Cars Come and Cars Go

  According to an article on the Reueters website, car sales are expected to be at all time low this year and perhaps for the next year or two following. Now what can be the reason for this? Obviously many would agree that this was a cause of a poor economy we are currently enduring. But some critics however, are blaming it on the internet. Who would have thought? I agree in this modern era gadgets have facilitated everyday activities such as shopping, communicating, and participating in virtual networks. In regards to shopping for an automobile, consumers rather than go in person to see the car for themselves they can browse online. Features include everything from interior views, exterior views, to price estimators. With such information at your finger tips, why would you care to take time away from your busy schedule to go to the dealership? Although this can affect the salesmen, who earn commission from the cars they sell and have better chances of persuading you to purchase a car as you begin to "window shop". The internet appears to have its pros and cons. The pros of the internet is the marketing efforts each company can project to consumers. Appealing deals and offers will help their sales and allure a larger market. The current state of our economy appears to be the biggest factor in sales decline, not simply the adverse effects of the internet. If sales is the determining factor in the survival of many of these car industries they should look into better financing options for those who wish to purchase a new vehicle but find the prices a bit high. This is the reason why gadgets are so much more appealing, from a price perspective the total sum one must spend in the long run seems more for a car than an ipod for instance. Customers realize there are more than just the cost of the car that they must spend money on. They must pay insurance, monthly payments, and car maintenance. These costs are greater if you think about it.

Overall, cars are a necessity to many and as technology continues to improve who knows how this will impact the necessities we have all became accustomed to.

Government Governs E-community

Everyone now appears to be on the Internet bandwagon. No escaping it. The government is now seeking means to impact the public by exerting it's power over the e-world as well as using it for daily business functions. If the government cannot regulate what happens over the Internet it has announced that it will cease to exist. There have been constant legal battles with the FCC ( The Federal Communications Commission) about their authority to regulate the Internet. The government overall is trying to prevent piracy, misuse of public information, and they are trying to instate Internet censorship. With so much information at the disposition of the general public, there has not been too much control in regards to how people can obtain such information and how this information can fall into the wrong hands. Such as the case with online tax filing, yes it is convenient because one does not have to suffer through the hassle of waiting in line to file taxes. However, this signifies loss of job opportunities for accountants and you can experience technical glitches or lose all your information if the Internet malfunctions.

A recent event that has shocked many users due to the Internet Censorship bill has been the lawsuit against LimeWire. The bill intends to block websites that allow illegal file sharing. Limewire was a program that was used by internet users for file sharing, such as video, audio, and other programs. Now you can no longer download any of these for free, you must now legally purchase them online. Many record companies are now breathing easy because they feel this will boost record sales. Although the government continues to advocate they are trying to be fair and just, this type of censorship leads many to believe that their freedom to speech is being compromised since it suppresses certain publishing or accessing of information. The e-world will soon have many limitations and regulations as the real world does.

E-Commerce. Maintaining Your Business Afloat

Nowadays one must build a strong strategy to maintain their online business running. The internet has given small and large firms the capability to start up their online businesses and every day more and more competition begins to surge. Marketing is essential to create traffic for your website. There are several steps you can take to successfully market your website:

1. You must obtain a domain name: A domain name is an internet address that allows users to find your websites. You can check if a domain name has been taken if you take a look at www.uspto.gov. It would be better in most opinions to get one that ends in .net or .com.

2. Build a professional looking website: People will take your website seriously depending on the content found inside. If there valuable information they need? Is the content relevant to the purpose of the website? There are templates already provided by sites such as Yahoo.

3. Make your website easy to navigate: Many people often focus their time trying to make their website visually stimulating and tend to forget other important aspects such as navigation. Have information organized and accessible. This will determine whether web surfers decide to use your site again.

4.Build up your email list: Offer people incentives for allowing you to obtain their email addresses. Email marketing is a cheap and easy way to reach the public. However, inform them that their personal information is safeguarded against spam or acts of fraud.

5. Send periodic emails or newsletters: This form of communication allows you to reach existing customers, potential customers, and a larger audience as well. When sending these news letters try to keep them short and to the point. Give customers the option to opt out of newsletters if they wish. Be professional and try to make it visually appealing.

6. Buy Banner Ads: Invest in ads and place them on sites that are related to yours or complement your site. Make the ads appealing to the eye to drive traffic to your website. Monitor the success of your ads by tracking the amount of clicks.

7. Optimize your site for search engines: Sites such as google and yahoo are used consistently by people conducting web searches. The tool known search engine optimization helps your efforts to increase your ranking in web searches.

