The things that were missing

Been quite a time since I last posted here, well.. the group work started so the work has moved to a new blog!

Anyways, apparently there were a few things missing in my blog, which I will now add so nothing is missing.

How to sign up for a .com.ar domain?

To sign up for a .com.ar domain, all you have to do is go to NIC.AR and sign up for the domain you want.

There are however a few things you have to consider when signing up: The domain you want cannot exist already, you need a valid email address, the domain name cannot contain any form of racial offense, for example. Argentinians also need to enter their personal details as well as DNI, therefore you need a valid address in Argentina. A person can have up to 200 .com.ar domains, but nic.ar serves only for the top level domain, not for hosting any kind of data. Also, a domain name can max. contain 19 letters.

To get the domain working you have to change the DNS in the “tramites” section, as you need to get the user forwarded to where the data is hosted.

To maintain a .COM.AR you don’t need to do much, but “renew” it once a year, as they run out after a year. Signing up and maintaining the domain however is free.

Webquiz

A webquiz is a way to check someones knowledge about something. It is like an offline quiz, but comes with a few advantages.

The teacher (for example) can make a new quiz, add his questions in the form of multiple choice or “short answer”. Furthermore he can allow only specific users to take the quiz, he can set a time when the quiz starts and when it ends.

The huge advantage of a webquiz is that the answers can be added by the teacher, so a multiple choice quiz does not have to be corrected by the teacher – the system does it automatically and, if wanted, lets the user know the result and the right/wrong answers as well.

A Webquiz can be found online, some for free.. others charge for the service. The webquiz I prepared before the exam is hosted on http://quizstar.4teachers.org/

Sadly enough wordpress doesnt support an implementation of a webquiz directly in the blog, well.. cant help it.

To sum up 2 points:

You can make a private and/or public webquiz, multiple choice or open answers.

Pages that provide a quize are quizstar.4teachers.org or also free-online-surverys.co.uk

I was told that my webquiz was missing here, but as I said, i cant link it directly on wordpress.. but before the exam I sent the teacher a link and the login details for the quiz. This quiz is still published on quizstar!

Social Networks

Social Networks, such as Facebook for example, offer a huge advantage for companies – direct contact to their (possible) customers.

This means they can have an improved CRM because of getting opinions, communicating and sharing information with their customers. But they can also use the platforms to announce news and public useful information in order to find new customers.

Many well known companies are part of social networks for those reasons. Feedback comes due to communication – positive or negative feedback, the users in social networks share their opinion, which is very useful for the companies.

Facebook:

Well, on facebook you can share your opinion about basically anything, also various products. The companies can then read those opinions and try to improve their products.

Users can also become fans of the company/product, by signing up as a “Fan” the subscriber will receive news and useful information provided by the company.

Very good way to keep in touch with the customers without them actually having to do much – sign up once.

LinkedIn:

Has advantages for private users and companies, as private users can search for qualified help, for example, or see if there is a job opening somehwere. But the main advantage lies in companies finding qualified staff, as users have their career uptodate online.

Of course this is also a social network, so people can communicate and keep in touch.

SecondLife:

Well, another way for companies to keep in touch with customers, this time in a virtual world where companies actually earn additional money. Dont have to say much about it – a social network in form of a “virtual life”.. just a graphical way of a social network.

YouTube:

Well, a different way of a social network, mainly used for sharing videos. Very useful for “newcomers”, quite a few people became famous just using youtube to publish their home made music/movie/whatever audio/video.

Interesting for companies as they can upload their commercials, for example. Music producers can publish free versions of their songs in a low quality so users can see if they like it and buy it afterwards.

Most people use youtube to watch videos only, but there is a huge community behind it – communicating and sharing.

SlideShare:

Very useful especially IN a company. You can upload a presentation, even with voice comments and other people can watch it. For multinationals, for example, this makes life a lot easier.  Companies can also use this to explain a more complex product to their users – Oracle for example is doing this, but they are using their own platform, not slideshare.

Very good idea, whereby I am not seeing a network behind slideshare. Might be my lack of experience with it, tho.

