Final Blog Post: A Reflection on Blogging

We really enjoyed the blog project for this class. At first it was unfamiliar to us, but as the semester moved on we began to like it. Overall, the experience not only taught us how to use and create blogs, but also kept us interested in current events related to e-marketing. The topic of e-marketing was a great choice considering that in the future it will play a vital role in how we all live our lives. We feel that the Internet has only begun to change the way we do many things.

While participating in this project, we learned that there are benefits as well as challenges. Advantages of blogging include being able to stay in touch with others, convenient posting, and the ability to customize the blog to make it more eye-catching. We look back and we feel that blogging might be a new hobby of ours. It provides a place for people to keep in touch not only with friends and family, but also with others who enjoy talking about the same subjects. It was convenient for us to post whenever we had time; we didn't have to rush just to get something down. It also allowed us to take our time and think about what we wanted to write. We believe we created a very appealing design, making it more fun to visit the site.

A challenge we faced was keeping track of each group’s blog URL. Another was not having other people comment on our blog. This wasn't a big problem, but it would have been nice to see other peoples’ opinions of our articles and commentaries.

The commenting on other's blogs was a good aspect of this project. It allowed us to voice our opinions and compare them to other peoples’ thoughts. Commenting also allows us to see what we missed by providing us with alternative points of view.

Blogging in the corporate setting can serve many purposes. For example, managers can provide work updates and provide training information for multiple employees. Co-workers can share information and collaborate on projects using the blog as a medium of communication. Also, blogs may be useful for companies who wish to communicate with customers. For example, fans can visit the Spiderman 3 movie blog can see promotional clips of the film, click on links to message boards in order to talk to other fans, and even download a Spiderman blog template for their own blogs.

Reflecting upon our own experience as bloggers, we would suggest to managers wishing to use the medium within their jobs to make sure that commenting is available. As mentioned, comments open new perspectives to a topic and can be helpful in making better informed decisions. We also believe that the length of each post makes a difference; people may be more likely to read what you have to say if you are concise in your ideas. Providing links and tags allows readers to find more information if they wish, and allows bloggers to focus more on their own ideas than on re-hashing the subject of discussion (that is, if the subject originated someplace other than the blog, e.g. a news article). Finally, we recommend that manager-bloggers be creative. Blogging is an exciting, dynamic, and relatively new type of communication. Many types of media can be incorporated, and it is advantageous to take advantage of this. YouTube clips and radio.blog.club players, for example, can add “life” to a page of words and pictures. RSS and Atom feeds allow users to subscribe to your blog and receive notification whenever you update it.

We learned a lot from this project and plan to continue to blog in the future. Thank you for reading!

—Shatari & Ryan

From Slate: "In Search of the Perfect Web Page" by Reihan Salam

Slate magazine's Reihan Salam discusses Netvibes, a useful web service that allows users to compile their favorite pieces of the Net into one, customized web page. Netvibes sets itself apart from other web portals in that users can add content and applications from several different websites using RSS and ATOM feeds.

There are also "modlues" that pull up information from various sites such as Flickr, del.icio.us, and Craigslist. In addition to standard tools like web search (which is also customizable), calendar, and weather forecasts, Netvibes even provides a "To Do List" section (which lists "buy milk" as an item under the default setting).

The email wizard is another useful feature. Users can read email from nearly any account including Yahoo, Gmail, and any POP account.

This application is a perfect example of web 2.0; its content is completely determined and modified by the user. In fact, Shatari is now a huge fan of this site, as it has become her new homepage. We strongly encourage you to check it out!

Read the Slate article here, and visit Netvibes here.

From E-Commerce Times: Getting Physical With Online Shopping

In this article by Kelly Shermac discussed the change in the way that people shop online. Marketers and retailers must understand that customers have different personal behaviors and different taste so they must be treated more individually or "dynamically" as the article state. Traditionally websites tried to retain customers by having very eye catching websites, now it has shifted to creating a great online experience for them.

The main point of this article is discussing how companies are beginning to use rich internet applications to create this experience they want. First it tells how companies often times present too much information to the consumer and the consumer is sometimes confused by this. Software was created to try and help out the consumer sort through relevant information such as price, quantity, size and other attributes. This will also help on the search by determing which items best fit the specified attributes. Next, the article goes on to describe how a furniture company uses a progam called Scene7 to show very detailed pictures to the customers. This software will also be used in the store, which means that it must be a great tool to use for sales. Finally, it tells about where the future is headed.

I really like this article because I felt like it related to what we have been discussing in class over the past few months. How the web is begginning to more to become more interactive or move into the "Web 2.0" era of the web. The article shows exactly how more interaction means increased sales. It even states that sales are increased by about 20% when the consumer is provided with an interactive experience. I feel that we will see much more creative ideas developed that will all for users to become involved. In the near future, I believe that these technologies will become very popular becuase it makes for a simpler, more interactive web experience.

