Notes for BSc CSIT

Most communities in the early years of e-commerce failed because noncommercial sites such as The Well could not survive or grow based on subscription fees alone and most for-profit communities experienced great difficulty in generating profits. The costs of content, technology, and customer acquisition as well as the marketing required to achieve a large audience, typically overwhelmed the puny stream of revenues from advertising, tenancy/sponsorship, and subscriptions for premium content. The availability of venture capital finance and Internet technology resulted in many sites serving the same interest and affinity groups, splitting the market into fragments, making it impossible for any one of them to become profitable. The factors that may enable some online vertical communities to prosper today are :-  first, consolidation, which may enable them to attract sufficient market share to become profitable. Second, some are focusing on narrow vertical communities of intensely interested

  Complete content convergence in the entertainment industry would entail purely digital creation, production, and distribution of content with no use of analog devices or physical products and distribution channels.  This has not yet occurred. Music is the closest to being transformed— today, the traditional CD album containing 15 songs is becoming a dinosaur, as consumers become more and more familiar with downloading single songs a la carte. Distribution is changing from retail stores selling physical products to Internet delivery and playback on a wide variety of digital devices.  Marketing and sales have changed as well, with musicians increasingly using the Internet (MySpace and other similar sites) to promote their music.  The changes in the music industry may be a precursor to similar changes in the film and television industries, but as yet, those industries have not yet been transformed. For movies and television, technology convergence has been hampered by the unwillingness

  The factors that emerge as the common themes among popular, nontraditional Web entertainment sites are that they are interactive, communicative, and under the user’s control. For example, one main reason for the popularity of downloadable music services is that they enable users to become their own packagers and distributors of music. This is the unique feature of nontraditional online entertainment as compared to traditional entertainment; it offers users high levels of control over both program content and programs focus.

  Even though the music itself is nearly the same, huge online digital music archives now exist from which users can mix and match to create their own personalized content. As with print media, users can now easily search these collections and have access to timely content. Free music services change the content of the music experience by creating a worldwide community of music aficionados, and the traditional music industry has now created subscription services with their own massive archives of downloadable music. The Internet transforms the consumer experience by providing premium archives, efficient search, timeliness, and enormous reach and depth of content.

 The advantages of the e-book content are as follows:- E-books have advantages over published books in that instant downloading can reduce transaction costs;  people’s accessibility to entire libraries will be dramatically increased;  and existing text will be searchable and easily integrated with new text via cutting and pasting.  They will also permit modularization down to the sentence and word level.  This can be much more easily updated or changed, resulting in lower production and distribution costs and longer-lasting work.  This should also increase opportunities for writers to publish, increase the availability of out-of-print works, increase the value of book archives, and reduce the cost of library functions in society, further democratizing access to books. The disadvantages of e-book content are as follows:-  Unfortunately, the disadvantages are so far outweighing even this impressive list of advantages.  The required expensive and complex electronic devices are not by and

  In the next five years, the newspaper industry faces significant challenges and opportunities as the online audience grows in both numbers and sophistication. New technology challenges and costs include developing wireless mobile delivery platforms and micropayment systems to provide a low-cost mechanism for selling single articles. Consumer attitudes have remained intransigent on the issue of paying for content. Some online newspapers have experienced the cannibalization of their main distribution channel. However, online newspapers are slowly learning to add value to their content by providing additional services, content, and depth.  Another main challenge is digital leakage that occurs when a paid for and downloaded article is redistributed via e-mail or posted to a Web site where millions of others can view it for free. Current digital rights management software does not conveniently permit newspapers to charge each additional reader of a redistributed article. The DMCA does pro

  New entrepreneurial firms have developed online classified ads for jobs, automobiles, and real estate, whereas other startups have concentrated on specialized areas such as computers, cameras, and other hobbyist topics. These new firms did not change online content; they greatly expanded the reach and depth of the content and made it available to national and international audiences. These new ventures challenged the newspaper industry; others such as Craigslist, Autobytel, Monster, and CNET have drained some of their readerships and put a dent in local newspaper classified revenues.

Four significant content changes have occurred in the newspaper industry due to the Internet platform. Content has expanded to include premium archived content, fine-grained searching is now available, there is more reach and depth of content, and news can now be delivered in a timely manner without the restrictions of a set printing schedule. The timeliness aspect is perhaps the most significant change because instant updates of breaking news stories are now possible, allowing newspapers to compete directly with radio and television.

The other challenges facing content producers and owners are cost, consumer attitudes, cannibalization of existing distribution channels, and rights management.  Cost challenges include the fact that Internet distribution is far more costly than was originally anticipated and that there are substantial costs faced by media companies for migrating, repackaging, and redesigning content for online delivery.  Consumer attitudes are perhaps the key challenge facing content providers as consumers have strongly resisted paying for Web content.   Cannibalization of existing distribution channels is another challenge traditional media companies must confront. Media companies are often tempted to strike alliances with successful portals or redistributors. The risk is that the media firm’s brand name will become diluted or displaced by the portal or aggregator’s brand name. Furthermore, any revenues generated will have to be shared with the intermediary. Content producers must also be very carefu

  In the past, technology issues (including low bandwidth, poor and unstable operating systems,low-bandwidth mobile networks, and poor digital production environments) were major inhibiting factors in the growth of online content. Today, this is no longer true, and the technology platforms to deliver acceptable online content are now available. The only exception is lack of bandwidth for high-definition full-screen video, full-screen standard quality television, and CD-quality music (as opposed to MP3 quality).

