Week 10

Personalization is something that a large amount of websites are now doing, when a user buys something online or views certain pages on a website, the site will then take in this information and use it to suggest other pages or products that that user may be interested in.

This has got both its good points and bad points, it is good for the user, as it will in theory provide relevant things that the user will actually be interested in and may actually want to buy, meaning the higher chance of actually clicking on the adverts and maybe go the whole way through to buy a product, it will save companies money when it comes to advertising as they wont be wasting money advertising in places that will not return them any customers, such as websites that are completely unrelated to the topic or on sites that users of that age group will not be likely to visit.

The bad points about the personalization is that it will generate a very unfair market, certain things are much more popular than others, which means that the majority of traffic will look at things related to them, then hence the adverts and personalization on the page will only display things about them, meaning small firms and niche markets will struggle with online advertising, as they may rarely be discovered and their market share may never grow. This will also decrease the variety of advertisements that are displayed, some people may find things through advertisements that they previously didn’t know about, or may not see adverts about things they like but do not search for online.

In my opinion the personalization of websites should be done, but only for some of the adverts on the page, and the rest should be done in the normal fashion so that the market will remain fair.

An example of a page with normal advertising, the advert for sky plus, just on the homepage of Facebook.

An example of a page where the advertisements are personalized to the sort of thing a user of the site will be looking for.

Week 9

keywords are an essential part of finding a website using a search engine, websites that have got usefull and well thought out key words and phrases will be much easier to find on the internet than those that don’t. If i site has a poor selection of keywords it will not be found very often if at all on the internet, which then means that there is not much traffic to the site but it also will not make its way up the search results in something like google, which will then make it fall further.

Here is a list of keywords or phrases that are best suited to finding FaceBook.

“Find a friend”

This search term seemed to be highly related with facebook, showing a significant number of related results as shown in the screenshot below, so I belive this is an effecive way to find the website.

“Online Photo”

This term is used greatly to find facebook, as it allows users to upload photos online and all of the friends they have added on the site are able to view and comment on them.

“Social Network”

This term is used the most to find facebook, as it is a very general term that is used to find a vast amount of social network

“Application”

This keyword is used quite frequently as Facebook has got many different games and applications available to its users, some of which are very popular online

“Social Media”

This is a term used for all the social networking sites that allow users to upload and view things like videos, statements, photographs, and would be a very effective keyword for Facebook to use.

“Status Update”

A term used a lot in the social networking industry and is normally the main point to websites such as this so it is a very useful keyword.

“Farmville”

One of the most popular online games at the minute and is only available on Facebook, so using this as a keyword will link to the Facebook Site

“Fan Pages”

Each band or actor has normally got a fan page on Facebook, so this phrase is essential in a search engine

“Facebook Search”

Essential keyword as it allows people to instantly search for users or fan pages etc, directly from the search engine, making finding people much faster and easier.

“Connect with family”

This is a common phrase used, possibly by relatives that have moved to a different country etc, to communicate with ones back home

These keywords I believe sum up most of the workings of Facebook and all of the likely things a user is likely to search for trying to find the Facebook website.

Week 8

Facebook is one of the most visited websites on the internet, with many millions of page views each day, so I expect that it will be quite easy to find using a search engine. The search engine that I will be using is www.google.co.uk as I believe it is the most comprehensive search engine available. I will list A few of the criteria that I searched for below

 

“Facebook” – Returns Facebook as the first result

“Face” – Returns Facebook as the first result

 

“book” – Returns Facebook as the first result

“Social Network” – Facebook Listed 3^rd in results

“Farmville” – opens Farmville website which then links to Facebook, Facebook website appears 3^rd in results

“Bebo” – Facebook appears nowhere on the first page

“MySpace” – Facebook appears nowhere on the first page

 

There are many words which will link a user to the Facebook website, and I believe that it is one of the easiest websites to find using a search engine, as the name and any combination of the parts of the name will bring up the site, from what I can see there are no paid for advertisement results when searching for things to do with Facebook, other than for searching for Farmville, which is one of the most popular games on Facebook at the present time, most links that are not just links directly to the Facebook website normally take you to another website which then links to the Facebook website so it can also be found this way. When searching for competitors there was no sign of Facebook on any of the search pages or any paid for search results to do with any competitors, but when searching for social networking Facebook is the top one there, being below only Wikipedia which is providing a definition of social networking, and with MySpace being a sponsored link at the side but not actually appearing in the search results on the first page. This clearly shows me that Facebook is by far the dominant Social Networking website and is extremely easy to find using a search engine.

 

 

 

Week 7

Cloud computing is where all of the applications for various things are stored on servers in a location that is out of the way of normal society, and computers all over the world are able to access the programs an services that are in it remotely via the internet for a relatively small cost per usage.

 

Cloud computing is likely to have a massive impact on e commerce, as at the current moment in time many firms are having to fork out huge amounts of money to pay for the licenses to the various software suites they need to use in order for the business to function, and also need to have servers on site for the software to be installed in, which again adds to the costs of cooling, the actual place they are stored in and the maintenance charges for looking after them. Having it set out this way does have its advantages however, such as them having full control over the programs and the servers so they can change and modify them to exactly suit the firms needs.

 

If businesses where to start to use the cloud they would firstly save a lot of money on the actual cost of the software, as it can then be paid per usage or rented from the cloud websites for a relatively small amount of money, the software can then be used like it installed on the machine the person is using, it also means that the firm would only be paying for what they use. This would also save on the costs of storage, cooling and maintenance as the servers are owned and run by the government, so it would be very reliable and close to 100% uptime.

 

Over time I think that cloud computing will become the standard way to use applications as it will be cheaper in the long run for most users, as well as the software always being up to date and very reliable.Things may also become more of a standard so there will be less compatibility issues as users will be able to use the same software package no matter what computer they are using. It also has large environmental benefits, as the excess heat the servers make can be used to make electricity, or due to the location will be cooled using natural resources, which then saves on electricity.