World Wide Web 3 Introduction The Internet example essay topic

The World Wide Web 2 ABSTRACT The World Wide Web has been an innovating concept from which many entities have prospered a great deal. Having a well-constructed strategic plan has been the key element for managers in the different areas of this vast world, which in turn help them deal with the ever-changing world of computers, and it's amazing pace. There are many individuals who have decided to take on the challenge of the Internet without having the aforementioned strategic plan, in the long run; this has being the essence for their failure. Many dot-com companies have come and gone from the very beginnings of the implementation of this Internet concept however the Internet itself remains the same. The World Wide Web 3 Introduction The Internet consists of thousands of connected networks around the world.

A network is a collection of computers that are connected to share information. In the late 1960's the U.S. Defense Department began the Internet as a military research project. The government created a network that covered a large geographic area and that could withstand a nuclear attack. If part of the network failed, information could find a new route around the disable computers. This network quickly grew to include scientists and researchers across the country and eventually included schools, businesses, organizations and individuals around the world. The World Wide Web is part of the Internet and consists of a huge collection of documents stored on computers around the world.

A Web page is a document on the Web, this document can include text, images sound and videos. A Web server is a computer that stores Web pages and makes the pages available on the Web for other people to view. A Web site is a collection of Web pages maintained by a college, university, government agency, company, organization or individual. The World Wide Web 4 This research is intended to prove that the reason why dot-com companies fail is due to managerial shortcomings. From the omission of a well-rounded strategic plan to customer relation's pitfalls, the manager is ultimately responsible for the failure or success of the business, specially those that customer relationship are from a distance. With statistical data to back up this hypothesis, my intention is to help any and all individuals that decide to take up on the challenge to become a manager of your own business via the Internet, to become familiar with the endless possibilities and or requirements to be successful.

There are steps for creating a successful business on the Internet. 1. Plan what you want to accomplish with your pages. 2. Gather information 3. Organize the information 4 Edit your information 5.

Publish your information First and foremost, plan what you want to accomplish with your pages. Notice that I did not say business, but pages. The reason is simple, start with small baby steps rather than trying to accomplish too much at the beginning, this approach will pay off later. A strategic plan is crucial for success, but how do I get one? You don't have to be an expert at the beginning (although it helps) to implement one. Just think of what do you really want your site to offer to your customers.

You need to offer something that is unique and that people will accept as valuable. This is called utility. Gather information about your competitors, your customer targeted, or their specific needs, and then try to see how your business can satisfy those needs. Using an analysis that identifies your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT), to help you see were you are standing.

When I use the term business, it also means site, for we are talking about your business on the Internet. Organizing the information means to try to narrow it down to just the essentials. I will give you an example of a site that did not do that hence it's failure. A new computer site was started and the developers did not foresee that they were offering too many different product assortments, so they continued to provide services.

Time passed and the demand became too great for the site to handle, so in term they had to stop providing their services. This is a case were the quantity demanded exceeded the quantity supplied, which is not good for your site. Editing and publishing your information go hand to hand, but are separate subjects altogether. You need to have someone with a strong grammatical comprehension to review your site before publishing. There is nothing more disturbing to customers that to see that your site is not accurate.

Although a disclaimer will alleviate most of your grammatical errors as far as legality is concern, you need to take time to review your site prior to the publication of the site, which by the way is not an easy task to do. By giving you a step-by-step analysis of how? And why? dot-com companies do not succeed, I intend to make you (the reader) aware of the fact that a knowledgeable manager is a successful one when it comes to dot-com companies. The process is rather simple, yet so complicated! Why so many dot-com companies have failed? How did they fail?

These and many other questions will be answered through this research. Neither the research nor the findings in these studies have being conducted before, so the empirical data was based on my own findings and or experiences with the World Wide Web as it relates to my own business. I hope that by reading this article some enlightenment will open your horizon if you are interested in any way to pursue a career in the world of the dot-com business. The World Wide Web 5 Methods 1. The Internet The quickest way to search on any subject on the Internet is by visiting one of the many search engines that are available. Yahoo for instance, is one of the major ones.

