Shay's Blog

Week 10 – Personalisation

shaymufc — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:10:13 +0000

This week we have been asked to take a stand on web personalisation. I personally like the idea of being able to customise and individualise web pages. Computers can store data based on a particular users’ actions whilst on a particular site. Websites such as ‘Amazon’ use this to great effect (at times). The method of displaying to the user a list of recommended products or services based on their previous searches or purchases is a type of personalisation. This can make it a lot easier for the user to quickly redirect or link to certain areas of the website that may contain products which they are more likely to be interested in or, best case scenario for the company, more likely to buy! This type of personaltisation can be via 2 different techniques:

-Content-based filtering (recommends goods having properties similar to those of the products that the customer selected in the past)
-Collaborative filtering (the suggestion of goods is based on the identification of customers similar to the current one and on the suggestion of the items which were appreciated by such customers).

Other methods of personalisation are:

•Name Recognition such as email addressed to “Mr. Your name” Versus “Dear Customer…”.

•Check-Box Personalization user-provided information via questionnaires, surveys, registration forms

•Segmentation and Rules uses demographic, geographic, psychographics profile, or other information to divide or segment large populations into smaller groups.

•Preference-Based Personalization seeks to understand the behavioral preferences of a specific, individual user and then delivers website content specifically targeted

Below I have provided some screenshots of websites that use some of the above methods of personalisation. These include Amazon’s content filtering, Youtube’s related searches and an option from the BBC website allowing users to select which theme they would wish to use to view the web pages.

Amazon's content filtering

Youtube's related searches

bbc screenshot

Week 9 – Customer Relationship Management

shaymufc — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:53:49 +0000

This week I have been asked to compile a list of 12 key phrases that best describe my chosen e-commerce site (bet365.com) as part of an Adwords campaign. Firstly I used the link provided on the assessment specification, which was the Google search-based keyword tool.
This allowed me to enter the website www.bet365.com and listed the search results for key words/phrases. The screenshot below shows these initial results

Another tool which I decided to use was Google’s Adword keyword tool. This allowed me to enter a keyword or phrase and obtain search results including data such as ‘Estimated CPC’ (cost per click), ‘Advertiser competition’, ‘Global monthly search Volume’, etc.

The image below shows how to use the Adwords tool:

Once you have entered your keywords or URL, and click ‘Get keyword ideas’, the search results will then appear. The results are sorted into categories depending on keyword (see screenshot below)

The final list of 12 keywords which I would use to best describe bet365 based on online searches are:

bet
online betting/betting
casino online
football betting
live score
horse racing
deal or no deal online
play poker
live in play
online gambling
tennis scores
live soccer

Week 8 – E-Marketing

shaymufc — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:01:07 +0000

This week we were asked to assess the ease of which our e-commerce sites can be found by typing the brand name or key themes into a search engine. I have decided to use Google as the search engine as I am most familiar with this site.

Google search results for "online betting"

After searching for “online betting” using Google, I can immediately see that bet365 has appeared as the first search result. Although bet365 is the first search result, it is not a “paid for” or “sponsored” link. A site called Forex Online Betting (InstaForex.com) appears as a sponsored link on google, as can be seen below:
After I searched for the category of online betting, I decided to search for a ‘key theme’, as suggested in the assessment specification. For this search i decided to search for ‘live in play betting’. Bet365 was not the most popular this time as sites such as betinplay.com, skybet.com, and sportingbet.com are displayed first.

In conclusion, bet365 is not as popular as it seems as regards online LIVE IN PLAY betting. There are still a few major competitors to compete with. They should be proud that after searching for online betting, their site appears first.

Week 7 E-Procurement

shaymufc — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:38:38 +0000

Cloud Computing:

Cloud computing is “A new generation of computing that utilizes distant servers for data storage and management, allowing the device to use smaller and more efficient chips that consume less energy than standard computers” (excerpt from www.financenewmexico.org/glossary.html).

Cloud computing is a form of service-orientated architecture where all applications and facilities (eg, compute, network and storage) are provided as a service rather than a permanent infrastructure. Software is offered as a service where users, irrelevant of their experience or independent of client platform, can access IT services without actually knowing where, or from whom, the service is coming from. This type of computing has been devised to use less energy and be more “GREEN” and should appeal to everyone jumping on the bandwagon of environmentally friendly computing.

