Page 37 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

14 1 Overview of Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Opportunities for Entrepreneurs systems concentrate on business processes, particularly
transaction processing and increases in productivity, social
A major benefit of EC is the creation of opportunities to start computing concentrates on improving collaboration and
a business in an unconventional ways. The new business interaction among people and on user-generated content. In
models permit entrepreneurs to open businesses with little social computing and commerce, people work together
money and experience and grow them rapidly. Many entre- over the Internet, consult with specialists, and locate goods
preneurs are making some big money online. and services recommended by their friends.

Example: Fish Flops Example: Social Computing Helps Travel
Madison Robinson was a 15-year-old ninth grader when she Advances in social computing impact travel operations and
opened the business, both online and off-line. She designs the decisions. Travelers can share good travel experiences or warn
footwear herself. Madison uses her Twitter account and others of bad experiences using sites such as tripadvisor.com.
tweets about Fish Flops. After only two years of operation, Special travel-oriented social networks such as WAYN are very
the business became profitable enough to pay Madison’s col- popular among travelers.
lege expenses. For details, see Burke (2013).
In social computing, information is mostly generated by
individuals and is available to all, usually for free. The major
EC as a Provider of Efficiency, Effectiveness, implementation tools of social computing are Web 2.0 and
and Competitive Advantage
social media.
The benefits of EC may result in significant changes in the way
business is conducted. These changes may positively impact Web 2.0
corporate operations resulting in a competitive advantage for
the firms using EC (e.g., see Khosrow-Pour 2013) as well as
The term Web 2.0 was coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004.
more efficient governments and nonprofit organizations.
Web 2.0 is the second generation of Internet-based tools and
services that enables users to easily generate content, share
SECTION 1.3 REVIEW QUESTIONS media, and communicate and collaborate, in innovative ways.
(For more details, see Edwards 2013.)
O’Reilly divided Web 2.0 into four levels and provided
1. List the major drivers of EC.
examples of each. For details, see Colby (2008). Karakas
2. List five benefits each to customers, organizations, and (2009) views Web 2.0 as a new digital ecosystem, which can
society.
be described through five C’s: creativity, connectivity, col-
3. From your knowledge, describe some technological devel- laboration, convergence, and community.
opments that facilitate EC.
The major tools of Web 2.0 are described in Chapter 2,
4. Identify additional benefits to society.
and the applications are described in most other chapters. In
addition, browse enterpriseirregulars.com/author/dion for
an open forum about the Internet, society, collective
1.4 SOCIAL COMPUTING AND COMMERCE intelligence, and the future. For Web 2.0 definitions, expla-
nations, and applications, see Shelly and Frydenberg (2010).
The first generation of EC involved mainly trading, e- services,
and corporate-sponsored collaboration. Currently, we are
moving into the second generation of EC, which we call Social Media
E-Commerce 2.0. It is based on Web 2.0 tools, social media,
social networks, and virtual worlds—all the offspring of The term social media has several definitions. A popular
social computing. definition is that social media involves user-generated online
text, image, audio, and video content that are delivered via
Web 2.0 platforms and tools. This media is used primarily
Social Computing for social interactions and conversations such as sharing
opinions, experiences, insights, and perceptions, and for
Social computing refers to a computing system that online collaboration. Therefore, it is a powerful force for
involves social interactions and behaviors. It is performed socialization. A key element is that users produce, control,
with a set of tools that includes blogs, wikis, social network and manage content. Additional definitions, descriptions,
services, and other social software tools, and social market- and references, and a framework are provided in Chapters 2
places (see Chapter 7). Whereas traditional computing and 7 and in Turban et al. (2016).