Chapter 4 – Building an E-Commerce Presence – Flashcards
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business models
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Portal, e-tailer, content provider, transaction broker, market creator, service provider, community provider
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revenue models
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Advertising, subscriptions, transaction fees, sales, and affiliate revenue.
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how do you determine the target audience?
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1. Demographics Age, gender, income, location 2. Behavior patterns (lifestyle) 3. Consumption patterns (purchasing habits) 4. Digital usage patterns 5. Content creation patterns (blogs, FB) 6. Buyer personas
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How do you characterize the marketplace?
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Via: 1. demographics 2. size, growth, changes 3. structure: competitors, suppliers, substitutes 4. where the content is coming from (static vs dynamic)
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How can you imagine your e-commerce presence?
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1. Know yourself - SWOT Analysis 2. Develop an EC presence map 3. Develop a timeline: milestones
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How much does EC cost?
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simple web site: up to $5K small web start-up: $25-50K large corporate site: $100K - millions
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SWOT
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Strengths Weaknesses Opps Threats
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Type of presence:
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website e-mail social media offline media
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web sites: platform
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traditional mobile tablet
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web sites: activity
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search display affiliates sponsorships
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e-mail: platform
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internal lists purchased lists
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e-mail: activity
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newsletters updates sales
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social media: platform
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FB Twitter Blogs
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social media: activity
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conversation engagement sharing advice
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offline media: platform
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print TV & radio
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offline media: activity
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education exposure branding
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most important mgt challenges in building a successful e-commerce site are:
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1. developing a clear understanding of bus objectives Req you to: build a plan for developing your firm's site 2. knowing how to choose the right technology to achieve those objectives Req you to: understand some of the basic elements of EC infrastructure
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areas where you need to make decisions in building a site
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1. HR & org capabilities - creating a team that has the skill set to build and manage a successful site 2. hardware 3. software 4. telecomm 5. site design
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systems development life cycle
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methodology for understanding bus objectives of a sys and designing an approp soln
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5 steps of SDLC
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1. Systems analysis/planning 2. systems design 3. Building the system 4. Testing 5. Implementation
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web site systems development life cycle
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1. Systems Analysis/Planning 2. Systems Design 3. Building the System 4. Testing 5. Implementation System Delivery
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Web site systems development best practices
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1. Continuous availability 99%+ 2. Design for scalability 3. Build in mgt for end-to-end delivery 4. Plan for growth 5. Design pages for high-speed performance 6. Understand and optimize workload on system
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What are the 3 components of system analysis?
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1. business objectives 2. system functionality 3. information requirements
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business objectives
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list of capabilities you want your site to have
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system fxnalities
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List of IS capabilities needed to achieve business objectives
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information requirements
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Info elements that system must produce to achieve bus objectives
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What are the 9 basic business objectives?
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1. Display goods 2. Provide product info (content) 3. Personalize/customize product 4. Engage customers in conversations 5. Execute a transaxn 6. Accumulate customer info 7. Provide after-sale customer support 8. Coordinate marketing/advertising 9. Understand marketing effectiveness 10. Provide prodxn + supplier links
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system design specification
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Description of main components of a system and their relationship to one another
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2 components of sys design
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logical and physical
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logical and physical design are all on paper!!!
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true.
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logical design
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Data flow diagrams processing fxns databases
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physical design
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1. translates logical --> physical components 2. Specifies actual physical, software components, models, etc.
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outsourcing
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Hiring vendors to provide services involved in building site
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Build own vs outsourcing
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Build your own requires team with diverse skill set; choice of software tools; both risks and possible benefits
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Host own vs outsourcing: hosting
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Hosting company responsible for ensuring site is accessible 24/7, for monthly fee
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host own vs outsourcing: co-location
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Firm purchases or leases Web server (with total control over its operation), but server is located at vendor's facility
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3 Types of testing
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unit testing system testing acceptance testing
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unit testing
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involves testing the site's program modules one at a time
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system testing
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involves testing the site as a whole, in a way the typical user will use the site
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acceptance testing
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verifies that the business objectives of the system as originally conceived are in fact working
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benchmarking
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Comparing site to competitors in terms of response speed, quality of layout, and design
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Costs of maintenance parallel to
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development costs
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t/f: maintenance is ongoing
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true
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factors in web site optimization:
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1. page generation 2. page delivery 3. page content Purpose of website is to deliver content to customers and to complete transaxns. The faster + more reliably this is met, the more effective the web site
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page generation
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server response time device based accelerators efficient resource allocation resource utilization thresholds monitoring site performance
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page delivery
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content delivery networks edge catching bandwidth
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page content
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optimize html & images site architecture efficient page style
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system architecture
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Arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an information system needed to achieve a specific functionality
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2-Tier architecture
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Web server and database server
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multi-tier architecture
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Web application servers Backend, legacy databases
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all EC sites require basic web server software to answer HTTP requests from customers
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TRUE
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Apache
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leading web server software (54% of mkt) Works only with UNIX, LINUX OSs
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Microsoft's Internet Info Server (IIS)
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2nd major web server software (25% of mkt) Windows based
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Basic Fxnality Provided by Web Servers
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1. Processesing of HTTP requests 2. Security services (secure sockets layer) 3. File transfer protocol 4. Search engine 5. Data capture 6. E-mail 7. Site mgt tools
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Basic site mgt tools
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included in all web servers verify that links on pages are still valid identify orphan files
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3rd party software and services for advanced site mgt
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monitor customer purchases, mkting campaign effectiveness ex: WebTrends Analytics 10, Google Analytics
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Dynamic page generation
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Contents of Web page stored as objects in db, rather than being hard-coded in HTML. When the user requests a Web page, the contents for that page are then fetched from the db
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Common dynamic page gen tools:
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CGI = Common Gateway Interface ASP = Active Server Pages JSP = Java Server Pages
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advantages of dynamic page gen tools
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1. lowers menu costs (costs incurred by merchants for changing prod dx + prices) 2. permits easy online mkt segmentation (ability to sell same product to diff mkts) 3. enables cost-free price discrimination (ability to sell the same product to diff customers @ diff prices) 4. enables web content sys (WCMS)
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web app servers provide...