An example of a cloud computing company is Elementool, which provides services such as Web based management software. One of its products is the use of file sharing, which is aptly demonstrated by the diagram below:

Elementool File Sharing

In terms of e-Commerce, cloud computing will have a major impact on the procurement of a lot of worldwide companies. This may not necessarily be good or bad, but will definitely change HOW services and products are ‘sold’. The benefits and problems are described below:

Cloud computing benefits:

Lower Cost
Flexibility/speed of implementation
Scalability (sometimes called elasticity)

Cloud Computing potential problems:

Cloud computing will actually cost some users more money (This is like IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS that can, in some circumstances, be more expensive than just owning or licensing your infrastructure, platform or software).
Security of data. Is all data (including important government or federal data) going to be stored on the same servers as customer/user data?

Week 5 E-Business Strategy

shaymufc — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:27:06 +0000

Porter’s 5 Forces:

Threat of Substitute products:

Bet365′s bets are of real life sporting events. They do not have the only rights to broadcast or take bets on these events. Any other company/website can offer services where they take bets on the same events as bet365. The detail lies in how bet365 present their services as well as incentives. Also their live in-play betting has taken some time to create and manage and this is to their credit as we can see just how popular they are.

The threat of the entry of new competitors:

Bet365 will always be under threat of new competitors. This is why bet365 has so many offers and promotions available to old, and specifically new customers. Not all other gambling websites have a free £200 bet when you sign up! This would definately help tackle the threat of new competitors. Bet365 use these types of incentives and bonuses to beat the competition and therefore higher their overall profits, making them more successful than other companies.

Basically, a lot of sites like bet365 are very similar in how they work, but bet365 has managed to be one of the most popular.

The intensity of competitive rivalry:

Bet365 competes with rival companies aggressively in most areas. The level of advertising and marketing within bet365 in massive. You only have to turn on your tv and watch a sporting event (such as the Barclay’s Premier league), and more often than not you will see either a television advertisement, or other advertising media such as shirt/club sponsors etc. As far as innovation goes, bet365 have changed how customers can bet on events. They were the first big name to offer live in-play betting which has been a major success. Smaller businesses trying to compete with bet365 will find it difficult to beat any services that it currently has.

The bargaining power of customers:

Also described as the market of outputs. The ability of customers to put the firm under pressure and it also affects the customer’s sensitivity to price changes, (extract taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_5_forces). This basically means that if customers stop using the services of bet365 due to eg, price changes, then the company will have to alter their prices to suit the customers (called buyer price sensitivity), especially if there is the availability of substitute products.

The bargaining power of suppliers:

Although the website bet365 doesn’t typically use “suppliers”, we can still say that channels of advertising are dictated by outside influences. For example, the Barclay’s Premier League would typically advertise www.bet365.com fairly often. If they then decided to promote a different service/company, then bet365 as a company would be heavily affected. Not only would they have limited access to most aspects of the organisation (showing match highlights, and having copyright issues), but their overall profits would be affected.

Porter's 5 Forces (source = wikipedia.org)

Week 4 E-Environment

shaymufc — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:58:44 +0000

As far as terms and conditions go for bet365, there are several different versions depending on what part of the site you wish to use. For example, bet365′s ‘Bingo’ has its own terms and conditions (T&Cs), ‘Casino’ has its own T&Cs, ‘Games’ has its own T&Cs. All can be found here at http://help.bet365.com/home/mainpage.asp . Nothing immediately strikes me as unusual or unreasonable about the terms and conditions.

As a customer does not actually purchase any items from the site, bet365 have no returns policy.

Data is secure when you use bet365.com as all data is encrypted. It uses HTTPS which is a secure protocol of data transfer. When you click the lock icon in the Address bar, you can see the security report. Depending on the type of certificate the website has, you can see the website address or the company address that the certificate was issued to. Extended Validation (EV) certificates will turn the Address bar green, and will contain a confirmed name and address for the website owner.

Bet 365 uses cookies and users must have them enabled to fully access and use the site.
Cookies are a small piece of text stored on a user’s computer by a web browser. The purpose of this is to store such information such as previous search results, shopping cart information, user preferences for that specific site, etc. I assume bet365 uses cookies to record and store information such as the users’ preferred betting events/leagues etc.