Another one of my choice:

Would in this case be studivz: This is somehow like facebook, but servers as a social network for german students (stud(i) = students and VZ = Index).

A way german students use to communicate, once it was a bit more based on educational stuff, as it was for students.. now its almost the same as facebook, used by germans.

Security Question:

Which of these is a cryptographic protocol used for communication security?

TLS – Transport Layer Security

AIS – Advanced Internet Security

ABWT – Advanced Barbed Wire Tracking

FTP – File Transfer Protocol

Blog ready for the exam

Checked the list once again, the blog seems to include all the asked information – okay, including some minor typos and mistakes, but hey.. nobody’s perfect!

Things that are still missing in the blog

Well, as I’ve not been to one of the classes 2 weeks ago, this is what the blog is missing.

Social Networks:

Social Networks, such as Facebook, Youtube and others offer various different advantages as well as disadvantages for companies.

The main ones would be that companies can use the social networks to advertise – which is an advantage. Many users on social networks publish their age, their sex, their internet and often a lot more (private) information. This can be used by companies to target the right group of people.

Also, companies can look for feedback on various platforms, as users come together and share their opinion.

If companies take part actively in social networks they can also enhance their CRM, often seen with with computer games and their forums.

There is also negative aspects of the social networks:

If there is something the customers dont like, they can come together in a virtual place and share their opinion. Other people read the opinion and will rather take another product because of the bad reputation.

Companies could as well experience what happened to HSBC a while back: They changed one of their policies for customers after they graduate – thousands of graduates joined a Facebook group to fight against it. Going all together they have more power and they spread the bad news really fast – so that the company has to react.

If there is 2000 single letters going to a company the public wont even notice and they would not have to do something. If thousands of people join the same virtual group to protest against something the people will know. I always see what groups my friends join on Facebook, for example.

Other platforms such as youtube have their very own advantages and disadvantages, lets just mention copyrights – songs on youtube – everyone can listen to them and is actually downloading them at the same time (most users wouldnt even know that). But the companies could use the platform to advertise the music in a low quality version and offer a link to pay for the same music in better quality.

SecondLife is another world, a virtual one. Advantages for companies are of course the advertisement they receive if they are present.

LinkedIn is a social network to find old friends or meet new people. This might be for professionell or private reasons. Companies could, for example, look for skilled labour using LinkedIn.

SlideShare, as the name already says is used to upload and share PowerPoint presentations and Word Documents. As you are also able to save sound with your presentation, you can basically have a presentation that is available online 24/7, with your own voice explaining the slides. Perfect for business talking to their partners/colleagues/customers.

Flickr is another social network that is mainly used for uploading pictures – and commenting! As competition you might see devianart, which is a huge community of semi/professionals who share one and the same interest – art. (fotography, painting, drawing).

The webquiz is now online, and the teacher received an email with the login. I will not publish this yet because it contains the actual exam questions.

Just some general informatin that shouldnt be missing here:

You can have a multiple choice quiz, true/false and short answer. One of the pages that offer quizes is “QuisStars” for example.

Somewhere Ive talked about the major dot com flops already, just forgot where and cant seem to find it.

Well, I’ll add a bit of my opinion here:

The companies who had to suffer dot com failures where mostly having a good idea and were owning good money, after a year they started to expand and had to carry huge costs – basically they were spending too much money. It all seems to be working just fine and they can expand to other places and get the money back fast enough – which is often not the case, so they go bankrupt as they cant pay their bills anymore. Webvan is the perfect example, a good running business that wanted to expand to 26 cities because of their success. They just did not have enough customers and therefore income to spend so much money and expand that rapidly – not able to pay the bills – bankrupt 2 years after the start of the business.

Of course there is also the businesses that fail because of having a stupid idea. An only currency to replace real money? With the huge market the internet offers they would need every single online store as a partner to make this happen, that would basically require a monopoly for payment options online? Yeh right, as if thats gonna happen.. (my opinion! )

Mercado.com.ar

Monthly subscription on mercado.com.ar costs 12AR$ per month.

You also receive a book about management, economics and negotiations.

Anual subscription 150AR$ per year, as a gift you receive the same book as stated above.

