Running head: B2B E-COMMERCE NORTHCENTRAL UNIVERSITY ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET Learner: Angela Austin Academic Integrity: All

work submitted in each course must be the Learners own. This includes all assignments, exams, term papers, and other projects required by the faculty mentor. The known submission of another persons work represented as that of the Learners without properly citing the source of the work will be considered plagiarism and will result in an unsatisfactory grade for the work submitted or for the entire course, and may result in academic dismissal.

<Course ID Number> ECM5000

<Faculty Mentor> Danielle Babb

<Course Title> E-Commerce

<Assignment Number or Title> 6

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Running head: B2B E-COMMERCE

B2B E-Commerce Angela Austin Northcentral University Professor Babb 10/19/2012

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B2B E-Commerce Introduction E-Commerce has many different models to buy and sell items online. Auctions and online communities have grown in popularity since their birth in the 90s. Unlike many of the dot.com era, auction sites like e-bay have grown beyond belief. Web Portals have also shown popularity, sites such as Yahoo.com and Aol are good examples. These types of sites have become online communities where users get to know one another, chat, send emails, and buy and sell various goods and services. Many companies have built web portals to provide information to their employees. These organizations are offering Employee handbooks, and benefit information, which save these companies money from paper and ink cost. Chat rooms for employees to collaborate allow flexibility and productivity for these innovative firms. This paper will first evaluate online communities including auctions and portals. Next it will analyze one such online community, a virtual world created by Linden Labs named Second Life Where users can create, design, buy and sell, work, meet new people (or avatars) and enjoy anything that is not possible in ones own real life. Finally it will examine digital media and how it plays a part in online communities such as Second Life. Online Communities, Auctions and Portals E-bay was born in 1995 when a young web programmer developed a website to share updates regarding the Ebola virus. Pierre Omidyar built a small auction function into his site called AuctionWeb. This site grew so quickly that by the end of its second year it was renamed e-bay and the rest is history. (Chapter 6 Online)

According to: Chapter 6 Online Auctions, Virtual Communities, and Web Portals, n.d:

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In 1995, Pierre Omidyar was working as a Web programmer for General Magic, Inc. and, in his spare time, operating a small personal Web site that provided, among other things, updates on the Ebola virus. Omidyar decided that the Web provided a good environment for bringing auction buyers and sellers together, so he built a small auction function into his site and called it AuctionWeb. Interest in the sites auctions grew so rapidly that within a year, Omidyar had quit his job to devote his full energies to the Web auction business he had created. By the end of its second year in operation, Omidyars Web site, which he had renamed eBay, had auctioned over $95 million worth of goods and was showing a small profit. (p.263) Auctions sites like e-Bay have become online communities as they share information, they get to know each other, email, and buy and sell various items to one another. Another kind of online community is the portal. As mentioned previously, Yahoo.com is a portal site which allows users to email, have links to local news and weather, and local businesses. This collaboration of various e-commerce sites allows users to have access to just about anything one can dream up while remaining on the Yahoo site. By keeping users at one location suppliers and marketers have opportunities to advertise items that the individual is already looking for according to previous shopping behaviors. Collaboration between suppliers, marketers and buyers is the beauty of these communities. Another type of online community is a virtual world created by Linden Labs, known as Second Life. Second Life Virtual World Linden Labs was born in 1999 and actually developed Second Life by accident while trying to build a virtual environment that consisted according to: Nino, T. of rock eating birds

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and bird eating snakes (Nino, T. 2010) The article goes on to state that Linden World was spread across multiple servers that allowed people to create content. According to Nino, T.: Linden World was spread almost seamlessly across multiple servers (albeit, only a couple), and it was envisioned that one day it might become a sprawling and distributed agglomeration of third-party servers. The streaming content architecture and protocols allowed people to create content and to participate in content creation in real-time -without drowning their connections in data. (p.1) Second life staff realized that the real-time collaborative content-creation was it- the defining quality that made Linden World unique. (Nino,T. 2010) The virtual world went through many changes to reach its current state. Todays users can enjoy building and designing architecture, furnishings, landscapes, and seasonal and temperature controls, along with designing avatars from eye, hair, skin, body shape, and height that fly, swim, dance have facial expressions and even can date and enjoy intimate sexual relations with one another. They buy and sell their creations with linden dollars, a currency available in-world that is exchangeable to any currency in the real world. This is more than a video game it really is a Second Life. Digital Media
"If we teach today's students as we did yesterday's, we are robbing them of tomorrow." John Dewey (as cited by Peterson, 2010)

Video games such as Second Life and other rich media sources are now being taught in schools of digital media. Web design, Photoshop, cartooning, modeling and simulation and robotics are all going digital. Technology has catapulted film into a new realm of digital animations and simulations. Magazines are shifting to the digital age as television has already

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done. Ads and web designs for sites such as e-Bay and Yahoo.com are all designed digitally. Because of this current shift, students of all ages are going back to schools to update skills in these areas. Businesses are using digital media to market products and are seeking individuals who are trained in these areas. Conclusion Online auctions such as e-Bay have increasingly become more popular in recent years and are now household names. These sites allow users to buy and sell anything available to them and can turn very profitable without much of an investment. Portals are another popular site online today where they allow users convenience to meet many needs all in one place. Yahoo.com offers links to news, weather, music , e-mail, local businesses, and chat rooms where marketers can also offer up ads custom designed to ones shopping behaviors, which in turn is one step closer to closing a sale. Second life is a virtual online community which allows users to design, create, and buy and sell these designs and creations to one another online with linden dollars, a currency that is exchangeable to any currency around the world. These popular online communities all use digital media mediums for ads, web design, modeling and simulation and need students who are skilled in these areas. Businesses are shifting to digitalizing every aspect of media and are collaborating with suppliers to become more innovative and technologically advanced.

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References Chapter 6 Online Auctions, Virtual Communities, and Web Portals (7th ed.). (n.d.). Retrieved from elle.baxpace.com Web site: http://elle.baxpace.com/E-Commerce/ eCommerce%20e-Book/07_eC_Chapter6.pdf Laudon, K., & Guercio Traver, C. (2012). E-Commerce (8th ed.) [Business, Technology, Society]. United States: Prentice Hall. Nino, T. (2010). In Massively by Joystiq.com (Ed.), The Virtual Whirl: ABrief History of Second Life. Retrieved from Massively.Joystiq.com Web site: http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/ 06/26/the-virtual-whirl-a-brief-history-of-second-life/ Peterson, K. (2010). In PBS.org (Ed.), Digital Media. Retrieved from PBS.org Web site: http:// www.pbs.org/programs/digital-media/