Week 3 E-Business Infrastructure

shaymufc — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:44:02 +0000

www.bet365.com has grown and become more popular compared to its competitors over the last year. For example, the percentage of global Internet users who visit bet365.com is higher than most of its competitors. The graph below illustrates the trends compared to www.ladbrokes.com, and www.sportingbet.com:

With the help of www.alexa.com, and www.statbrain.com, i was able to come with a few facts and figures about bet365:
Bet365.com users come from these countries:

17.4% United Kingdom
8.6% Spain
7.3% Greece
5.8% Germany
5.4% Sweden

The estimated number of visits per day to www.bet365.com (according to StatBrain) is 182,546.
The estimated number of visits per day to www.ladbrokes.com is 121,679, and to www.sportingbet.com is 49,552.

To use bet365 firstly you must register. To do this you have to click on the ‘Join Now’ link at the top left of the webpage

Join Now button

Then the user must fill in their personal and card details. When this is completed, the customer will choose a username and password and these will be emailed to them. After the user is logged in, they are then free to use all of the sites facilities, be it games, betting on sports, playing casino games or bingo etc.

Customers can either bet on up-coming events or use the live in play service. In terms of purchases, the only item that is sent by the company to the customer is money which is paid directly into the customer’s account following a win.

The services of digital television and online betting can very much be incorporated in my opinion. If the technology exists to marry the two, then imagine the scenario of watching sports on your T.V and simply pushing a button to bet on the event you are watching. All this could be done in the comfort of your own home. In terms of the business, the changes that would be needed aren’t that major. all they would have to do is reconfigure the software used on the website so that it will work on a different platform such as a television.

Week 2 E-commerce Fundamentals

shaymufc — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:04:58 +0000

www.bet365.com is an online gambling website owned by the Stoke-on-Trent based bet365 Group Limited, who are one of the worlds leading gambling organisations. They have customers in 140 different countries. The website offers customers the opportunity to bet on live sports and also ‘in-play markets’. This is where you can place bets on events as they happen.

Click on image to forward to www.bet365.com

I was able to find that bet365′s total turnover has risen from £115m in 2002 to £986m in 2007.
bet365 has over 800 employees whose median age is 29 years old.
bet365 has seen annual revenue grow by 68 per cent over the past three years, reaching £299 million in March this year.

bet365′s niche is that it provides the facility of ‘in-play’ betting. For example, a soccer match is currently in the 60th minute. If a customer wanted to bet that the next corner or yellow card will be received by one team or player, then the online betting books permit this. This real-time betting can only be effectively used online as results and real-time events are updated on the system. In theory, bet365 could have sites/’shops’ on high streets in different countries where customers can walk in and bet in-store. The man power required to update live play betting odds would be too much to manage in my opinion. The in-play betting market would have to be very limited.

Live in play betting

The online availability of bet365 can mean that the website can be accessible by other devices rather than just a PC, eg, mobile phones or other portable accessible media.

Week 1 Internet Usage

shaymufc — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:18:34 +0000

Internet usage in the UK has risen steadily within the last 3 – 4 years. This can be expressed as a number of different statistics. To quote an online report on the UK online market posted in August this year, the percentage of UK households that have a fixed broadband connection has risen from 58% in 2008 to 65% in 2009. Another recent increase has been in the percentage of people setting up social-networking profiles. The fastest growth has been in the age group of 35-54 year olds.

screenshot of bebo

Social networking sites have buzzed increasingly for the last few years and each month average Facebook users spend 6 hours per month on the site.
More stats can be found courtesy of the report within the following link
http://givinginadigitalworld.org/2009/08/07/free-ofcom-report-provides-latest-update-on-uk-online-market/

Online shopping/transactions have appealed to many new and old internet users as can be seen in the booming online market with big brand competitors such as Tescos Online, eBay, Amazon etc.

Other recent methods of internet usage have come about via online gaming. this can be performed on consoles such as the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii etc. The number of young people ranging from 9 – 18 years old accessing these methods has dramatically risen since it was introduced. There are also multi-user games available online such as World of Warcraft, where users create an online character, or ‘Avatar’ and participate in games and adventures that can range from finding treasures to slaying demons. Basically, the range of reasons why internet usage has increased so much over the last few years is vast. Not to mention the help of ever cheaper broadband available from competing companies.

Hello world!

shaymufc — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:49:34 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!