A 2 year subscription costs 279$ and as a gift you get a vacation for 4 people in an exclusive resort.

The business consists of online subscribers only.

Notes

HBR costs to subscribe:

In print 12 issues, delivery included US$149.

HBR Online: Archive and exclusive web content, Spring 2009

Premium Membership: 12 Issues and 52 weeks online Archive access.

 

Target: “HBR readers have power, influence and potential.”

Source: http://harvardbusiness.org/hb-main/resources/pdfs/ad-sales/hbr-dedicated-readers-booklet.pdf

In detail: Students, Graduates, Managers, Educators, Corporate Buyers.

31% of HBR readers hold chief officer responsibility

65% of HBR readers are the highest technology “Power Influencers”

64% of readers have taken action or plan to take action as a direct result of seeing an ad in HBR.

Advertisement in HBR:

Since 2005 new categories of advertisement, including luxury, biotech and economic development.

Regarding advertisement the top revenue-generating categories were technology, corporate branding, education and financial services.

The following costs for online advertising were listed in 2008:

A banner on the homepage, depending on the size, costs between 75$ and 60$ per 1000 page impressions.

In the newsletter an advertisement in form of a jpg/gif costs 75$, for the same costs there is the option to obtain 300 charcacters.

There is also some special options for advertisement that HBR offers, for example 10 seconds audio podcasts, 15 seconds video pre-roll or banners in the resource center.

 Source: http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/files/hbr/hbp-online-rate-card.pdf

The following costs for print advertising were listed in 2008:

Full page between 33.081$ and 40.043$ depending on the colour.

Smaller sizes (1/3 page up to 2/3 page) ranging between 14.885$ and 32.305$.

 For regular advertisers HBR offers frequency discounts.

Source: http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/files/hbr/hbr-print-rate-card.pdf

Business Model:

HBR focuses on selling information, either in print version or online.

For the first midterm!

Times and Topics

14/04: Redes Sociales

21/04: eCommerce

28/04: Medios de Pago

05/05: Legales y Seguridad

12/05: Parcial

For the parcial: 5 quiz questions with answers

Notes:

Web 2.0: Interactive!

Prosumer = Poducer + Consumer

Podcast de Esteban Mancuso:

http://www.vacasvolando.com/money-money/64/capitulo-2-hay-negocio-en-la-web-20/

SEM: Search Engine Marketing

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation

IAB:

SCM: Supply Chain Management

ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning

BI / KM: Business Intelligence / Knowledge Management

CRM: Customer Relationship Management

BPM: Business Process Management

 

Web 3.o:

Web 3.0 is also known as “Semantic Web”, it serves as a mix of a semantic web and Web 2.0.

The aim of a semantic web is to have computers analyse and process the information that is available online. This could, for example, put information about various things together, atuomatically. An example used on wikipedia is a journey somewhere – and the web would automatically show you the weather, the traffic updates and possible stops on the way. One more step would then be to combine this information with the behavioural information known about the person. Basically: If he likes thai food it might as well justl ist all the thai foods on the way and within a 5km range of the route, in the time period of 19-21hs because thats when the driver prefers to have dinner.

Nowadays the internet is based on a massive amount of information, most of it not being in any kind of relation to something else. A semantic web would automatically put all this together and find links between the information “online”. There are already some applications for the semantic web, for example: Theseus, which is a research program provided by the german government. Another thing that already exists is a search engine, called “Swoogle” (semantic web google)

Web 4.0:

This is nothing but my very own opinion.

Due to the current (since a while) existing boom in using Web 2.0 and the new interfaces that are possible with new CPU/GPU/RAM Web 4.0 might be a whole new world, online. You might think about something like “Second Life” now, but what i mean is more like people not even noticing that they are using the computer. Combine all the new technologies that are getting cheaper when time comes, it might actually be tottaly interactive. Give it voice orders or a motion sensor.. hard to imagine you have a platform at home you can run on and actually do things, not use the keyboard and mouse for input. This is, of course, rather something that goes into a movie, but as Web 4.0 is so far away and technology advances everyday.. you cant really tell what its gonna look like.

