What Social Networking Can do for You

Online social networking offers internet users a means of connecting and sharing information with other individuals and groups who share common interests and goals.

Although more popularly known as socializing forums, social networking sites also play a vital role in helping online as well as off line organizations achieve their business goals. Social networking platforms offer businesses a forum for reaching out to potential customers beyond the immediate community.

Social networking sites, especially ‘friend-of-a-friend’ (FOAF) social networking sites such as MySpace and Friendster, are especially designed to directly connect like minded individuals and groups. Members interact with each other using many innovative tools including discussion forums and private or public messages.

An FOAF network typically displays directories featuring people or topics that all members can browse through. Whenever you find another member with similar interests, you can send the member a message requesting to be added to their list of contacts. This gives you the opportunity to meet other like minded users from that member’s network, thereby multiplying your organization’s contacts faster than you could in the real world. With every extra person you add, your network has the potential to expand exponentially.

Advantages of osCommerce

Trusted
osCommerce is well known and widely used. It has a large support community and a long history behind it.

Cost effective
Open source software is free to download and use, and existing code/contributions are also free.

Easy to use
The software features a familiar shopping cart model, with a number of ways to access the product catalog.

Suitable for a wide range of stores
Clients can choose whether to build/modify their own site or use an experienced developer, and the software suits a wide range of store types. In addition, osCommerce supports international stores, as it includes facilities for multilanguage and multi-currency shops.

Flexible
osCommerce is customizable and expandable by someone with the right skills or the desire to learn.

Secure
The software allows the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. Other features in the Administration area allow greater precautions.

Well supported
There is a strong community of osCommerce users and developers.

Increases effective selling
There are several ways osCommerce optimizes selling. For example, it allows product catalogs that can be browsed and searched, product specials, reviews, newsletters, as well as the Related Products feature and the What’s New feature.

Facilitates promotion of customer base
osCommerce helps merchants build up a customer base by being customer focused and easy to use, and by providing extras such as reviews, newsletters, and the Email a Friend feature.

Customer focused
Customers find osCommerce easy to use. They can receive newsletters and email notifications about products, and they can read and create online product reviews.

Customers also appreciate the secure accounts that protect their personal data, allow access to their purchase history, and provide updates on the status of their orders.

Merchant focused
osCommerce is an affordable option for merchants and it caters for a wide range of languages, currencies and store sizes. It provides a wide range of features, including report generation, payment processing and backup tools, as well as invoices and packing slips.

osCommerce features a straightforward administration area that is easy to secure, and merchants have control of catalog content and structures, products, and shipping cost calculations.

Source : http://www.oscommerce.co.nz

Computer and Coffee

The Yuno PC is a new personal computer concept designed to help you get the most out of your morning without holding you back or constraining you to a desktop PC. Everyone has their own routine, what they read, watch, listen to, and of course drink. The Yuno PC mug incorporates all the important morning alerts such as weather, time, traffic, stocks, and more on its touchscreen display. You can also display your own images as a screensaver if you just want to relax. It lets you enjoy the morning the way you deserve to, stress free and highly caffenaited.

Designer: Jason Farsai

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Secure Payment

While SSL and S-HTTP provide some levels of security to protect the consumer, these technologies are not without their problems. In an effort to overcome these shortcomings, a new system called SET has been developed.

SET (Secure Electronic Transaction)

SET is a system for ensuring the security of financial transactions on the Internet. It was supported initially by MasterCard, Visa, Microsoft, Netscape, IBM and others. SET uses a system of lock and keys along with certified account IDs for both consumers and merchants (An organisation who sells goods on the Internet). This eliminates the fear that user may have about the validity of the site, since it can simply be a bogus page set up by an Internet thief and protects users. Through a unique process of “encrypting” or scrambling the information exchanged between the shopper and the online store, SET ensures a payment process that is convenient, private and most of all secure.

SET establishes industry standards that keep consumer order and payment information confidential. It increases integrity for all data transmitted through its unique encryption system. Set is able to provide authentication that the cardholder is the legitimate user of the card account. Also, SET is able to authenticate that the Internet merchant can accept branded card transactions through its relationship with a third-party financial institution. Finally, SET allows the use of the best security practices and system design techniques that will protect all legitimate parties in an e-commerce transaction.

source: ecommercetechnology.org

History of Ecommerce

One of the most popular activities on the Web is shopping. It has much allure in it – you can shop at your leisure, anytime, and in your pajamas. Literally anyone can have their pages built to display their specific goods and services.

History of ecommerce dates back to the invention of the very old notion of “sell and buy”, electricity, cables, computers, modems, and the Internet. Ecommerce became possible in 1991 when the Internet was opened to commercial use. Since that date thousands of businesses have taken up residence at web sites.

At first, the term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. The ability to use these technologies appeared in the late 1970s and allowed business companies and organizations to send commercial documentation electronically.

