Dastoor+Azarmeen


 * Azarmeen Dastoor

Synopsis of Final Project:**

Chapter 14 in //W////eb.Studies// states that the dominant players occupying the Webspace from various areas - those companies such as Google, Walmart, etc. - will be the businesses that will continue to dominate in the future. This allows virtually no room for upcoming Web-based businesses to grow, or even take off. My project will uncover why these businesses are successful. Through research, I will discover what their business model outline is, as well as determining how their user interface illustrates their business model. Since social networking has been successfully integrated with professional businesses, my strategy is to use the advantages social networking has to offer in order to help small or starting businesses grow by public interaction, allowing instant feedback as well as establishing a connection with the business' targeted audience(s).

Website: []


 * Critical analysis on Beshoy Sidrak's page

__Amanda Shewnarine’s Critical Analysis__ I really enjoyed reading your paper, and your website was extremely well designed and easy to navigate through (which proves your point in the “basic concepts” for entrepreneurs - although you are not selling anything, if you were, I’d probably buy it!) It was really informative and actually got me thinking about small businesses using e-business, and how successful they could be if they could meet the standards of the e-business giants out there. You talked a lot about the advantages of e-business (which I am sure small businesses have noticed), the basics (which again, I’m sure they are aware of), incorporating social networking sites, how giant corporations have seen the benefits from social networking sites, and designing a site.

While reading your paper I started wondering if there were any drawbacks of e-business so I started researching. You already stated that ** security ** was one of the top-three factors affecting e-commerce, and other than that, I found that “one of the problems of e-business is to ** find relevant documents ** for making correct decisions” (Geibkh, 2005). I figure that if small businesses want to be able to compete with the giant corporations they must do enough research to find the relevant documents no matter how much information they must go through. Other issues that act as barriers to e-business include: ** lack of awareness and understanding of the value of e-commerce, lack of IT knowledge and skills, financial costs **, and ** infrastructure ** (Andam, 2003). If small businesses fail to recognize how important each of these factors are, they are setting themselves up for failure. Giant corporations are more trusted in the security factor, however small businesses can affiliate themselves with known security companies (like you stated: VeriSign or TRUSTe), which may persuade potential customers into buying merchandise. Despite the few drawbacks, e-business is an important strategic decision for businesses to stay competitive and to increase profitability. Small businesses can get recognition a lot easier on the Internet especially since in today’s society, wireless networks such as cell phones, and laptops are popular enabling individuals to access business information readily.

References:

Andam, Zorayda Ruth. // E-commerce and E-business //. Manila: E-ASEAN Task Force, 2003. 2003. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. .

Geibkh, A., G. Sidorov, and Y. Ledo-Mezquita. "Some Linguistic Methods of Improving the Quality of Document Retrieval on the Internet." // INSPEC //. Scholars Portal, 2005. Web. 24 Mar. 2010. . (PEER REVIEW)

Xue Wen (Christy) Pang - Critical Analysis

In the essay “The Overlooked Strategies Online Businesses Should Utilize”, Azarmeen Dastoor suggested useful strategies for online businesses: accessibility, efficiency, quality and community. Dastoor briefly mentioned Internet security of online businesses, and there are more concerns of that should be aware of. The increasing number of online businesses would likely raise the likelihood of e-attacks: hackers can illegally profit by stealing private information or destroying the Internet infrastructure (Joshi, Bagchi, Davie, Farrel, Foo, Garg, Glause, Modelo-Howard, Krishnamurthy, Loshin, McCabe, Ni, Peterson, Ramaswami, Sivarajan, Spafford, Varghese, Wu, Zheng 108). The Internet security risks pose serious threats to e-business customers and the businesses. Therefore, precautions targeting software and hardware to prevent Internet crime must be in place to protect both parties concerned. The threats of Internet security include the investigation of Phishing scams, cross-site scripting (XSS) and the lack of protection on Wi-Fi interfaces and wireless LANs, where personal information is easily cracked on major e-businesses such as eBay and PayPal. There are two useful tools to protect e-businesses: secure socket layer (SSL) is developed by Netscape to support point-to-point encryption, and secure electronic transaction (SET) is developed by Visa and MasterCard for “network-based payment card transaction” (Srinivasan “Role of Trust in E-business Success”). Furthermore, digital certificates are “unique identifiers” and “electronically verified” which provided a “reliable mechanism to trust independent agents” (Srinivasan “Role of Trust in E-business Success”). They are offered by organizations like Versign for e-businesses (Srinivasan “Role of Trust in E-business Success”). E-businesses should be aware of the scams and viruses that lead to serious losses. E-businesses benefits the economy as well as Internet users around the world; however, these e-businesses must update their knowledge of the latest scams and pay extra attention to their E-mails, websites and instant messages in order to protect themselves from scams in Internet security.

Joshi, James, Bagchi, Saurabh, Davie, Bruce S., Farrel, Adrian, Foo, Bingrui, Garg, Vijay K., Glause, Matthew W., Modelo-Howard, Gaspar, Krishnamurthy, Prashant, Loshin, Pete, Mccabe, James D., NI, Lionel M., Peterson, Larry L., Ramaswami, Rajiv, Spafford, Eugene H., Varghese, George, Wu, Yu-Sung and Zhend, Pei (2008). //Network Security: Know It All.// The United States of America Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Srinivasan, S.. “Role of Trust in E-business Success.” //Scholars Portal: Information Management & Computer Security Online Journal // 12.1 (2004), 12 (1): page 66-72. http://journals2.scholarsportal.info.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/details-sfx.xqy?uri=/09685227/v12i0001/66_roties.xml. 27 March 2010.

E-commerce has become highly extensive to a point that online websites and videos are at most times lobbying some company’s products or merchandise. One of the direct benefits of online commercial activity is that the business is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Be it a piece of string or a Gucci shirt, it is all available at the click of a button. It is evident that such business will have greater chances of success than a store which closes every night. The owner also saves money as there are no added expenses of renting out a store nor is any money spent on in store employees. Thus profit is highly maximized. “ More Canadians used the Internet to purchase goods and services in 2007, placing almost $12.8 billion worth of orders, up 61% from 2005.”(Statistics Canada) This increase is because of the increased use of credit cards online, which accounts for the current economic depression. By making such a large variety of goods and/or services easily available and not requiring immediate cash payment, the entrepreneurs ensure a steady consumer following. Canada. Statistics Canada. //E-commerce: Shopping on the Internet//. By Larry McKeown. 2008. //Statistics Canada//. Web. .
 * Syed Yousuf Hasan's critical analysis: **