One thing is for sure, using web 3.0 the information is gonna be linked and the internet as of web 4.0 is not going to be that anonymous anymore.

NGI – Next Generation Internet:

According to some online resources, the NGI was completed in 2002 already, and was a project to extend the internet bandwidth which was established and completed by the US government. The president signed the project in ‘96, so did the vice president (Clinton and Gore).

The NGI website does not exist anymore, only an archive to find articles from ‘96 till ‘05. The project was a success, with one aim not being achieved: Transfer a terabit per second.

After the NGI was completed, there was a new project: LSN

Large Scale Networking is another project to exented the internet, especially the access points and the bandwidth.

Once again, the LSN homepage is not available at the moment. (Which i find pretty strange for a project trying to make the internet faster )

Internet2:

Internet2 is a new network based on a 100GB/s backbone. It connects nowadays about 210 universities, 70 corporations and 45 non-profit and government organisations (source is wikipedia in this case).

The aim is to establish a leading edge network to fully use the broadband that is available.

For now, internet2 is only used for educational reasons, whereby it doesnt say that it will not go public at some point.

Let me explain this in common words for a second:

Universities and corporations are connected as a huge new network, they call it internet2. Every bigger company for example has its on intranet, which would be there own internet27 if they wanted to. Now the difference is that this is universities and corporations collecting information and using the higher bandwidth for new applications that were not possible on the “real internet”. Internet2 is used as an information platform, but the higher speed allows more applications to be executed and run just fine.

All the network’s traffic is filtered and monitored, so it stays a high level educational platform. If this would go public with the right for everyone to add new things it would either carry a huge cost and in my opinion it would be impossible to achieve, as well.

Compare internet2 to a smaller, but faster internet that contains only educational information and does not have any form of commercial interest. No banners for viagra, no spam emails for “making things bigger”.. you know what i mean

Well, once again this might still contain some mistakes and i should probably expand on some explanations here and there, but ill do this another day so i can actually see all my typos and get new ideas!

Imaginando el Futuro de Google

Imagining the Google Future – in English.

An arctile that shows 4 scenarios analysing where the business could be heaading, an arcticle which was published by Chris Taylor in the Business 2.0 Magazine.

The article gives some numbers about US ad money being spent on the yellow pages and on the internet, whereby they are mentioning that the money spent on internet advertising while go up a lot in the future.

This is just common sense in my opinion, watch the history of the internet and its current development – it is clear that when the newer generations all hit working age, most products will be advertised online. There is of course still some products for people that are not quite using the internet nowadays, mostly older people. These people are sometimes a good target group for certain products, and therefore the advertisements have to use other channels than the internet.

For me personally, an advertisement in the yellow pages or even on TV wouldnt affect me at all, as i am using the intenet for research regarding companies and i am not watching tv. Instead I am using the internet to stream/download whatever I want to see.

Google is expanding rapdily, the article is stating 8 new hires per day in 2005, and with the server power they have, they can achieve even more – if they make the right decissions. Their new employees are mostly coming from their very own competition, which would make it even harder for their competitors to put up a fight.

Analysing the different scenarios mentioned in the article, it is important to mention that it was written in 2006. So things like Google TV in 2008 are not really relevant, as we know “the articles near future”.

The first 2 scenarios seem quite frictional to me. to be honest, I just cant imagine that happening. But hey, there is so many things in technology nobody would have imagined 20 years ago, so you never know. Both scenarios tend to see google as a monopoly in various business sectors in the future – whis this I actually agree, but the sectors I have in mind differ a bit from the ones mentioned in the scenarios. Free wireless and mobile phone calls? I just cant see any form of making money with that. Obviously google has way too much information already.. with all the companies they are owning they can just collect a huge database of possible customers for anyone. The newly introduced webbrowser makes it even worse. But how are they going to make a use of that with mobile phone calls? Establish their very own network and then have ads for 5 seconds when you make a call? Or just use it as an expenditure to force your monopoly in different sectors?

Well, those questions remain to be answered by the google owners and researches, as some of them really count as the best at what they are doing – I guess they could come up with something that pays out for the company.

