The Semantic Web and Alibaba.com

Previously, in my discussion regarding the Semantic web make changes on Yahoo!, talks about what are the impacts from the emergence of Semantic Web from the current web, and how it can provide an efficient and precise information to web users, and customers which they will be obtained from Yahoo! search engine.

However, for today's topic, I would like to discuss on what are impacts of Business-to-Business (B2B) E-commerce by adopting Semantic Web. A brief description of B2B, is the e-commerce between businesses which also known as e-biz. Just as B2C internet businesses, the main benefit is that it can reduce the transaction costs between sellers and buyers in external markets, and effort associated with business partnership's interaction and information searches, simultaneously it can increase growth as indicated in the figure below:

Source: http://www.altevie.net/mediagraphix/europeaninternetstats/

One of the world's premier e-commerce brands and the number one online marketplace for global and domestic China trade, is Alibaba.com

which the company:

• Provide an efficient, trusted platform connecting small and medium-sized buyers and suppliers from around the world.
  
• Their international marketplace focuses on global importers and exporters.
• Their China marketplace focuses on suppliers and buyers trading domestically in China.
• Together their marketplaces form a community of more than 24 million registered users from over 200 countries and regions.

On February 21st, 2008 this year, Alibaba.com was the only Chinese company in the top 10 and they were rank at no.8 and has been name one of the World's 50 most Innovative Companies by Fast Company magazine in March Issue. They receive the credit due for:

• their "easy-to-use business website connecting buyers and suppliers" globally.
• and the company opens new doors to global trade without regard to geography, distance or language and its point-and-click system is creating new opportunities for millions of small and medium businesses.

According to the source, in August 11th, 2005 Alibaba.com has "signed an agreement with Yahoo.Inc. to acquire Yahoo China" which according to Alibaba.com CEO, Ma Yun, "Alibaba and Yahoo will aim at creating search engines more powerful than Google's".

My point of the topic is that, Alibaba.com and Yahoo! will achieve their aim soon as Yahoo! would adapt the Semantic Web that will provide a well-define meaning, more accurate and precise information, etc in the future, and will increase their growth and customers, simultaneously collaborate with their customers better.

The reason is because of the limitations of B2B E-commerce now it relies mostly on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) which is

• an isolated technology and understoods only by experts
• difficult to program and maintain
• each B2B communication requires separate programming
  

Thus, with the adaptation of Semantic Web and B2B E-commerce,

• The Semantic Web will allow businesses to enter partnership without much overhead such as Alibaba.com and Yahoo!
• Auctioning, negotiations, and drafting contracts can be carried out automatically (or semi-automatically) by software agents. Thus, in this case, it will improve and help Alibaba.com to operate their business and trades globally better.
  

Who knows that Yahoo! might replace Google's rank to be the 1st in World's most innovative company in future, so does Alibaba.com as a reason of their partnerships for their own company's strategy. Additonally, Alibaba.com would achieve their target audience which are the business traders faster, efficiently, and effectively.

Do share your thoughts and opinions with me.

Microsoft Surface to compete with competitor's new product: Transparent MacBook Touch

Image Source: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/category/macbook+touch/

In one of my classmates' blog, Edy Chandra, he has discussed and introduced about the new Microsoft touch product called, 'Surface Computing' which currently costs $5000 to $10,000 per unit, and according to Bill Gates in BBC news,

• In the next 5 years, people will definitely change the way of interacting with computers whereby mouse and keyboard would become more intuitive and natural technologies.
• "Vision and speech interfaces would become vital" by adding the ability to touch with interfaces and directly manipulate with users' activity with the machine.

Meanwhile On March 21, 2008 report, Apple has introduced their new touch product called, Transparent Mac Book (image below). It is an interesting innovative device I would say by Apple because it works as a control surface on two sides, "both while the device is open and close". According to the report,

• "The transparent touch display takes the normal role of a multi-touch surface when the computer is closed, so you can simply operate on the closed top face surface."
• "When the computer is opened, using a typical notebook clamshell move, the inside bottom surface will display a keyboard (or any other kind of user interface) while the top surface still serves as a normal notebook screen."

I personally think the whole idea and concept of "Touch" devices and appliances has create a new way of living to everyone where it is more convenient, innovation, creative, and interesting concept in the market today!. The graph below indicates a positive sign of sales and the productivity of the products for the future growth.


Source: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/24451.php

Positively I am one of the interested buyers that would like to purchase it and experience utilising this new product daily.
I would agree with Bill Gates that in the next 5 years, it would change the way people interact with computers and way of living such as in education field, people in organisation, and more.

