Information System Tutorial - Week 5

Enable commerce using the Internet

I. Practice exercises
1. Find a company that is purely Web based. Next, find the Web site of a company that is a hybrid (i.e., they have a
traditional brick-and-mortar business plus a presence on the Web). What are the pros and cons of dealing with each type
of company?
The purely Web-based company we chose is Shopee. The hybrid company we chose is The giơi di dong. With Shopee,
some of the pros are that it is easy to check out, there are a wide variety of products to choose from, there are
recommendations based on products bought in the past, and there are many choices for suppliers. Some of the cons are
that there is no way to confirm the quality of the product until it is actually received, the buyer has no choice but to pay the
shipping costs, and there is no way to get one-on-one interaction with a person regarding the quality of the product. With
TG di dong, some of the pros are that there is a way to confirm the quality of the product before purchase, there is one on
one interaction with a person, and you can check online before going to the store to see if they have a particular product
in stock. Some cons are that the hybrid companies do not offer as great a range of products as a web-based company
and, if the item is not in stock, there is the frustration of having to shop at multiple stores.

2. Compare three different search engines. What tips do they provide to improve a page’s rankings? How much does it cost
to advertise a page on their results pages? If you were a company, could you think of any situation where you would pay
almost any amount to have the first listing on the first results page?

Google DuckDuckGo Bing

Advantages - Understanding the intent
behind your query and
serving a relevant answer is
simply superior in many
cases
- They prioritize fresh,
updated content over
information that might be
outdated
- It’s accessible and usable
on any device
- It has the most specific
verticals that help you
narrow down the
experience you want
- A high amount of
personalization is available,
search results can be
complemented by your
location, content in your
Gmail, etc.
- They do not track or store
information about users
- It has a great UX
- Bangs get you to where
you want to search faster
- Users can get answers
quickly with zero-click
- It provides information
outside of search, such as
news, interesting images,
and historical events
- It has excellent video
indexing
- It’s easier to filter in an
image search
- The UI is more
aesthetically pleasing
- You can get free
Microsoft stuff
- The audience skews older,
so businesses in industries
that also skew older may
prioritize optimizing for
Bing

Disadvantages - Google Maps is highly
susceptible to spam from
blackhat SEOs trying to
game the system, and
critics in the SEO
community aren’t
necessarily impressed with
Google’s efforts to combat
this
- They track a lot of user
data. Like a LOT of data.
While this helps with
personalization, it can pose
some threats to your
privacy
Trịnh Bảo Ngọc, FIT, HanU, mail: ngoctb@hanu.edu.vn
- Search results are not - Bing ranks forums low in
dated, so it’s hard to be search results in favor of
sure if you’re visiting older, established sites,
outdated content even if forums have a more
- Semantic understanding direct answer to a query
is simply inferior to Google. - Its ability to ascertain
They do serve users intent and the context
disambiguation prompts, around a search query isn’t
so you can get to the best- as sophisticated as Google
matched intent with a few
clicks if you’re willing
- Geo-targeting and local
intent recognition are
lacking
- The Image Search vertical
results are more limited
- No personalized results
 - The average cost per click is between $1 and $2 on Google Ads, though, so unless your target keywords relate to
insurance, legal services, or rehab, it shouldn’t be difficult to stay within your budget. (companies will spend anywhere
from $9000 to more than $30,000 per month on Google Ads (previously known as Google AdWords), which maintains
an average cost-per-click (CPC) of $1 to $2 for the Google Search Network and less than $1 for the Google Display
Network.)
- The average cost per click (CPC) on Bing is $1.54. The cost to advertise on Bing tends to less that the cost of
advertising on Google.
- DuckduckGo: my cost per click is literally 10x cheaper than Google for target terms – $0.41 per click vs. $4.93 per
click.
- Paying for Google Search ads may put you at the top of the page, but that doesn't improve your organic search
rankings

1. Create a keyword strategy to target terms your target customers are searching.

2. Incorporate the keywords into your website content as well as HTML tags.

3. Write for humans (not search engines).

4. Target location-based searches.

5. Optimize for mobile.

6. Focus on user experience.

7. Create a Google My Business account.

8. Optimize your Business Profile.

9. Obtain customer reviews.

10. List your business on directories.

3. Have you ever used a mobile, wireless device such as a smart phone? If so, what do you like or dislike about it? In what
ways could your use of that device be made better? If you are not using one, what is preventing you from using one?
What would have to happen before you would begin using such a device?
II. Multiple choice question
1. EC is the online exchange of _______ among firms, between firms and their customers, and between customers,
supported by communication technologies and, in particular, the Internet.
A. goods B. services
C. money D. all of the above
2. __________ are those companies that operate in the traditional, physical markets and do not conduct business
electronically in cyberspace.
A. Brick-and-mortars B. Click-onlys
C. both A and B D. Dot-coms
3. A _______ describes how a firm will earn revenue, generate profits, and produce a superior return on invested capital.
A. profit-and-loss statement B. revenue model
C. business model D. annual report
4. According to the text, the three stages of Web sites include all of the following except _______.
A. e-tailing B. e-integration
C. e-transaction D. e-information
5. The revolutionary aspect of the Priceline.com Web site lies in its _______ system called Name Your Own Price.
Customers specify the product they are looking for and how much they are willing to pay for it.
A. immediate pricing B. menu-driven pricing
C. forward pricing D. reverse pricing
6. _______ is a type of e-auction fraud where bidders are lured to leave a legitimate auction in order to buy the same item at
a lower price.
A. Bid luring B. Product luring
C. Customer luring D. Low-price luring
Trịnh Bảo Ngọc, FIT, HanU, mail: ngoctb@hanu.edu.vn
7. A Web site should _______.
A. be easy to use and fast B. offer something unique and be aesthetically pleasing
C. motivate people to visit, to stay, and to return D. all of the above
8. C2C EC can be categorized according to _______.
A. the number of goods sold B. the number of buyers and sellers
B. the payment methods accepted C. all of the above
9. Trying to “outsmart” a search engine to improve a page’s ranking is known as _______.
A. rank enhancement B. SEO
C. search engine hacking D. Google fooling
10. According to the Internet Tax Freedom Act, e-tailers _______. A. have to collect sales tax from all customers, regardless
of their location
A. have to collect sales tax from all customers, regardless of their location
B. have to collect sales tax based on the place of thecustomer’s residence
C. have to collect sales tax based on the prevalent tax rate at the e-tailer’s headquarters
D. have to collect sales tax only from customers residing ina state where the business has substantial presence