Although the Internet began to advance in popularity among the general public in 1994, it took approximately four years to develop the security protocols (for example, HTTP) and DSL which allowed rapid access and a persistent connection to the Internet. In 2000 a great number of business companies in the United States and Western Europe represented their services in the World Wide Web. At this time the meaning of the word ecommerce was changed. People began to define the term ecommerce as the process of purchasing of available goods and services over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services. Although the dot-com collapse in 2000 led to unfortunate results and many of ecommerce companies disappeared, the “brick and mortar” retailers recognized the advantages of electronic commerce and began to add such capabilities to their web sites (e.g., after the online grocery store Webvan came to ruin, two supermarket chains, Albertsons and Safeway, began to use ecommerce to enable their customers to buy groceries online). By the end of 2001, the largest form of ecommerce, Business-to-Business (B2B) model, had around $700 billion in transactions.

According to all available data, ecommerce sales continued to grow in the next few years and, by the end of 2007, ecommerce sales accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales.

Ecommerce has a great deal of advantages over “brick and mortar” stores and mail order catalogs. Consumers can easily search through a large database of products and services. They can see actual prices, build an order over several days and email it as a “wish list” hoping that someone will pay for their selected goods. Customers can compare prices with a click of the mouse and buy the selected product at best prices.

Online vendors, in their turn, also get distinct advantages. The web and its search engines provide a way to be found by customers without expensive advertising campaign. Even small online shops can reach global markets. Web technology also allows to track customer preferences and to deliver individually-tailored marketing.

History of ecommerce is unthinkable without Amazon and Ebay which were among the first Internet companies to allow electronic transactions. Thanks to their founders we now have a handsome ecommerce sector and enjoy the buying and selling advantages of the Internet. Currently there are 5 largest and most famous worldwide Internet retailers: Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. According to statistics, the most popular categories of products sold in the World Wide Web are music, books, computers, office supplies and other consumer electronics.

Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the most famous ecommerce companies and is located in Seattle, Washington (USA). It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was one of the first American ecommerce companies to sell products over the Internet. After the dot-com collapse Amazon lost its position as a successful business model, however, in 2003 the company made its first annual profit which was the first step to the further development.

At the outset Amazon.com was considered as an online bookstore, but in time it extended a variety of goods by adding electronics, software, DVDs, video games, music CDs, MP3s, apparel, footwear, health products, etc. The original name of the company was Cadabra.com, but shortly after it become popular in the Internet Bezos decided to rename his business “Amazon” after the world’s most voluminous river. In 1999 Jeff Bezos was entitled as the Person of the Year by Time Magazine in recognition of the company’s success. Although the company’s main headquarters is located in the USA, WA, Amazon has set up separate websites in other economically developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and China. The company supports and operates retail web sites for many famous businesses, including Marks & Spencer, Lacoste, the NBA, Bebe Stores, Target, etc.

Amazon is one of the first ecommerce businesses to establish an affiliate marketing program, and nowadays the company gets about 40% of its sales from affiliates and third party sellers who list and sell goods on the web site. In 2008 Amazon penetrated into the cinema and is currently sponsoring the film “The Stolen Child” with 20th Century Fox.

According to the research conducted in 2008, the domain Amazon.com attracted about 615 million customers every year. The most popular feature of the web site is the review system, i.e. the ability for visitors to submit their reviews and rate any product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Amazon.com is also well-known for its clear and user-friendly advanced search facility which enables visitors to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the database.

One more company which has contributed much to the process of ecommerce development is Dell Inc., an American company located in Texas, which stands third in computer sales within the industry behind Hewlett-Packard and Acer.

Launched in 1994 as a static page, Dell.com has made rapid strides, and by the end of 1997 was the first company to record a million dollars in online sales. The company’s unique strategy of selling goods over the World Wide Web with no retail outlets and no middlemen has been admired by a lot of customers and imitated by a great number of ecommerce businesses. The key factor of Dell’s success is that Dell.com enables customers to choose and to control, i.e. visitors can browse the site and assemble PCs piece by piece choosing each single component based on their budget and requirements. According to statistics, approximately half of the company’s profit comes from the web site.

In 2007, Fortune magazine ranked Dell as the 34th-largest company in the Fortune 500 list and 8th on its annual Top 20 list of the most successful and admired companies in the USA in recognition of the company’s business model.

History of ecommerce is a history of a new, virtual world which is evolving according to the customer advantage. It is a world which we are all building together brick by brick, laying a secure foundation for the future generations.

Source: commerce-land

Will It Blend? – iPhone (Funny)

Everybody knows that the iPhone can make phone calls, play movies & music, surf the web, and a lot more. But, Will It Blend? That is the question.