8. Buy keyword ads on search engines: By purchasing key words when a customer does a search it will directly lead them to your website or the product they were seeking located on your site. For instance, if you specialize in selling authentic leather handbags, then the keyword you may want to purchase would be "authentic leather handbags".

9. Make it easy to buy: To facilitate shopping you should have a shopping cart system and credit card authorization process. There are systems you can integrate into your website to help the shoppers feel secure in their purchases such as Paypal. Don't make the system complicated by requiring too much personal information such as the routing numbers on checks and so forth.

10. Provide great customer service: Great customer service will ensure customer loyalty, which will mean continuous web visits and references to others about the usefulness of your website.

All these steps for marketing will establish the foundation of the eValue framework described by Amit and Zott which involve efficiency, complementarities, lock-in, and novelty. Efficiency is enhanced when you simplify the purchasing process and make it easier for customers to buy items. By placing ads on sites relevant to what you offer such as personalized logos on a T-shirt website creates complementarities. By offering exceptional or one of a kind services you lock-in customers. Constantly innovating your site will keep customers interested and they will remain loyal to your company since you are creating novelty.

How you market your business will determine your success. The harder you work the better the outcome.

References:

http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/internet-marketing/630-1.html

Facebook More Than a Social Network

So you thought Facebook was just your link to communicating with your friends and family. Wrong. Facebook is now trying to be the center of the E-world and they are currently executing new plans for the future. If you haven't noticed by now many websites have been integrating the Facebook "Like" button, which provides online firms access to the "Open Graph" which is a collection of all the "likes" of each customer. Who would have thought we were so openly offering information from just a click of a button?  Facebook is now appearing to become a standard to personalize your web experience. Websites such as Yelp and Pandora are now able to easily identify you through the Open Graph system. Browsing through websites you will now notice at the bottom of most screens they provide you with the option to share the link, email it, and you'll identify the like button. This system will provide a shopper friendly experience since now your frequent websites will be able to provide you with items you might like based on your past preferences. The Open Graph system is very similar to the systems most companies have recently been using to track your web searches and visits. However, this new system provides more insight on a variety of topics such as movies, music, companies, food, etc.

With so many followers increasing the popularity of Facebook it seems as though companies such as Google and Myspace will have a run for their money. Another new upcoming feature which is creating worries for Paypal is Facebook Credits. Now Facebook can attempt to facilitate payments for online shoppers without the use of providing credit card information. Currently the progress of this phenomenon has only been used with virtual goods and will eventually be used for regular purchases if successful. How did Facebook turn from a social network to ruling e-commerce? The vast success of this company has inspired it to take advantage of it's influence on users to engage them in more growth opportunities for the company. We don't realize how dependent we have become on these social networks that now we have allowed them to take over most aspects of our daily lives. Privacy is a minimal concern for this company since users share the information they wish to. Forget getting to know someone, you learn more about them through their status updates, wall posts, pictures, user purchases and likes all via Facebook!

Referenced Websites:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10460201-36.html

Signs Will Lead the Way

"Want a brighter smile?" "Buy 1 pair of shoes get the other pair free." "Win a vacation to the Bahamas!" "Beware of Spyware.""Closeout Sale!"These are just a few of the typical advertisements we see on a daily basis as we navigate the web. The question is how do we randomly get selected to preview specific ads? Why are some women more likely to receive beauty product ads? The answer is simply based on Online behavioral advertising. This is achieved by collecting information about consumers that demonstrate which websites they are prone to visiting. Based on the information they are able to determine which ads best target the needs of those consumers. What has recently appeared this fall is called the Advertising Option Icon which allows the public to regulate the behavioral advertising they are exposed to. Now companies that are taking part in this program are advised to place the icon near advertisements so customers can click on it to receive more information regarding data practices and even decide to opt out if they wish. Despite the fact that the intention is for consumers to learn more about advertising tactics, many critics wonder if the majority of consumers will ever realize the purpose of the icon? Only with time will we notice the impact on personal privacy. From my perspective I don't believe many companies will directly share the purpose of the icon with consumers. Rather they will probably display in on their sites and just wait and see if the curiosity of those individuals will lead them to discover the meaning behind the icon.

The opt out option won't appear to benefit many companies since they give people the option of whether or not they choose to see advertisements or not. Isn't it annoying to constantly surf the web and every 5 minutes or so see an advertisement block out the original page you were trying to view? Obliviously many of us may click continue on certain pages that advise us that our information may be seen by others just to proceed. We don't realize websites keep track of our searches through cookies that are saved on our web browers cache which saves information pertaining to our searches and login information. Just as many of us have not been aware of this dilemma until recently, so are millions of others that are only a click away from making their personal information easy to retrieve. The self regulatory principles of online behavioral advertising were allegedly released in June 2009, so why hasn't this information been heavily circulated? Are companies skeptical to promote this new icon because they fear it will not benefit them? Although they at least may have it on their website, a sign has no meaning unless it has been previously defined and taught.


