E-Retail - does it affect us without us realising it?

E-Retail, what is it? Who uses it? Well, the answer is, we all use it, whether we realise it or not. Whether we want to just book flights online, buy concert tickets at popular websites such as Ticketmaster or are simply social networking, we are directly or indirectly e-retailing. As we all know, e-retail is the direct usage of technology for economic gain. One of the first companied to really use this to their advantage was the Irish-owned airline Ryanair.


In 2000, the internet and the world of online business was really taking off and Ryanair latched onto this. They created their website, but with this they created their online booking system. Ryanair's online booking system was innovatative as people wishing to purchase tickets could do it straight from the website. Today it is the primary way to book and purchase tickets. This helped the company in many ways as 1) There was a steady stream of income from the website excluding advertising and 2) costs incurred by the company through third-parties such as travel agents were reduced significantly.


Since then, more and more companies have started to introduce this method of dealing with customers. One of the key reasons large businesses use e-retailing is because it lets them retain customer information. Many other companies now operate a silimar tactic, such as Amazon and many online clothing companies, like Littlewoods.

Web 2.0 and us

Web 2.0. What is it? Who is it? Who uses it? These are just some of the commonly asked questions these days, and beginning to be asked more in the world of business. What some people don't understand is that we are Web 2.0 and we are the key users in it. Web 2.0 relies on it's users to come together to fully function. Before Web 2.0, the internet was just many isolated pages full of information. Now, they are all connected and this I believe is largely down to mash-ups.

( And I don't mean the mash-ups that are so popular now because of the songs released in the popular TV show 'Glee'!) but the ones associated with e-business. Application mash-ups and the musical ones are quite similar though as both are readily available to be changed, to be fused together to create a better finished product. Mash-ups are fast becoming one of the most important applications available both offline and online. What mash-ups can do for us are create applications that will become available and useful for everyone, both the users and for businesses to use for further usage.

These show why Miscosoft bought a small stake in the social networking site Facebook, because a lot of the features used in social networking sites can contribute to further mash-ups such as 'Eventful' http://eventful.com/ and 'Technorati' http://technorati.com/ as these applications are both very useful in the internet, even being used in this blog. Many believe that Facebook could one day become so powerful that it in turn could become an operating system, or lead to creation of a new one, because of it's popularity and because of the features available. Google, who don't want Miscrosoft to have control of the online world, created their own social networking site, Google Buzz in an attempt to keep some of the market share.

Web 2.0 is very important but it is up to us, the users, to keep it expanding and growing, but also to the creation of many new mash-ups and applications.

Introduction

Hey, Shane here and welcome to my blog! Over the course of the next couple of months, I will keep a journal, here on my personal reflections on e-business. I will be giving my opinions on the world of e-business and it's ever-growing change. As we are key users in the world of e-business, I feel the future in e-business will be very interesting indeed.