Peadar's Blog

PERSONALISATION

Personalisation is happening all over the internet on sites such as www.amazon.co.uk click this link to view it.   I have circled the line at the top of the web page as this is an example of personalisation. 

My opinion is that it is a good thing but not in excess as it could potentially drive customers away.  For example companies must use different techniques to persuade their customers to buy from them and even return to buy from them again such as the example from Amazon, where by purchasing one product and returning after this purchase amazon will remember you and what you purchased.  You can tell this by looking at the site when you log in as it will say “Hello Mr ……. This is what your last purchase was”  it will then show you your last purchase and after that it will say here are some other items we feel you may be interested in, you may have bought a camera so it will advertise memory cards for cameras.  This is an example of why I am for personalisation, as most of the time this method of recommendation is very effective and in some cases never fails.

Customer Relationship Management
After using the Google search based keyword tool for my site (www.vodafone.co.uk ) I found these results:

From the screen shot you can see that the most searched for key phrase was sd memory.

After browsing the Google tools I came across Google ad planner which allows the user to plan for an ad campaign showing you where the best place would be to place ads. I have inserted a screen shot of my findings from this tool below:

From this screen shot I can tell that most people online here are male but females are gradually catching up.

Google Keywords
Here I can search for the top keywords for my site.

These are the top keywords and phrases for my site I knew that mobile phones would definitely be in it as this is one of the strong phrases for my the site.
pay as you go (7), mobile phone deals (5), mobile phone (25), mobile phones (22), sony ericsson (10), mobile broadband (9), cell phones (5), mobile (33), phones (16), phone (15), mobiles (17), vodafone (10), samsung (8), Miscellaneous keywords

The ease (or not) with which you can find the site using a search engine

After searching for “mobile phones on google.co.uk my site was second on the list of results found on the web. So I tried typing in mobile networks and Vodafone.co.uk was at the top of the list again.  I decided to search for the iphone as I knew this was only available to O2 one of Vodafone’s competitors.  This is not associated with Vodafone but should bring up at least one result to the site.  After searching for this Vodafone did not appear, I browsed to the Vodafone website and it seems they are in the process of acquiring this brand (Apple) for their network also you can show your interest on the Vodafone website for this particular product.

Some of the company’s branded products or key themes in a search engine, What is returned?

Branded products for Vodafone include the Nokia 5800 which is one of Vodafone’s latest phones on sale and is largely advertised on the Vodafone website.  As this product is also owned by Nokia it returns results that include links to the Nokia website also I have found that this product is not exclusive to Vodafone as I had previously thought. 

I have now decided to search for a theme of Vodafone’s which is freedom packs this is a pack where you top your phone up by £10 and receive £50 worth of credit.  After searching for this on Google I have found that 50% of the top ten results found are links for the Vodafone website advertising this offer.

 ‘Paid for’ results

After researching the paid for results in Google most of them don’t relate to what you are searching for, also the price to advertise on the sponsored links is charged only by how many clicks you receive.  When I searched for mobile networks I received 7 “paid for” results most of these were trying to sell mobile phones only 1 or 2 where actually a mobile network.   

Where competitors appear

Competitors appeared in the list of searching for “mobile phones” but my website (Vodafone.co.uk) was the first of its kind of website to appear, it is a mobile network and competitors such as O2, Orange and the T-mobile appeared further down the list also in the sponsored links column my website did not appear neither did any of Vodafone’s main rivals which I found odd.   

Interpret the results.

From the results I have found, I can say that Vodafone’s website is very popular as anytime I searched for something relating to mobile phones the website was always in at least the top 5 results found.  However when I searched for the iphone Vodafone did not appear even though they are now selling this product under their brand.

Recommendations

I would recommend Vodafone continue with updating their website but also they could think about getting involved with sponsored links as there does not appear to be any.

What is meant by the term ‘Cloud Computing’

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.

A cloud service has three distinct characteristics that distinguish it from established hosting. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic, a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access). Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing.

Describe in your own words what is meant by Cloud Computing.

Cloud Computing is the term for delivering services over the Internet and has virtualised resources as a service.  Users only need a computer and Internet access, it is sold on demand and is managed by the provider.  Users can have as much or as little of a service as they want when they want it.  The cost of using this service is measured by how much data you receive from the service which will be quite cheap.  Also finding what you require from these services is very fast and efficient

The impact that cloud computing might have in e-commerce.

The impact that cloud computing might have on e-commerce is that data might be found easier and less expensive in these “database banks”.  Therefore the e-commerce market would suffer for example if a site is trying to sell software for a retail price over the internet and the same piece of software is available at a software data bank it more than likely will be found easier and definitely be cheaper.

Potential benefits and problems.

There are a number of benefits for cloud computing they are-

• Agility- this improves the users ability to find resources, which is less expensive than going another way of finding the information they require.
• Cost- as there are no administrators to control the huge databases the provider can afford to charge for how much information the user needs, therefore charging by the quantity.

There are also a number of problems for cloud computing they are –

• Privacy and Security- as anyone can upload information onto the databases how can they detect which is relevant and which is not.
• Legality- the question of who owns the data the providers? Or clients who have uploaded their own data? Or even a third party site? The property rights for such data will always cause legal problems.
• Pricing- if the service providers begin to charge more for quantity of data this could be a problem also would they be willing to give discounts based on the length of usage or frequency of usage? These would all be problems for pricing.