Trịnh Bảo Ngọc, FIT, HanU, mail: ngoctb@hanu.edu.vn

III. Case study

YouTube

It’s the Web site everyone visits at least once, and most surfers come back again and again. It’s the ubiquitous YouTube.
Where else can you watch a video of a cat swimming contentedly in a bathtub, a 12-yearold rendering a professional
performance of the “The Star Spangled Banner” at a smalltown basketball game, or a public political debate where candidates
answer questions visitors to the site have submitted?

YouTube, a video-sharing Web site, went online in 2005. Two former PayPal employees, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley,
created the site, and it was practically an overnight success. The San Bruno, California–based service uses Adobe Flash
technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie and TV clips, music videos, video
blogging, and short original videos. In July 2006, YouTube reported that visitors to the site were viewing more than 100 million
video clips a day—a fact that compelled Google Inc. to buy the site that year for $1.76 billion in stock. As of 2010, YouTube
continues to be a successful video site and a top destination for Web surfers who watch an average of 15 minutes of video
each day. According to the site, hundreds of millions of videos are watched daily, and 20 hours of video are uploaded every
minute. YouTube is free and registration is not necessary for visitors to view videos. To upload videos, however, registration is
required. Videos with pornographic content and those showing nudity or that defame or harass are prohibited, as is advertising
and anything encouraging criminal conduct. All of that video requires YouTube to have access to a lot of bandwidth. The
bandwidth expenses for the service were estimated at $300 million for 2009. That same year, the viewing of videos on
YouTube consumed an amount of bandwidth comparable to the entire Internet in the year 2000. In fact, in 2007 the British
publication the Telegraphexpressed fears that the Internet could “grind to a halt within two years” without massive upgrades to
the Internet infrastructure. Fortunately for YouTube fans and Internet users in general, that didn’t happen. Bandwidth issues
aside, YouTube continues to try and draw in more viewers. To that end, the site’s user interface got a major overhaul in the
spring of 2010. The main page was streamlined and redesigned to be more social-media

friendly. In addition, the update made it easier to locate and watch a continuous stream of related video content. As YouTube
has gained in popularity, police forces around the country have used the service to help catch criminals. In April 2010, for
example, homicide investigators in Vancouver, British Columbia, posted a video about a victim in an unsolved but high-profile
murder case. Although the case was being actively investigated, the investigative team had exhausted their list of leads. The
posted video included photos of the woman who had been killed and a recap of what the investigators had pieced together up
to that point. Their hope wasthat by using social media and getting the story in front of viewers, it might help jog a memory of
someone who might have seen something pertinent to the case. Some police departments, however, such as St. George
County, Virginia, said they would not use YouTube for catching criminals because posting police videos next to those with
“crazy” content would be “bad publicity” for the police.

Regardless of the propensity for catching criminals or lack thereof, YouTube has had its share of legal issues as well. After
several lawsuits were filed alleging copyright violations over copyrighted material posted on YouTube, the company agreed to
remove copyrighted material on request. In addition, YouTube installed software intended to automatically detect and remove
copyrighted clips. In order to function correctly, however, the software needed to compare clips of copyrighted material to
YouTube content, which meant that music, movie, and television companies would have to send decades of clips of
copyrighted material to YouTube so that comparisons could be made.

In March 2010, the entertainment corporation Viacom entered into a $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube alleging that the video
site knowingly made a financial gain from 62,637 Viacom video clips that were viewed over 507 million times. YouTube has
countered by alleging that Viacom was covertly uploading clips of their content in an attempt to sabotage YouTube’s efforts to
remove copyrighted material. Although it remains to be seen how the lawsuit will be resolved, it is a sticky situation for the
video site. Whatever YouTube’s future, it’s not likely that Internet users will soon lose interest in video sharing.

Questions

1. Do you use YouTube? If so, what is your favorite type of content? If not, why not?
I usually just watch music videos on YouTube. There are some cases where a professor may upload a lecture or
video for us to watch, but other than that mostly music videos, shows and films\

2. How can businesses use YouTube to promote a good brand image? Have you seen any “good” campaigns on
YouTube? If so, what made them appealing?

Businesses can use YouTube to promote a good brand image by creating videos for their company, posting
commercial ads before videos or ads on the pages with links to their business website. Good campaigns on YouTube
are appealing when they are placed in front of popular videos and catch the viewers' attention prior to the allowance
of the viewer to skip the ad, which can sometimes be only a few seconds. Good campaign commercials are usually
filmed in good quality with exciting music or video footage

Trịnh Bảo Ngọc, FIT, HanU, mail: ngoctb@hanu.edu.vn

3. What potential dangers for a business’ reputation can arise from user-generated content posted on sites such as YouTube?
How can a business react to such dangers?

The potential danger would be that a user posts inaccurate or altered content about the business to YouTube. If
the material they use and post is copyrighted, the business can file suit for copyright infringement.

Trịnh Bảo Ngọc, FIT, HanU, mail: ngoctb@hanu.edu.vn