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With the widespread use of the Internet over the years, e-commerce has gained importance in the business sector.With the introduction of e-commerce, many small, medium and large businesses have benefited from the increased pool of consumers who were able to have access to the company not only physically, but now digitally.

So the main question is What is E-commerce?


~E-commerce stands for Electronic Commerce, where goods and services are bought and sold.

~E-commerce involves digitally enabled transactions between and among organizations and individuals.

~With e-commerce, consumers have access to the goods and services anytime and anywhere.

~With so much competition, how can one ensure a sufficient share of the consumers? How can one ensure that consumers will be back for more?



After reading a few articles on the net, i have a list of a few important points to increase consumer traffic to a site:

~the products sold must be something consumers are willing to buy

~prices should be competitive and affordable

~as many other sites may be selling similar products, it is crucial to provide adequate information and pictures of the product

~provide incentives and benefits

~it is beneficial to include comments and testimonials from past consumers. with good feedback, consumers would be more assured to purchase and trust the site

~a simple layout (less intimidating and more convenient)

~easy and convenient payment process

~contact information and details of an address (apparently some consumers find it assuring that there is a physical store)

~updating regularly

social media

SOCIAL MEDIA

To me, the social media is humongous and rather scary as it compromises of so many types of media. In the diagram below, you can see that there are so many types of categories and subcategories.

In this first diagram, the different forms of social media are divided into their purposes, for example for games, publishing or sharing. I personally prefer the second diagram as i think it has more categories and goes more in depth (twitter has it own category).

[ the colours are also much more appealing (: ]

So what is social media?
(this is a very interesting video!)

Let the Social Media Revolution begin.....

I will be focusing on 3 forms of social media, namely RSS, blogs and instant messaging.

Out of these 3 forms, RSS is the most foreign to me. Before this class, I did not know what RSS was, what the logo looked like and what its functions were. However, after getting to know RSS, I think it is a very useful tool.

So what is RSS?

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary, where it is an application that alerts those who have signed up whenever there are new updates on a specific website. I find this very useful as it would save me the trouble of constantly checking the website for updates. Although one would not need this application for online shops, this would be very useful for other purposes such as….

YES!

Automatic updates for my weekly dosage of dramas. Although the site does mention the approximate time new episodes would be uploaded, having this RSS application would make things so much easier.

~Blogs~
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Blogs, are online shops, where we girls can find pretty clothes and accessories. However, the focus this time would be on blogs where people voice out their opinions.

How true is it? I feel that it is rather true that bloggers may be a little more truthful than advertisements as they are viewed as being honest? To me, advertisements would always portray their products in a positive light thus they are too unreal and cannot always be trusted. However, in the case of bloggers, I see them as normal people like me, so I am more trusting. BUT, due to the pervasiveness of media even into blogs, some bloggers may also be sponsors for certain products. Therefore, even personal blogs have been invaded and become commercialized.

To me, blogs are a virtual diary, where they have become a useful place to rant about one's daily happenings, to share with friends in detail and also to keep as remembrance. Sometimes, a person's life can even attract followers and a person can even make some money out of it.

In the picture above, it shows the life of a girl who draws simple pictures to depict her life, her happiness and sadness. Although simple, it is very interesting. From the many comments that she receives, one can see that she has many supporters, till..... she is now able to publish her own book with her cartoons.

And yes, blogs have also become a platform for anyone to sell their stuff online, anywhere, anytime, to anyone. Ten years ago, who would have thought that we would have virtual shops?

~Instant messaging~

Instant messaging is one application on my computer that I have to run every time I turn on the computer, without it I would feel lonely and detached from my friends.

Here is the picture of my trusted application.

Instant messaging is an application that lets users talk to their friends in real-time. Furthermore, instant messaging has constantly upgraded itself, making it more appealing to its users by adding applications such as games and skins ( as seen by my Bear skin), that allows users to customize almost anything to suit their individual preferences.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taking up this module on the internet was a big decision for me as I do not know much about the internet. My main purposes for using the internet are for checking and doing assignments, checking out online shops, watching dramas and chatting on msn. Thus, me and the internet are not really on close terms.

By taking this course, I hope to increase my understanding of the internet and I hope we can be good friends in the time to come. From what I have learnt so far, is that the internet has evolved a lot throughout the years, from web1.0 to web3.0.

To recap, in layman's terms, this is my understanding of the web:

Web1.0

~'Read only' web

~Little user interaction and contribution of content

~Is like a library, where users can only look up information

Web 2.0

~Users are able to interact and contribute content

~Examples include web-based communities, social network sites and blogs

Web 3.0

~Semantic web: the web understands the needs of the user

~One example is regarding online shopping, where after selecting a specific item, the web gives suggestions to other items that we may also like

[To me, I find this application very useful and innovative, as it is just like a friend giving suggestions (: ]

To me, the introduction of the internet is one of the greatest inventions because of its convenience. Anyone can access the internet almost anywhere to check anything, such as books, maps, news etc. the sky is the limit. When Mr Choy mentioned about 'google earth', it really caught my attention as I had always thought that satellite images were only accessible to governments and not to people like us.

In ending, here is a quote that I feel sums up the internet.

The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom. ~Jon Stewart

~A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click~

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