Referenced Websites:
http://www.aboutads.info/
http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com

The Eyes Behind the Screen

With Internet gimmicks such as UK's Internet Eyes that is offerring to hire individuals to spy on shoppers via their home computer, it's no wonder people seem to be losing jobs and most importantly their privacy. With so many laws constantly enacted regarding privacy, the digital world still remains a large unregulated body that open doors to online companies to earn a fast buck. As I have mentioned previously my point of view on the Internet is that it is replacing many our necessities and many of us have grown so dependent on it. For instance, to keep track of a product's sales there are programs that already have this data stored. Of course this is very helpful for store managers, but most of them rely on these systems that they fail to notice any glitches that may have occurred. Internet Eyes is intending to allure more viewers to their website by offering a simple job opportunity that doesn't acquire experience or labor. Who wouldn't want to stay at home and watch suspicious criminal activity and earn money for it? Sounds tempting enough for those who have a lot of time on their hands. However, jobs like these replace loss prevention that is found at most retail stores. Will such an easy job motivate people to work harder? What would they lose if they didn't report a theft? Most of the loss prevention, are given weekly goals and incentives to observe customers from inside the store and arrest them as soon as they have been spotted stealing. Internet Eyes apparently is not interested in the quality of the work but are only interested in generating the revenue desired for their company to grow.

Laws in regards to privacy differ from country to country. If a U.S law is broken in another country then it will become extremely difficult to prosecute. Now in regards to keeping your privacy secured over the internet it is always good to keep in mind that any information you post about yourself online will be available to EVERYONE and it is very difficult to erase your tracks. One way websites keep track of your searches if through your IP address. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) allows you to connect to the internet and they give you a unique IP address that allows you to send and receie information over the internet. When you enter certain websites they receive your IP address which allows them to view your browsing preferences. Most our well known search engines such as Yahoo and Google keep track of your website visits. These companies claim they keep the information retained from your IP address to provide better customer service and recognize trends in consumer behavior. Constantly we are being watched, perhaps not physically as described with Internet Eyes but our personal information is being observed by others. What happens when we google map addresses? They retain the information. What happens when we're curious to search information on our Social Security address? It is recorded as well.

If we're not careful such valuable information can fall into the wrong hands. Knowingly or not the internet we have all grown to love and depend on can one day work against us.

Bye Bye Stores..Hello Virtual Reality!!

Yes it is true we are slowly watching the frenzy of the internet is swiftly but surely causing many stores to close down. Recently one of the biggest headlines as mentioned in the blog by Professor Miyazaki, was that Blockbuster had to file for bankruptcy due to the success of it's rival Netflix. Why did Netflix outperform Blockbuster? The target market strategy Netflix chose were individuals who preferred to spend time in the comfort of their home, who are tech savvy and who are lazy to go to a store and rent a movie. Many Netflix subscribers may found this company to be convenient because if one had several tasks to perform during their work and personal life they may have believed that the drive to rent a movie is time consuming therefore instantly streaming movies did not take away time from them. For those who simply enjoyed spending time at home renting movies it is an enjoyable past time that they can share in the company of loved ones or simply for self- satisfaction. However, Netflix appeared to be more appealing to the newer generations than the older ones. For instance, one of my relatives is about 65 years old and she thought the idea of uploading movies instantly through the X-box to seem too “complicated”, since she is unfamiliar with the technology. Growing up surrounded with computers the newer generations are able to grasp the method of video streaming since similar methods are used with music downloads. Video streaming facilitates the ability to watch any movie since it does not require skill, time loss, or any physical effort.

 Some of Netflix’s competitive advantages compared to Blockbuster and Amazon were that for a flat monthly fee subscribers could order up to three movies at a time and could keep the rentals for as long as they wanted.  Unlike their counterparts customers did not have to pay late fees.  They also offered next day movie shipping and had most movie titles available in stock. As a Netflix customer when I search the website there are a variety of genres to choose from such as older T.V shows that cannot be found with their competitors. Their large assortment of movies definitely gives them an upper hand in the industry since rather than search for a particular movie from several retailers you can always rely on one company, which is Netflix.  

Overall Blockbuster did not go bust according to the www.Dailyfinance.com, no because it did not offer online video rentals but mainly because customers preferred the service Netflix had to offer.

What will go next remains to be seen!