To read the full article go to:
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/emarketing/56886.html

From: E-Commerce Times: Take That, Google - Viacom Inks Ad Deal With Yahoo

In this recent article from E-Commerce Times by Keith Regan, there was an announcement of a partnership between major internet search engine, Yahoo, and Viacom. Viacom is the owner of television stations such as MTV and Nickelodeon. Google was not happy because Yahoo is a major rival of them and this agreement is intended to help Yahoo gain market share on Google. The websites will use Yahoo's new technology called "Panama." It is a lot like Google and it is very advanced. It will decide on many different factors which ads will be shown.

In the deal it states that Yahoo will become the provided search engine for Viacom internet sites. Some of these include sites like MTV.com, Nickelodeon.com, and Comedycentral.com. This could eventually lead to yahoo being used on over 140 of Viacom's sites. The article goes on to discuss the room for the expansion becuase of the huge presence that viacom has on the web. In addition it tells how stocks rose for Yahoo quickly following the merger. This was a good sign for Yahoo because at the same time, Google's stock went down slightly.

This was a very good article. It is interesting because this will increase competition which is always good for us, as consumers. We are very curious to see how this new system "Panama" will do. If it becomes very popular Google might be in trouble, but for now they are okay. Hopefully this will make each company become more creative and we will have exciting new things in the future.

To read the full article go to: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/56807.html

From CNN Money: "Wikipedia's next steps"

According to an other article by David Kirkpatrick from CNN Money, Wikipedia founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales plans to start a new search engine. Like the other Wikia sites, the engine will be open-source based; the ranking of each search result will be determined by a volunteer community, similar to the one that currently oversees Wikipedia. Wales' motivation for creating such a search engine is allowing users to know and control what goes on behind the scenes:

"Search is a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the Internet," he says,
"and unlike most of the infrastructure, today it's not transparent. We have no
idea how things are ranked or why." He believes that in the "open society" he
seeks on the Internet, it's important to have mechanisms in place that enable
people to "look under the hood" at the tools they use.

This has important implications for the future of search engines. As Wales is quoted stating in the article, the creation of this engine is "political" because of the extreme importance of the search engine to the Web. If the project is successful in allowing users to find what they really want by using humans rather than bots to determine search results, Wikia's new branch may rival the currently all-powerful Google.

Also, by bringing the interactive, user-determined format of the Wikia sites to the search engine, Wales' new project is indicative of the continuous shift toward the Web 2.0 school of thought.

You can read the article here: http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/22/magazines/fortune/fastforward_wiki.fortune/index.htm

From Fortune Magazine: The Biggest Website You've Never Heard Of

A Fortune Magazine article by David Kirkpatrick discusses Photobucket.com, a highly successful Web-based firm. This site allows users to upload photos and video and link to them from other websites - most notably, MySpace.com. Photobucket's rapidly growing user base currently sits at 38 million members. More than 2.5 billion pictures are shared from the site each day. The company's success stems from the flexibility users have in sharing their content; pictures can be shared on multiple websites or blogs without the hassle of uploading each time.

Photobucket is a great example of a Web 2.0 company. It acts as an intermediary that allows users to generate (upload) and manage (link) their own content (photos and videos) on the Web. Additionally, the company plans to start an image search service using the "tagging" technique often employed on blogs and on YouTube. The advantages in this plan are that Photobucket doesn't have to create it's own content since it's already supplied by its users, and that tagging allows for easier category searches.

You can read the article here: https://webmail.um.umsystem.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/27/magazines/fortune/fastforward_photobucket.fortune/index.htm

From E-Commerce Online: Borders Dumps Amazon, Heads for Web

Here is a recent article from E-Commerce Online. This discusses the very big news about how Borders bookstore recently ended its relationship with Amazon.com. They decided to sell books online for themselves, instead of having someone else do this for them, which they had done for many years in the past.

This article begins by discussing how Borders felt that it needed to venture out on its own and begin selling books online directly to the customer. The new site is predicted to be out early next year. They feel that, though it is a large and complex task, it will be worth it financially in the future. It talks about how Borders once known partner, Amazon.com, is now their biggest competitor. It points out very good point though. One big selling advantage is the ability to reserve books online. This creates a quicker service for the customers who do not want to wait for shipping. Borders will also offer internet rewards and letting the customers in Borders to go the the website and reserve specialty books. It finally goes on and states an option that they could have done. The article suggested maybe to allow customers to make purchases on Amazon.com and then go to a nearby Borders to pick up the items. This creates a quicker service for the customers who do not want to wait for shipping.

This is a very risky business proposition for Borders considering how well known Amazon.com is, especially with its recognition for selling books. We believe it will be tough, especially at first, for Borders to gain market share. They must push the aspects that differentiate them from Amazon.com and utilize the savings of selling directly to the customer. This might allow them to offer a cheaper price or to create a higher profit.

We felt the suggestion in the article, about using Borders as a place to pick up Amazon.com item, is the best way. We don't blame them for trying something because their profits, along with most of the other businesses in the book selling industry, were falling. We think that if Borders online can make it through and stay afloat in the near future, they should be able to compete with Amazon.com. This could be bad though if Barnes and Nobles, the number one book selling store, follows this trend. What would Borders do then?

Click here to read the article:
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Nmhf2i7rEGRh7L/Borders-Dumps-Amazon-Heads-for-Web.xhtml