Type any word, and if the search engine has a topic related to that word, it will appear right in front of your eyes. When you type domains in yahoo search engine, there will be a reference to thousands and thousands of sites. This information gives you the Uniform Resource Locator or (URL) for the many sites on the Internet. There are roughly 1.5 million sites for business on the Internet today, yet not all of them are active. That means that not all of them have kept their URL working as their default URL. Sound complicated but it is not, in other words, these businesses are not operating anymore.

Type web on your computer, and you will see that and ERROR page will appear. This is for two reasons, either the URL is not a valid domain or the URL is no longer the default URL. This concept is very unique for businesses on the Internet. Today you could be running a profitable business but tomorrow, you may not be there at all. Hackers have seen these phenomena and have taken advantages of the situation.

High price items, for instance, may be offered over the Internet on a bogus site, once the sale is final, the hacker would collect the money, and do the process all over again. This practice is unregulated based on the 1st amendment to our constitution, Freedom of Speech. Anybody can publish a site, regardless of the authenticity of it, on the Internet. There is even a site on the Internet that would teach you how to do bogus sites to profit with fast easy money, and it's legal. Due to the legality of it, the site will not be listed.

The best way to conduct a business is to do it ethically, thus I do not approve of an individual or a company that conducts illegal hacker operations to profit from it. 2. The library The book Creating Stores On The Web by Joe Cataudella 1999, gives the reader a broad approach before you tackle the Internet Business world, for it is a comprehensive approach as to what to do to be successful in the business. "If you are the management type, you might just outsource the entire project, set the goals, pay the expert to build you a killer store, and watch the cash roll in".

Some people however live in the real world, so if you would want to learn some fundamentals and dig in a little so that you could keep costs low, then more power to you. "The best management comes from being able to do the work but choosing, for the compelling reasons, not to". The World Wide Web 6 The book Customers. COM by Patricia B. Seybold explains to the reader how to create a profitable business strategy for the Internet. This book was published in 1998 and was an inspiration for many dot-com companies to follow the outline step-by-step method of implementation for a successful dot-com business. The book even illustrates eight critical success factors with case studies for entrepreneurship in the dot-com world.

There were many other books utilized for the purpose of this research study. All of these books talked about the success of the Internet business but not a single one talked about the failures. For this reason, I utilized statistical data to make inferences to the mean population based from a sample mean. 3. Statistics A sample mean from a population indicates that from the whole population, a researcher would take sample at random from that population to conduct the studies.

For a research to be legit, the sample mean must be randomly selected. Biases from the selection process, would hinder the research study results. The study must be conducted as a double blind study. This means that neither the researcher nor the subjects are aware of their placement in the studies.

In other words, they do not know which subjects are part of the control and which ones are parts of the research itself. The control subjects would get placebo from whichever the researcher is inquiring about. This method of research is useful for the authenticity of the research. To use statistic research on the Internet phenomena for dot-com companies, the double blind study was performed. From the research the Null hypothesis was utilized, and inference about the population mean was obtained. 4.

Surveys A total of 100 people were surveyed via the Internet as part of this research. The data was collected and statistically analyzed. The downfall of the survey always comes from the rate of response to the survey. To motivate people to answer back the survey is not an easy task. Telephonic surveys were utilized as well, with on the spot feedback related to the subject, however, availability of resources for the people surveyed, was not always the most suitable to obtain an empirical response. The World Wide Web 7 Results By utilizing the research methods aforementioned herein, I have come to the understanding that, most of the Internet businesses studied herein, which do not follow the techniques aforementioned in the books, have followed the pattern established by dot-com companies that have failed.

The managers for the most part, were not involved in the development of the strategic plan for the company or with the everyday decision making process of the company. STATISTICAL DATA COMPANIES THAT SUCCEED COMPANIES THAT FAILED Have knowledgeable managers Had no managers Have Customer Services available Had no Customer Services Are Strategically Planed business oriented Had no plan whatsoever Have conducted a SWOT analysis Had no SWOT analysis on hand RATE OF RESPONCE The Null hypothesis of managerial pitfalls was the cause for the failure could not be rejected. The omega value of. 005 was utilized for the studies. Statistical programs available through the Internet were utilized to analyze the data.