Moreover, I believed that with the consistent performance in terms of maintenance, reliability, and durability of the "Touch" product, people will have more confidence in purchasing it as it will be the next best thing on earth, and encourage a more creative and innovation generation to achieve globalisation.

Do you agree?

Semantic Web make changes on Yahoo!

Semantic Web is "an extension of the current web (WWW) in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers, and people to work in co-operation" (Berners-Lee et al. 2001).

You could be asking: Why is there an emergence of Semantic Web?
The reason is basically to solve limitations of today's web such as results are single web pages, the web activities are mostly focus on Machine-to-Human, and Machine-to-Machine activities are not particularly well supported by software tools.

Therefore, Semantic Web is trying to develop a concept in the opposite way of the Syntactic Web whereby

• Computers do the linking and interpreting, and

• People do the presentations conveniently.

For example, in Syntactic web, if you would like to search for information, you would type the keyword(s) in the search engine and the results will be displayed in one page based on the keyword(s). However, with Semantic Web, the results will be precisely displayed in more details such as in the image below. Thus it can avoid insufficient information, save time, and easier.

Source: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/semantic-web1.htm

The latest report on March 14th 2008 in by BBC News,

• Yahoo! is attracted by the emergence of the Semantic Web as "they would start to include some semantic web identifiers when indexing the web for Yahoo! search" to win a big audience.

• According to Professor Stefan Decker, a director of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute at the National University of Ireland, it would help Yahoo! to make a search more productive with the advent of Semantic Web as it promise to produce sufficient and precise results in details.

• Professor Wendy Hall from the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton and a director of the Web Research Science Initiative, claimed that "the move to the semantic web could pose challenges for established companies such as Google which have grown on the back of indexing documents rather than objects".

• Yahoo! believed that it could help them compete with Google by adapting Semantic Web.

To conclude, I would say that it will it will be beneficial for Semantic Web users and future generation as it will produce well-defined meaning, better collaboration of computer and people in productivity and effectiveness, and reduce the burden of obtaining precise information in a short period of time.

Friend-of-a-Friend Sites

On Monday (March 17th, 2008), in our Developments in Digital Business class conducted by Dr.Payam, we have learned about Web 2.0, Web Services, and Mashups (basically mix components of different information and sources to be integrated inside an application).
Briefly, It is all the new development of technology on how people collaborate and add content to the web through the network.

Thus, one of the ways is through Friend-of-a-Friend Sites which formally known as Social Networking. The image below shows a concept of Social Networking.

Souce:http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/social_media/

According to Pew Internet Project Data Demo which cited from Alfred C.Weaver & Benjamin B. Morrison, Social Networking, IEEE Computer Magazine,

"55% of online teens have created a personal profile online, and 53 % have used social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook."

In our case study of Social Networking, my focus for this topic whereby is it true that in order to achieve Competitive Advantage in the market is by Being flexible and responsive to members' demands and desires has fueled the site's growth?

In my point of view, I would agree with the statement because let us consider Facebook,

1. 66% of teens who have created a profile say that their profile is not visible by all internet users as they have the access to their profiles. This means that the site has fulfilled the users' desires to implement a policy that will keep some of the personal information and profiles in private. For example, on March 19th 2008 report by Heather Havenstein called "new Facebook privacy controls score good reviews" which claimed that new privacy controls such as limit access to information like photo albums or contact information to specific Facebook friends or friends lists , will help users to communicate with groups or friends on the network and manage contact from one list. Thus, Facebook will gain trust from their users simultaneously increase the number of users since 91% of users use social networking site to keep in touch with friends, and increase Facebook's growth in future.
2. Facebook has created extensive tools, documentation, and an application programming interface available for 3rd party developers to create their their own Web applications that utilise the Facebook network. For example, Facebook launched a new option that allows users to personalised SocialAds that integrate into photos a notice informing their friends about recent purchasing made at various online retailers. This will help to boost the site's growth via ads promoting company's product and services from applications created for the social networks for the respective company to earn money, as well as a flexible medium of communication.

Additionally, according to Benjamin Ling, Facebook's director of platform product marketing, "more than 98% of the site's 66 million users have used atleast one of the 16,000 applications created for Facebook.com by 3rd party developers". Moreover to sustain Competitive Advanage for developers to make money, Ling added that Facebook plans to allow developers to accept credit card payments for Facebook-based e-commerce applications with translation tools for their applications.