  In order to generate meaningful revenues, content provider firms must target a focused audience and provide specialized content for which they are the sole source monopoly. Firms must also cultivate high-perceived net value in consumers so that they believe there is value in obtaining the information instantaneously on the Web. This net value may be derived from the instant availability of the content, the fact that large historical archives can be searched, and/or because the online material can easily be moved into other documents.

The pay-per-view revenue model is based upon charging users for each viewing of premium content (videos, books, archived newspaper articles, or consulting reports). This model is suitable for targeted audiences who are looking for deep, rich, niche content. Pay-per-view is expected to be a more prevalent and successful business model when the bandwidth capability to view sporting events, feature films, and other video content is perfected and becomes more widespread.

  Media industry convergence has most likely not been quickly achieved because consumers still prefer traditional media (i.e., books, film, video, CDs, or even newspapers and magazines) and because the technology is not yet quite ready to distribute this content effectively and conveniently. It has also not occurred because the content creators (artists, writers, and producers) do not yet know what features consumers will be willing to pay for, and they are still creating content for each of the separate media types. Finally, it has not occurred because a profitable business model has not emerged to transform the media into a new experience. The five basic revenue models for online content are: marketing, advertising, pay-per-view, subscription, and mixed.  The major challenge for the entire content industry is that most content on the Web is free. Most Web users expect it to be free and have expressed an unwillingness to pay for it.  In order to overcome this obstacle to profitabili

The three dimensions where the term convergence has been applied are technology platform, content design, and industry structure.  Technology platform convergence refers to the integration of previously separate platform functionalities into a singular digital device. It refers to the development of hybrid devices that can combine the functionality of many different existing media. Content convergence actually includes three dimensions: design, production, and distribution.  Content design convergence has occurred when the design becomes measurably different due to the new skills that have been learned for fully exploiting the new technological capabilities. Content production convergence drives content design convergence as new tools are developed for economically producing content for delivery to multiple platforms. Content distribution convergence occurs when the distributors and consumers have the new devices needed to receive, store, and experience the product.  Industry structur

  Given the popularity as well as the efficiency of online job and career sites, it seems odd that classified ads are still the preferred information source for both job seekers and employers. However, job seekers still believe that the traditional methods are the best way to actually find a job. 

  In addition to matching job applicants with available positions, online sites also serve the larger function of automating this information-intense business process, reducing search times and costs for all parties. These sites can also affect salaries and going rates by establishing market prices and terms.  Online recruitment sites identify salary levels for both employers and job hunters and lay out the skill sets required to achieve those salary levels. They serve as online national marketplaces to establish the terms of trade in the labor market, thus their existence should lead to a rationalization of wages, greater labor mobility, and higher efficiency in recruitment and operations as employers are able to more quickly fill positions.

Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) function by buying the reservations directly from the suppliers (the large national airlines, international hotel chains, auto rental companies, and cruise/tour operators) and then reselling them to agencies that retail the inventory to consumers or create vacation packages that are sold to other retail agents.

  The two major segments of travel are leisure and business travel (managed or unmanaged).   The leisure market includes unmanaged business travel, and this is where the online travel industry has concentrated its efforts. However, the fastest-growing segment is managed business travel because large and midsized firms are trying to control mushrooming corporate travel costs by actively managing their employees’ travel arrangements. Increasingly, corporations are outsourcing their travel offices to vendors who can provide Web-based solutions, high-quality service, and lower costs.

  The five traditional recruitment tools that companies have used to identify and attract employees are: classified and print advertising, career expos, on-campus recruiting, private employment agencies, and internal referral programs.  The disadvantages of these tools in light of the new online sites are  first, that print advertising usually includes a per-word charge that limits the number of detail employers will provide about a job opening and also limits the amount of time an ad will run.  Second, career expos do not allow for a prescreening process to weed out unsuitable candidates, and they are limited by the amount of time a recruiter can spend with each candidate.  Third, staffing firms charge high fees and they have a limited, usually local, pool of candidates.  Fourth, on-campus recruiting firms are also limited in the amount of time that can be spent per candidate as well as in how many candidates can be seen each visit, necessitating multiple visits to some campuses.  Fif

Travel services suppliers have benefited from consumer use of travel Web sites because the Internet is becoming the most common channel used by consumers to research travel options, search for prices, and book reservations for airline tickets, rental cars, hotel rooms, cruises, and tours. For the suppliers, the owners of the hotels, rental cars, and airlines, this means that millions of consumers are aggregated into a singular focused customer pool that can be efficiently reached with advertising and promotions. Furthermore, the suppliers of travel services often have excess capacity that they are always looking to fill, and this aggregation of customers makes it easy for them to do so.