The data was also manually analyzed. The inference was made from the sample mean to apply to the population mean utilizing T tests of statistical analysis, as well as Z scores of statistical analysis. Telephonic surveys were also analyzed using the same procedure, however, the Null hypothesis could not be rejected nor accepted. This is because the return sample rate of the sample mean was not proportional to the population mean. In other words, by The World Wide Web 8 not everyone being able to respond the questions due to unavailability of resources, the inference could not be established. It is important to mention that several sources of information could be misleading in that many of the subjects studied have applied the disclosure clause to their site hence the data could not be analyzed.

This means that many site owners or developers would write a disclaimer form in their site to prevent data from being collected. An example disclaimer would look like this: Disclaimer for all Services and or Information presented at this Website The Company shall have no liability for the services provided or accuracy of the information contained herein, or for delays, misplacement's or omissions. The Company shall not be liable for any third-party claims or losses of any nature, including, but not limited to, lost profits, punitive or consequential damages. Neither the information nor the services provided within these pages are guaranteed to be accurate, nor does the management take responsibility for it. The information comes from many sources and therefore may be wholly unreliable, and the management does not guarantee its suitability for any purpose. Even though the information and or services contained herein may be completely useless, all rights are retained by The Company, including, but not limited to, the right of reproduction, the right of distribution, and the right of passage.

THE COMPANY SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND SHALL IN NO EVENT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFIT OR ANY OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR OTHER DAMAGES, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. By having disclaimers on a site, it is almost impossible to evaluate a site for its authenticity. The example above was extracted from: web This company has been one of the entrepreneurs in the e-commerce era. The company was established and still operates in San Antonio, TX. Because of the disclaimer contained herein, the data could not be analyzed.

Basically, the owner of the site states that they are not responsible for anything that happens on the site. Maybe that is the reason why this type of study has never being conducted before. You would have to look at the source of the data to evaluate the study. To publish such a study, would take many resources including but not limited to, lawyers, accountants, as The World Wide Web 9 well as web designers and business owners. This project sounds like something that Bill Gates would love to do. As a business owner myself, on the infinite world of the dot-com companies, I can only speculate on what the future may have for my business as well as for the whole industry, yet I can assure you that by being an effective manager with great customer services for my clients, my business would last longer.

I have applied the principles and techniques mentioned throughout the paper and to this date, my business is still growing. I encourage you to look at my site to see if you can follow the concept and my strategic plan that I developed several years ago. I can tell you that my site is customer service oriented and that I tried to provide a service unique in its class. The address is: web Discussion There are several factors that influenced me to conduct this research. For the most part the mere fact that I am an owner of a dot-com company, secondly that I have friends that also own dot-com companies and finally the fact that my very first dot-com company failed because of the same reasons that I am trying to explain in this research. Doing this research have helped me to put closure in one of the chapters of my life that I had not closed until recently.

Why do dot-com companies fail to stay in business? 1. No strategic plan in place 2. No customer services 3. Fear for the unknown 4. Incapable managers We have previously discussed, why businesses fail if a strategic plan is not in place.

But the concept of customer services we have not yet tackled. Lisa Ford wrote in her book Customer Service Excellence 1997, a detailed guide to customer relationship success. The key is that the service "has to be personalized" to each individual customer. How can you do that, if you do not see your customer via the Internet? The answer to that question is the key to a successful dot-com company.

The World Wide Web 10 Remember that the company only survives with customers, and that a happy customer is a loyal one. If your company can provide a service that no other company does, that's your key for success. In economics we call this phenomena utility of value. Each product or service must have a utility for the customer in order for them to buy or continue buying your product or service.

A diamond ring has a higher utility of value than water. How can this be possible? Think about it, people would pay thousands of dollars for a diamond ring, yet only one dollar for bottled water. Still they complain that the gas prices are going up, not noticing that they almost pay the same price for water, ironically speaking. Fear of the unknown is a hindering factor for dot-com companies. I use myself as an example, for not knowing any better, my first dot-com company failed.

