved on 1/28/06)
http://www.ebay.com (Retrieved on 1/30/06)
http://www.amazon.com (Retrieved on 1/30/06)
http://www.covisint.com (Retrieved on 1/30/06)