• Moreover in 2006, Facebook received $25million in venture capital to extend their reach beyond the computer screen to cell phones. "Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless are starting a service that will allow users to post messages on Facebook's home pages or search for other users' phone numbers and email addresses from a cell phone". Therefore, my point is that Facebook is being flexible and responsive to members' demands and desires as they would to cater their users' preferences of utilising Facebook services, which simultaneously it has fueled the site's growth.

Source:
http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/totalpercentages.jpg

To conclude, from the relevant statistics for the number of Facebook users, it indicates how it has developed a strategic plan to sustain competitive advantage in the market and perform consistently, I would say that Facebook is performing well as they rank No.3 in on of The World's Most Innovative Companies, and they successfully understands the behavior of their users. In addition, according to Sajal Kayan's report on March 6th 2008, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, 23 is the worlds youngest billionaire worth 1.5 billion dollars in social networking. This has create a positive reputation of Facebook in the market.

Whats your verdict?

Voiceless Chat & Calls

Introducing an innovative way to chat and make phone calls without making noise! The first "voiceless" phone call has been demonstrated at a recent conference held by microchip manufacturer Texas Instruments utuilising a new technology via a neckband that intercepts nerve signals allows you to talk on the phone without emitting a sound.

According to the source, Users can send nerve signals to their vocal cords silently. These signals are then picked up by the neckband, called Audeo and transmitted wirelessly to a computer that converts them into words spoken by computerised voice.

The Audeo is being developed by Ambient Corporation to "create a human-computer interface for communication without the need of physical motor or speech production". Thus, the Audeo has the potential to restore communication to people who are unable to speak due to neurological diseases like ALS which also known as motor neurone disease.

Personally, I am impressed with the development of the wireless neckband which allows first voiceless phone call which obviously it could be beneficial for people who are having motor neurone disease.

However, again the security, connectivity, reliability, and durability are the major concerns. For example, it will jeopardise a car driver on the road if he/she focuses too much to think specifically about voicing words for them to be picked up by the equipment (time-consuming in the signal processing), and giving less concentration on the road which could lead to an accident. Thus, it really depends on the circumstances and users' ethical of utilising it.

What about your view?

“Kome Kami Switch” a.k.a “Temple Switch”

Don't be surprised if someone blinks their eyes to you in Japan! A picture of a model on the left indicates a clear picture of the topic that will be discussed today.

According to Sophie Hardach, "Kome Kami Switch" or "Temple Switch" is Japan's new iPod which has been developed by a researcher, Kazuhiro Taniguchi from Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering Science. It is a system that will soon let the people run their iPods with the flick of an eye in Japan.

The system, comprising a single-chip computer and a couple of infrared sensors, monitors movements of the temple and is so tiny that it can be built into the side of a pair eyeglasses. It works by reading the movements of you temples via infrared beams of light. How?

1. Closing both eyes for 1 second starts an iPod.
2. Blink it again stops the machine.
3. A wink on the right eye makes the machine skip to the next tune.
4. A wink on the left eye it goes back to the previous tune.
5. Close both eyes to pause and play the songs.
   

According to Taniguchi, one of the benefits of is that:

• People who are incapable of winking on one eye, Taniguchi would be able to program the system to give a command when they blink twice in a fast sequence.

Moreover, benefits of Kome Kami Switch for users which according to Alex Sydell's post,

1. It can easily differentiate a deliberate one-second wink from natural blinking by closing your eyes firmly to operate the machine.
2. Capable of operating television sets, air conditioners, room lighting, and other household electronics.
3. As a person who does not have to move either hand, the system can serve as "a 3rd hand" for care-givers, rock-climbers, motorbike drivers, and astronauts, as well as people with disabilities.
   

Taniguchi told AFP that in the future, "He hopes the system can eventually be adapted to run cellphones, wheelchairs and robots as an ultimate remote control used in everyday life".

Overall, in my opinion on this product, "Kome Kami Switch" or "Temple Switch" would be the latest device that would attract customers especially music lovers such as:

1. teenagers because they normally follow the trends of iPod products,
2. people who lives in the fast-paced life as it will provide a convenient way of operating the device in order to save time, and
3. people with disabilities

I assumed and predict that it will increase the sales of iPod in the market, as according to the iPod's sales report and the chart on January 22, 2008, 42% of Apple's revenue for the First fiscal quarter of 2008 came from iPod sales followed by 21% from notebook sales and 16% from desktop sales. Moreover, it will become the first product to be introduced that will be uniquely functioned with the flick of an eye and create excitement for the users.

However, It just that the reliability and durability of the function are my main concerns for the users in the future. We will find out once it will be utilised in the market. Reason is because most of the verdict of the critiques from my research of the device are negative. What about you?