I still blame others for that, but had I known then what I know now, everything would have been different, I guarantee it! What do I do if a customer has charge backs on the accounts, or if the credit card number is fraudulent, or even what if nobody visits my site. These were many areas for which I had no answer hence the failure of my business. An incapable manager is one of those touchy subjects. First we must define what an incapable manager is. According to Gustav Berle "managers incapable of performing at a constant productive rate, are incapable managers" In his book Retiring to your own business he emphasizes the importance of a capable manager at all levels of the managerial ladder.

Although not totally proven, an incapable manager at one level must affect the performance of the other managers working for that manager above their level. Can this be proven, statistically speaking, not really. So the only conclusion from this finding must be a cause-effect reaction. But for statisticians, this cause-effect phenomenon is non-existent.

The reason is simple, for an effect to be a consequence of a cause; there must be no other factor to influence that cause-effect relation. Lets look at the following example: people die because they get older or are there any other causes to that effect, honestly nobody knows. For that reason statisticians would not agree with the cause-effect theory. From this we can conclude that an incapable manager is not merely the pure reflection of his / her boss, but that might be one of the predominant factors to reach such a conclusion. As a leader of soldiers in the U. S Army, I have encountered this dilemma many times. The Army argues that a soldier is the pure reflection of his / her leader, "show me a weak soldier and I will show you a weak leader" this mentality is very eminent in today's Army.

I do not accept nor do I refuse to entertain the concept mentioned above however complex it may sounds. The World Wide Web 11 But how does this apply to my Internet business? The answer is that knowledge is power. I am only trying to explain a rather complex metaphor. Do your superiors tarnish your performance in any way? I believe they don't, but I rather take the more popular approach rather than agreeing with statistical data that makes sense to only those who live it.

To say that one thing influence another, is to say that there would be no other factors affecting it. Business on the Internet must be creditable and have a reputation. A good source to find this information is going to view the sources for any Internet site. This information is available as you view the Internet page. Just go to view, source and BINGO. If the information were accredited or even worthy of reviewing the source would tell you.

To do this you must also have an understanding of the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). This coded information allows you to view the author's format, data, the collection of data and execution of the data. You must remember that the data on the Internet itself is free, unless protected by copyrights. This protection is a legal documentation of the authenticity of the data. For example, many sites do not have copyrights, but that does not mean that the data is not legit. The problem here is, when that data is copyright, who did it?

There is only one source of copyrights in the U.S. and that's through a government agency. Many fraudulent individuals have done copyrights without the legality that is involved in the process. Remember that the data on the Internet is free. Once the data is collected, it could be easily reproduce by anyone. Many sites on the Internet sale products and or services that other sites offer for free.

In other words, the Internet is a profitable way to do business, provided that managers take advantage of those resources available at the lowest cost possible. Another problem encountered on the Internet is that, there are too many sites that offer the same products and or services. I see this as the bread and butter of the Internet. A person can research on many items, and only purchase when satisfied that the product meets the expectations.

You could use the search engines mentioned before to aide you with your search. There are sites on the net that even help other sites to become more prosperous. This is a sponsorship program, which has helped many individuals to achieve their financial freedom. Visit web and see what they are capable to do for you. The World Wide Web 12 In conclusion, I have learned that there are many dot-com companies that will fail because lack of knowledge, and out of those who prosper from this intriguing world of the Internet, all of them are a carefully planed and executed idea that has gone through an extensive methodical managerial concept. Dot-com companies need to be aware of their surroundings, and their competitors.

The customer should be your number one priority and risk is what is all about. My grandmother used to tell me that the Bible said: "God helps those who help themselves", although I have not yet found exactly were the Bible says that, or even if it is written there, I do believe that in order for a person to be prosperous in any business they must be willing to take risk and more importantly, they need to take the initial step too, otherwise, nothing will ever happen. A person who does not play lotto cannot expect to become a rich person because of the lottery. You must buy a ticket to participate and to have a chance, if you don't, you don't have a chance. The same principle applies to business. The World Wide Web

Bibliography

Cataudella Joe (1999).
Creating Stores On The Web (pages 12-36) Seybold, Patricia B. (1998).
Customers. Com (pages 160-220) Ford Lisa (2000).