Newsgroups and ECommerce

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Newsgroups and E-Commerce
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Key Terms Newsgroup Business-to-Business
(B2B) Business to Consumer (B2C)
E-commerce E-Bay (http//ebay.com)
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Newsgroups are similar to email. However, they
center around a specific topic and are posted for
a large group of people to read. Unlike email,
those individuals participating in a newsgroup
quite likely dont know each other when they
first start communicating. There are literally
thousands of newsgroups. Newsgroups require the
NNTP protocol discussed previously. Not all
Internet Service Providers provide the protocol
necessary to view newsgroups. In addition to the
NNTP protocol, the browser must have a newsreader
program. Since there are thousands of newsgroups
available, typically the system administrator
decides which newsgroups are carried.
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• Newsgroups are a great way to communicate with
  people with similar interests whom you wouldnt
  know otherwise. In addition, they are a great way
  to get answers to questions on specific topics.
  Newsgroups are organized as a threaded-discussion
  forum. Each discussion forum works slightly
  differentlyhowever, they all
• Thread the messages so the reader can see the
  sequence of the messages within that section
• Allow readers to post a new message to the forum
• Allow readers to respond to an existing message

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ACTIVITY Research the difference between
moderated and unmoderated newsgroups. Since our
filtering software on the district PROBABLY
filters out newsgroups, go to either
http//groups.google.com or http//harley.com/usen
et and seek out their newsgroups that are
archived. IF these are blocked, do a search on
YAHOO! For newsgroups until you find a source
that is not blocked. Describe the key
differences in an email to me at
dtaylor_at_cghs.dadeschools.net.
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E-COMMERCE A general term used to describe
business or commercial transactions conducted
electronically. Although the current view of
e-commerce focuses on transactions conducted on
the Internet, the concept of e-commerce has been
around for many years. For instance, banks
were using electronic funds transfers or wire
transfers long before the advent of the Internet.
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The popularity of the Internet, more specifically
the World Wide Web, continues to have a profound
impact on e-commerce. According to the U.S.
Census Bureau, retail e-commerce sales in the
first quarter of 2002 were up 9.8 billion in
2002, an increase of 19.3 percent from the same
period in 2001.
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• Current definitions of e-commerce involve
  transactions
• conducted via the Internet or the World Wide Web.
  The basic elements of electronic commerce
  include
• Business-to-Business (B2B)Business-to-business
  transactions involve businesses buying from and
  selling to other businesses via the Internet.
• Business-to-Consumer (B2C)Business-to-consumer
  transactions involve businesses selling products
  to consumers over the Internet. A common example
  of B2C transactions are the various products
  offered to and purchased by the consumer via
  Amazon.com.
• Transaction and business processesThis element
  includes the various processes involved in
  supporting the buying and selling of products
  over the Internet, such as the development of an
  advertising campaign for an e-commerce site.

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ACTIVITY Using YAHOO! Again, search for a B2B
(business-to-business) website and a B2C
(business-to-consumer) site, pointing out the
different components of each. Refer to the
Student Guide to E-Commerce Email your research
to me.