Web Service System Design Homework (March 29th, 2008)

1. Read the abstract of Paper 3, 6 and 7. If possible, skim the whole paper.
Summarize the papers briefly.

Paper 3
Paper 6
Paper 7

2. According to Chap. 6 of Textbook. what is a functional architecture of e-commerce systems?

A functional architecture of e-commerce systems consists of several components with its own unique functions that linked together. There are four primary components of e-commerce systems:

a. Client: computer system, typically a PC, which is connected to the internet. Usually used by buyer to browsing and/or purchasing. (e.g.: home PC, PC of buyer's company).

b. Merchant: computer system or systems that contain the seller's electronic catalog and, in the case of online goods, products for over-the-Net fulfillment. (e.g.: content servers).

c. Transaction system: computer system or systems that process a particular order and that are responsible for payment, record keeping, and other business aspects of the transaction. (e.g.: application servers).

d. Payment gateway: computer system that routes payment instructions into existing financial networks such as for credit card authorization and settlement. (e.g.: resource managers).

3. Lab: PageRank
Install PageRank on your Firefox. Perform the measurements in terms of PageRank the following websites:

New York Times http://www.nytimes.com - PageRank: 9/10


CNN http://www.cnn.com/ - PageRank: 9/10

Web Service System Design Homework (March 15th, 2008)

1. Read Paper 1 & Paper 2. Provide a summary for each of the paper.
Paper1
Paper2

2. Read Chap. 4 of the textbook. What is the Business-to-business model?
Business-to-business (B2B) is a term commonly used to describe electronic commerce transactions between businesses, as opposed to those between businesses and other groups, such as business and individual consumers (B2C) or business and government (B2G).
B2B is also commonly used as an adjective to describe any activity, be it marketing, sales, or e-commerce, that occurs between businesses and other businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.
On the Internet, B2B (business-to-business), also known as e-biz, is the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.

3. Digital goods can be distributed over the Internet but physical goods have to be delivered logistically. What are digital goods? What are the differences between the two?
Digital goods are bitstrings, sequences of 0s and 1s, that have economic value.
Digital goods can be distinguished from physical goods by five characteristics: digital goods are nonrival, infinitely expansible, discrete, aspatial, and recombinant.

4. Using RSS to track many blogs at one time.
What is the RSS feed that Google Reader takes in?
All of the RSS feed that have any of these formats: RSS 0.9x, RSS 1.x, RSS 2.x (this is the available formats up to this writing). Usually, the URL which use any of those formats have the "subscribe" symbol ( ).

List the URL of these RSS feeds.
iapblog.blogspot.com :
http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fiapblog.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault

New York Times :
http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fservices%2Fxml%2Frss%2Fnyt%2FHomePage.xml

osmandp.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default :
http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fosmandp.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fcomments%2Fdefault

Web Service System Design Homework (March 8th, 2008)

1. Track your comments at a focal point - Done

2. Using personal portal - Done (see image below)

3. Make your blog organized by adding labels - Done

4. Reading Assignments: Read Chap 3. Answer the following questions:

* What are the commercial values of Internet?

The Internet can be used to transform customer relationships, and it can displace or alter traditional sources of business value.

* List some business strategies for online commerce!

Strategies related to transforming customer relationships:

• Channel master strategy : a customer-centered business organized around the product.
  
• Customer magnet strategy : a customer-centered business organized around meeting all the needs of a particular group of customers.

Strategies related to displacing the sources of value:

• Value chain pirate : focus on the supply chain.
  
• Digital distribution : focus on distribution - reaching the customer.

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Web Service System Design - Homework (March 1st 2008)

Q: According to the book by Treese and Stewart, what is the commerce value chain? Why not see them on an individual basis?

A: Commerce value chain: the chain of adding value in creating and delivering a product.
It can be depicted as in Fig.1.

Fig.1. Commerce Value Chain

In an individual basis usually some component of the value chain won't be founded, since each individual basis company will just emphasize in one or two components and omitting the others, due to cost or human resource consideration.

Q: Is the Internet different from other media? Why?

A: Yes, Internet is different from any other conventional media (e.g. TV, newspaper, radio, etc.). The major difference is that Internet can make the user (or customer) to choose their own interests of information (through browsing and clicking the topics of information they want to find), while other media will make their user to consume the information which they provided already at that time.

Q: Convert one of your Word document using Google docs.

A: Example of document - "Enjoy your coffee".