Or not. “google it!” Well, what if google goes to far, as one scenario shows. We are living in a rapidly changing world, especially looking at technology. Competitors might just find a way to be as efficient as google is, but still.. With the power google has already, they would have to make a really big mistake to drop their position.

And hey, google is no bad thing in my opinion. Without google maps I would probably even buy a map, unfold it and use it.. I could actually take it with me as well!

Ooooor I just go to google maps, have all the details I will never find on an oldschool map.. Cant carry that with me? Not true either. Just use the blackberry which is downloading the google maps using 3G. Up to date, way more details, smaller, always in your pocket/bag.

The “dead google” scenario is sending google a warning already – do not push for it. All the information google is gathering, use it in the wrong way and the company will suffer, a lot.

 

Ill conclude this in just a few words: Google is on the best way to being a monopoly in not only one business, and the gathered information will enable them to go for more power every single day. But once the trust of the users is gone due to bad decission making the company will suffer a lot.

Obvioulsy, nobody knows. Let the future come and let’s see how google will use it’s power!

 

Ooonce again, gonna read this again at some point to add some arguments and change minor typos and grammar mistakes.

Maaas info

1. La historia de “Electronic Mail”:

At the end of the 80s the email boom started, using the functions the Arpanet was offering. The email service was not a planned function, as Lawrence Roberts stated that the use of exchanging text would not be of a high value. But in the year 1971 there was already more data transfer caused by emails than by file transfer, for example.

In the same year, 1971, Ray Tomlinson released 2 programs, used for electronic mail. Therefore some people also see him as the real founder of “emails”. In the following years, systems to send text messages over a network were being establsihed (e.g.  X.25 and BTX). Special protocols were used to transfer text, whereby RFC 822 was the first one to transfer text in Arpanet. Due to the development the protocol changed and so did the name. In 2001 the protocol was called RFC 2822 and in 2008 it changed to the name it has now – RFC5322. This protocol defines the format of the email, the other parts of the email only consist of pure text, written in 7bit ASCII letters.

Nowadays it is also possible to send html emails, normally using a web interface or an email program (Outlook, TheBat e.g.) to design and “read” html emails.

It is also possible to attach files, such as pictures or sound to emails. Although this might be limited by the space provided by the email provider.

Emails bring some advantages, which are for example:

Fast way of communication, 24 hours – 7 days a week, worldwide, “offline” messages possible, saving paper, mobile information (laptop, smartphone), cheap (sign up for free, all you need is an internet connection).

Also, using an exchange server with a windows mobile/blackberry smartphone brings huge advantages, as you get your emails pushed to your mobile device.

2. News groups

News groups such as google groups can be seen as a huge archive collecting posts and information about certain topics.

Users have the option to read posted messages and ,depending on the group, often write posts themselves. Nowadays, it is also possible to have forums in groups, where people can discuss about certain things.

Companies, for example, are often using groups such as google groups to improve their CRM and to be able to see what the customers think, where they would like improvements and to analyze existing problems.

This brings us to some advantages already: Lets have a look at the marketing!

Due to google groups companies can post information about their new articles in the specific forums, for example a “Tech Forum” for logitech hardware. Also, they can make a positive use of the feedback the products are receiving.

As asked, I created a google group, it is to be found here:

http://groups.google.de/group/alexinba

Still pretty empty, but who knows, it might actually change at some point!

3. P2P

Peer to Peer is something almost every young person with an internet access is using nowadays, without even knowing it. Mostly they are using it due to filesharing. Programs such as Bittorrent or mtorrent make it possible for users to exchange files, mostly music and videos (movies). This, of course, is often not legal as there are copyrights on music and movies.

Basically, the P2P system works as a direct interchange of information between users in a network. Looking at filesharing, the P2P network is the internet, and the users are downloading AND uploading data.

This kind of data exchange is hard to stop, even if illegal, because the homepages offering torrent files (which lead the users to the same point, basically) are not doing anything illegal. They are just a map for users to get together, but they are not actually offering something forbidden by law.

