1. BC501 eBusiness Fundamentals Topic 2 - Search

2. Digital information Photography, Video, TV. How does this change things for business? Visible change today is the Internet. Big opportunity - Access at a distance Also limitations – used for good and bad…..

3. Just how digital is the world becoming? Who is using the Internet? How are they using the Internet? Consumers, citizens, students, business Becoming central to what many people are doing Not everyone has access….what is happening in other parts of the world?

4. Where do you find information on…… The Internet is a vast database of intertwined information Search has always been an important component. How do I find information? After 10 years search has become the focal point of every major player. Yahoo, Google, IBM, Qantas, Sensis etc ….so how as a business do you get found? Advertising still part of the solution…. Moved from domain names, banner ads to search based advertising

5. Portals Q1. Define portal Q2. Is a search engine the same as a portal? Yes, No Q3. Is a search engine the same as a directory? Yes, No Q4. List search engines / portals you use and explain why

6. Search engines Directories News aggregators MR aggregators Comparers Exchanges Meta services Portal A gateway to information resources and services

7. Types of portal Type of portalCharacteristicsExample Access portalAssociated with ISPWanadoo (www.wanadoo.com) and now (www.orange.co.uk)www.wanadoo.comwww.orange.co.uk AOL (www.aol.com)www.aol.com Horizontal or functional portal Range of services: search engines, directories, news recruitment, personal information management, shopping, etc. Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com)www.yahoo.com MSN (www.msn.com)www.msn.com Google (www.google.com) for which a long period just focused on search.www.google.com VerticalA vertical portal covers a particular market such as construction with news and other services. Construction Plus (www.constructionplus.co.uk)www.constructionplus.co.uk Chem Industry (www.chemindustry.com)www.chemindustry.com Barbour Index for B2B resources (www.barbour-index.com)www.barbour-index.com E-consultancy (www.e-consultancy.com) Focuses on e-business resourceswww.e-consultancy.com Media portalMain focus is on consumer or business news or entertainment.BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)www.bbc.co.uk Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk)www.guardian.co.uk ITWeek (www.itweek.co.uk)www.itweek.co.uk Geographical (Region, country, local) May be: horizontal vertical Google country versions Yahoo! country and city versions Craigslist (www.craigslist.com)www.craigslist.com Countyweb (www.countyweb.com)www.countyweb.com MarketplaceMay be: Horizontal Vertical Geographical EC21 (www.ec21.com)www.ec21.com eBay (www.eBay.com)www.eBay.com Search portalMain focus is on SearchGoogle (www.google.com)www.google.com Ask Jeeves (www.ask.com)www.ask.com Media typeMay be: Voice Video Delivered by streaming media or downloads of files BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)www.bbc.co.uk Silicon (www.silicon.com)www.silicon.com

8. Place of purchase Examples of sites A. Seller- controlled Vendor sites, i.e. home site of organization selling products, e.g. www.dell.com.www.dell.com B. Seller-orientedIntermediaries controlled by third parties to the seller such as distributors and agents, e.g. Opodo (www.opodo.com) represents the main air carrierswww.opodo.com C. NeutralIntermediaries not controlled by buyers industry, e.g. EC21 (www.ec21.com).www.ec21.com Product-specific search engines, e.g. CNET (www.computer.com)www.computer.com Comparison sites, e.g. Barclay Square/Shopsmart (www.barclaysquare.com)www.barclaysquare.com Auction space, e.g. eBay (www.ebay.com)www.ebay.com D. Buyer-orientedIntermediaries controlled by buyers, e.g. Covisint used to represent the major motor manufacturers (www.covisint.com) although they now dont use a single marketplace, but each manufacturer uses technology to access its suppliers direct.www.covisint.com Purchasing agents and aggregators E. Buyer- controlled Web site procurement posting on companys own site, e.g. GE Trading Process Network (www.tpn.geis.comwww.tpn.geis.com Online representation

9. Altruism Vs Best Business Yahoo, Google – tying in process of search and advertising …paid placement search First page the most important….. Opportunity for advertisers, dumbing down for searcher? Search – bots, crawlers, people (early yahoo) Wikipedia – organised by people.. Search protocol? Questions, key word, set of expressions (Boolean ie this or that etc) Natural language the ideal

10. To much information! The critical issue for business and consumers has become – How to be found and in turn how to find information. Search is the critical element.

11. How to rank? Ranking algorithms needed. If millions of results how are they ranked. Google took novel approach to ranking (future case study)

12. Four main search components 1) Data base 2) a collection mechanism for adding data 3) search protocol which enables users to query the database 4) A ranking algorithm that determines how results are presented to users

13. Search IS the web Search has become the focal point of the web. Google is currently the leader Search is core aspect of where we are heading Average users today are storing vast amounts of data… We are moving to a world where you dont throw anything away.

14. Video Bill Joy led Sun's technical strategy from the founding of the company in 1982 until September 2003. While at Sun, he was a key designer of Sun technologies including Solaris, SPARC, chip architectures and pipelines, and Java. In 1995 he installed the first city-wide WiFi network. Joy has more than 40 patents issued or in progress. Bill Joy Video - http://mitworld.mit.edu/play/322/ http://mitworld.mit.edu/play/322/

15. Stuff So what are the 6 webs? Could there be more? What does it mean for business?

16. Before next week Listen to podcast on search – Digital Enterprise Tute Questions – 2.1 What were the main forces that led to the commercialisation of the Internet? (p.98 text) 2.2 What are the four (4) main points Michael Rappa makes about search? References: http://www.ewiki2.pbwiki.com http://digitalenterprise.org./index.html Electronic Commerce (Schneider)