Page 82 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

60 2 E-Commerce: Mechanisms, Platforms, and Tools

7. Bartering and negotiating. Electronic bartering can connectivity with the wireless environment and on-
greatly facilitate the swapping of goods and services among demand applications. Knowledge management will be
organizations, thanks to improved search and matching one of its main pillars. The Semantic Web will play a
capabilities, which is managed by bartering exchanges. major role in Web 3.0 applications. Web 3.0 and its
Software agents can facilitate online nego tiation. applications will depend on IT trends such as the devel-
8. The structure and role of virtual communities. Virtual opments in cloud computing, utility computing, parallel
communities create new types of business opportunities. processing, and machine intelligence. Web 4.0 is a futur-
They bring people with similar interests together at one istic Web that will be built on ubiquitous and intelligent
website. (Such groups are a natural target for advertisers systems. It will connect “islands” of intelligence from
and marketers.) Using chat rooms, discussion spaces, and different sources. Web 5.0 is only a theory, but can be
so forth, members can exchange opinions about certain considered as a Symbionet Web, decentralized.
products and services. Of special interest are communities
of transactions, whose interest is the promotion of commer-
cial buying and selling. Virtual communities can foster cus- KEY TERMS
tomer loyalty. This may increase sales of products made by
vendors that sponsor communities, and facilitate customer Augmented reality
feedback for improving service and business operations. Back end
9. Social networks as EC mechanisms. These are very Bartering
large Internet communities that enable the sharing of Bartering exchange
content, including text, videos, and photos, and promote Business-oriented social network
online socialization and interaction. Hundreds of social Buy-side e-marketplace
networks are emerging around the world, competing for Crowdsourcing
advertising money. Millions of corporations advertise, Desktop search
entertain, and even sell on social networks. Digital products
Business-oriented communities concentrate on busi- Disintermediation
ness issues, both in one country and around the world Double auction
(e.g., recruiting, finding business partners). Social mar- Dynamic pricing
ketplaces meld social networks and some aspects of E-bartering (electronic bartering)
business. Notable business-oriented social networks are E-distributor
LinkedIn and XING. Some companies are active in pub- Electronic auction (e-auction)
lic social networks such as Facebook. Other companies Electronic catalog (e-catalog)
own and operate their own social networks within the Electronic shopping cart
company, which are known as enterprise social net- E-mall (online mall)
works. Their members are usually employees and retir- E-marketplace
ees. They are used mainly for collaboration, knowledge Enterprise search
creation and preservation, training, and socialization. Forward auction
Many large companies have such networks (e.g., IBM, Front end
Wells Fargo, Northwestern Mutual). Intermediary
10. Augmented Reality (AR) and crowdsourcing. These Mobile portal
emerging technologies facilitate two types of EC activi- Mobile social networking
ties. AR blends visual aspects of computer and physical Name-your-own-price model
worlds. Thus, it can facilitate advertisement and presen- Penny auction
tation of information. It works by pointing a mobile Reverse auction (bidding or tendering system)
device (e.g., smartphone) to a product or building and Search engine
adds information to what you see (e.g., 360 degree view, Sell-side e-marketplace
price tag). Crowdsourcing solicits the wisdom of the Semantic Web
crowd for idea generation or problem-solving. It also is Virtual community
used to divide a large task among many people, each of Virtual reality
whom is executing a different, small subtask. Voice portal
11. Web 3.0 and Web 4.0, and Web 5.0. Web 3.0, the next Web 3.0
generation of the Web, will combine social and business Web 4.0
computing. It will be more portable and personal, with Web (information) portal
powerful search engines, increased clout, and greater Webstore (storefront)