One of the most famous and first programs for filesharing using the P2P system was “Napster”, which was mostly used for downloading music.

In some countries the government is already trying to prevent P2P filesharing, as in Germany for example the music industry is fighting against the illegal way of obtaining music. Quite a number of germans have already received a bill, stating the damage they did because of obtaining and storing music without actually having the necessary copyright.

Peer to Peer also brings legal advantages, in this case for companies: Marketing. You could for example inspire customers to buy their products by offering preview versions – which the users can get using P2P.

4. Instant Messaging

Known as a form of direct communication between 2 or more users. It is based on transferring data, once again, but this time it is text messages that are instantly received by the other end. The other end might be 1 user or many. The main difference to email is that the message arrives instantly, mostly the same second.

To use this kind of communication you need programs which are designed for exchanging text. Nowadays there are a few known programs available online, most of them for free. For example, a lot of people around the world are using MSN, the messenger microsoft is offering. Another option would be ICQ, which is basically the same thing by a different provider. Skype also offers the option of instant messaging.

Most programs used as instant messengers also offer other things today, such as voice communication or video-conferences.

Personally, im using a program called “Miranda” which has the benefit of putting different networks together. I could use the very same program to connect to an IRC netword (Internet Relay Chat), talk to friends using the msn network as well as communicating via ICQ. As my friends from london are all using MSN and my german friends mostly ICQ, this makes the program very attractive.

A way to make use of instant messaging in the marketing sector is the commercials the programs are using, for example. Using the real ICQ program, not only their network, you have an advertisement in form of a banner in every single conversation. Using this kind of advertisement, companies could try increasing sales for a product. This is especially interesting as mostly young people are using instant messaging services still, so you have a special target group already.

5. FTP

FTP, also known as FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL is used for transferring files, obviously. I use it personally to exchange files with other people, perfectly legal files of course. Anyone with an internet connection can open up a FTP-Server, as long as he has the program and the rights (intranet) to do it.

As we already know, every user connected directly to the internet through his ISP has his own IP address. This would serve as the direction for the client, once the FTP-server is running.

FTP servers are mostly used for file storage, either for backups, homepages, or just downloads. But as mentioned, every user can set up a server to offer any kind of information to another user.

Programs used talking about FTP have to be differentiated in client and server side: G6 would, for example, allow you to open a server.

FlashFXP and FileZilla would allow you to connect to a server, whereby FileZilla is opensource and therefore free. Even the Explorer that comes with windows is able to connect to FTP-Servers, so no program is really needed at all, but for additional options it really is recommended.

Marketing benefits in a few indirect ways in my opinion: You can store files there that are being accessed, as a banner that is being displayed on a homepage. Everything people see on a page is stored somewhere, so without a storage like a FTP-server there would need be any information at all.

Also, using the file transfer, companies could offer preview versions of their new game (demos) for download.

6. Telefonia IP

Using the Internet Protocol to communicate with landlines or other users connected to the internet. Very useful is for example “Skype”, especially for us having the family abroad. A call from a normal landline would cost a lot of money, using Skype it costs either nothing (if the other person has an internet access, a computer and the needed program) or a lot less when calling a landline.

This, obviously offers the benefit to make calls for very low costs, resulting in companies selling their products over the phone, for example. Also the CRM would come in a lot cheaper, as things like outsourcing are a possibility.

 

 

Enough for today, I will probably edit this once I read it again and add a few things.

Still playing with wordpress! Polls~~

Test – Audioplayer

Cybersquatter y Typosquatter

En el articulo sobre ICANN y TLDs ya explique brevemente que es “cybersquatting”.

En general es registrar un TLD para venderlo a companias o personas despues. Es decir, lo compras solamente para venderlo despues de nuevo, ganando dinero.

“Typo” signifca cometer errores cuando estas escribiendo.. por ejemplo “gooogle” es un typo, porque la pagina es “google”. Esos errores occuren rapido si estas escribiendo rapido en la computadora.

Para usar eso, algunas porsonas registran paginas como wiipedia.com. Sin la letra K.

Cybersquatting y Typosquatting son maneras de ganar dinero a las expensas de otras personas o companias.