Apple iPhone and HTC Touch

E-Commerce in the Arab world

Bad Design Features

Below are features that can make a web design look dorky.

Backgrounds
Default gray color
Color combinations of text and background that make the text hard to read
Busy, distracting backgrounds that make the text hard to read

Text
Text that is too small to read
Text crowding against the left edge
Text that stretches all the way across the page
Centered type over flush left body copy
Paragraphs of type in all caps
Paragraphs of type in bold
Paragraphs of type in italic
Paragraphs of type in all caps, bold, and italic all at once
Underlined text that is not a link

Links
Default blue links
Blue link borders around graphics
Links that are not clear about where they will take you
Links in body copy that distract readers and lead them off to remote, useless pages
Text links that are not underlined so you don’t know they are links
Dead links (links that don’t work anymore)

Graphics
Large graphic files that take forever to load
Meaningless or useless graphics
Thumbnail images that are nearly as large as the full-sized images they link to
Graphics with no alt labels
Missing graphics, especially missing graphics with no alt labels
Graphics that don’t fit on the screen (assuming a screen of 640×460 pixels)

Tables
Borders turned on in tables
Tables used as design elements, especially with extra large (dorky) borders

Blinking and animations
Anything that blinks, especially text
Multiple things that blink
Rainbow rules (lines)
Rainbow rules that blink or animate
“Under construction” signs, especially of little men working
Animated “under construction” signs
Animated pictures for e-mail
Animations that never stop
Multiple animations that never stop

Junk
Counters on pages–who cares
Junky advertising
Having to scroll sideways (640 x 460 pixels)
Too many little pictures of meaningless awards on the first page
Frame scroll bars in the middle of a page
Multiple frame scroll bars in the middle of a page

Navigation
Unclear navigation; over complex navigation
Complicated frames, too many frames, unnecessary scroll bars in frames
Orphan pages (no links back to where they came from, no identification)
Useless page titles that don’t explain what the page is about

General Design
Entry page or home page that does not fit within standard browser window (640 x 460 pixels)
Frames that make you scroll sideways
No focal point on the page
Too many focal points on the page
Navigation buttons as the only visual interest, especially when they’re large (and dorky)
Cluttered, not enough alignment of elements
Lack of contrast (in color, text, to create hierarchy of information, etc.)
Pages that look okay in one browser but not in another

* * * * * * * * * *

Robin Williams,

http://www.ratz.com/featuresbad.html

Website Design Tips – Good Website Design

The design and layout of your site is the next most important part of building a website. Make a bad choice here and it won’t matter how great your content is or how much advertising you do. If your site looks bad no one will visit and those that do won’t stay long or buy anything.

Choose your colors carefully and keep in mind that your tastes may not be appealing to your target audience. Try a few different color schemes and ask some of your friends or family for their opinions about them. And remember this term, “white-space”. In general, white-space is the cornerstone of good website design. Keep the background areas where your information or products will be displayed white or another light / pale color. Dark or oddly colored backgrounds distract your visitors from your information and also can make it difficult to read. Background images are also a big don’t for the same reasons plus they make your pages load more slowly. Colored text should also be used sparingly. Contrast is key, otherwise it can be very difficult to read. Here’s an example. Try to use colored text only to emphasize important information. If you choose to use a color other than black throughout your site make sure it is dark.

The layout is how things are arranged on your pages. There are many different ways to display your content and we’ll cover that a bit farther down the page. What we’re going to discuss here are the elements that frame your content such as your navigation menu buttons, any graphical accents, logos, etc.

The name of your website, domain name, or business name should be prominently featured somewhere at or near the top of your pages either within your logo or near it. And it should fit within the typical boundaries of the page. If you make it too big or it contains too many words then it will stretch your pages so wide that most visitors won’t be able to see the whole page unless they scroll sideways. Very annoying, and definitely not good website design. More about this later.

The placement of the navigation buttons or links of a website are usually placed in one of 3 different areas of the page. Across the top of each page or down the left or right side. The eBizWebpages.com Site Builder also allows you to automatically include a second set of navigational links at the bottom of all your pages. Regardless of where you choose to put them try to keep the text on the buttons or in the links as short as possible. Anything longer than one or two words will cause that part of your layout to be too wide and crowd your content area.

Where your navigation buttons or links appear on your pages should be decided by the number of main or primary pages you will have in your website. Primary pages are the pages organized just below your home page in the structure or diagram of your website.

In general, you can only fit up to 8 buttons (maybe less depending on how much text you use) across the top of your pages and if you choose that layout then how the subpage page links are displayed also may have a limitation. Some layouts with top page primary page buttons will also display subpage links in a second row across the top and others will display them down the left side of the page.

Navigation buttons down either side of your pages don’t run into any limitations due to the endless amount of vertical space on every page. Remember though that the amount of text on the buttons will greatly affect the amount of space for content.