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specific business fxnality req for a website
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application servers are...
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kind of middleware software that provides the glue connecting trad'l corporate systems to the customer as well as all the fxnality needed to conduct EC
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2 types of app servers
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1. isolated business apps (from web servers + DBs) 2. single-fxn apps (which are increasingly being replaced by integrated software tools that combine all fxnality needed for EC site)
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Fxns of app servers
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Do I Need to know this???
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EC merchant server software provides...
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provides basic fxnality for online sales: -online catalog -shopping cart -credit card processing
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merchant server software packages (EC suites) offer
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integrated environment with most of functionality needed
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EC merchant services
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ex: Yahoo's Small Business Merchant Solns
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Open source web building tools
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ex: Apache web server, MySQL, PHP, PERL
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key factors in selecting a package:
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-Fxnality -Support for diff business models -Bus process modeling tools -Visual site mgt + reporting -Performance + scalability -Connectivity to existing bus systems -Compliance with standards -Global + multicultural capability -Local sales tax + shipping rules
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Hardware platform (for EC site)
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refers to all underlying computer equipment that system uses to achieve EC fxnality
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Objective of choosing the hardware for an EC site:
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have enough platform capacity to meet peak demand but not so much that you waste money
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Important to understand the different factors that affect 1, 2, 3 of a site
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1. speed 2. capacity 3. scalability
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the most important factor affecting the speed of your site is...
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the demand that customers put on the site
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Factors involved in overall demand:
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1. # of simultaneous users in peak periods 2. nature of customer requests (user profile) 3. type of content (dynamic vs static web pages) 4. req'd security 5. # of items in inventory 6. # of page requests 7. speed of legacy apps
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scalability
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refers to ability of site to increase in size as demand warrants
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ways to scale hardware:
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1. vertically - increase processing power of indiv components 2. horizontally - employ multiple computers to share workload 3. improve processing architecture of site
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basic business considerations for web site design
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need design guidelines and software tools that can cost-effectively achieve req'd bus fxnality *enabling customers to find what they need, make purchase + leave
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___% users say they would not revisit a web site that they found annoying to use
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75
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widgets
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small pre-built chunk of code that executes automatically in an HTML web page
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Mashups
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Pull fxnality/data from one program and include it in another
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CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
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standards for cx b/w browser + program running on a server that allows for interaxn b/w user + server
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ASP (Active server pages)
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Used to build dynamic pages with Microsoft's IIS
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Java
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Used to create interactivity and active content on client computer
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JSP (Java Server Pages)
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Similar to CGI and ASP; allows developers to use HTML, JSP scripts, and Java to dynamically generate web pages
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Javascript
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used to control objects on a web page and handle interaxns with browser
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activeX
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invented by microsoft to compete with Java
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VBScript
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invented by microsoft to compete with Javascript
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ColdFUsion
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integrated server-side environment for developing interactive web apps
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personalization
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ability to treat ppl based on their personal qualities and prior history with your site
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customization
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ability to change the product to better fit then eeds of the customer
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cookies
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small text file placed on the user's client computer that can contain any kind of info about the customer (customer ID, purchases at the site) *PRIMARY METHOD FOR ACHIEVING PERSONALIZATION + CUSTOMIZATION)
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privacy policy
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set of public statements declaring how site will treat customers' personal info that is gathered by the site
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accessibility rules
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set of design objectives that ensure disabled users can affectively access site
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3 types of m-commerce software
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1. mobile web site (responsive web design) 2. Mobile web app 3. native app
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planning + building mobile presence uses...
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systems analysis/design to identify unique and specific bus objectives
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Most unique features that must be taken into account when designing a mobile web presence
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1. Hardware *smaller, more resource constraints in data storage +processing power 2. Connectivity *constrained by slower connection speeds 3. Displays *smaller + req simplicification (some are not good in sunlight either) 4. Interface *touch screen technology introduces new interaxn routines diff from tradl mouse and keyboard (not good data entry tool but can be a good navigational tool)
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design considerations
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platform constraints: smartphone/tablet
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performance + cost
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1. mobile web site (least expensive) 2. mobile app (can use browser API) 3. native app (most expensive, requires more programming)
