First Seminar Introduction to Electronic and Mobile Commerce

This was the first session of BM362. I learnt quite a lot of new things during the three hours. They were :
--Data Services as Disruption
--Course Structure and Conduct
--Supply-side: Convergence or Chaos?
--Demand-side: Network-based Freedoms
--Business Models and New ICT: Web 2.0

Here I want highlight the third and fifth topic.

"Supply-side: Convergence or Chaos?"

Before the seminar, I have read the paper about FMC "The Impact of Fixed Mobile Convergence Technology on Market Entry" and have done some research on it. From my searching results, convergence of technology is a main trend in today's world. There are voice-data convergence, fixed-mobile convergence. They provide more convenience to users by improving technology in e-commerce field. For those who feel interested in voice-data convergence, here is the link to more
details:http://direct.xilinx.com/bvdocs/whitepapers/wp138.pdf


Business Models and New ICT: Web 2.0

My interest fell in the term Web 2.0 because I am not familiar with it.

Explanation from wikipedia :

Alluding to the version-numbers that commonly designate software upgrades, the phrase "Web 2.0" hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web; and advocates suggest that technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, Web APIs, Web standards and online Web services imply a significant change in web usage.Alluding to the version-numbers that commonly designate software upgrades, the phrase "Web 2.0" hints at an improved form of the World Wide Web; and advocates suggest that technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, Web APIs, Web standards and online Web services imply a significant change in web usage.

Characteristics of Web 2.0:

--"Network as platform" — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser.See also Web operating system.

--Users owning the data on the site and exercising control over that data.

--An architecture of participation and democracy that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.

--A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks.

--Some social-networking aspects.

--It is a Public good. "public goods" are characterized by two properties: jointness of supply and non-excludability (Hardin, 1982 ). The impossibility to exclude group members who didn’t contribute to the provision of goods from sharing its profits gives rise to the possibility that rational members will prefer to withhold their contribution of effort and "free ride" (see Free rider problem) on contribution of others (Marwell and Ames, 1979).