Electronic Business Model:
Question 1: Hagel and Armstrong (1996) argued that commercial enterprises were slow to understand and make use of the unique community-building capabilities of the Internet. In contrast, the Open Source movement was quick to successfully leverage the community features of the Internet to create and capture value. Describe the evolution of the Open Source community and discuss the importance of online communities to the success of the movement.
Question 2: Rappa (2000) has argued that “Business Models are the most discussed but least understood part of the web”. Discuss this statement in relation to the evolution of the business model concept in recent years. Evaluate how the various business model frameworks studied in this module contribute to our understanding of electronic business.
Question 3: While Cloud computing aims to reduce the complexity of application infrastructures by eliminating concerns such as scalability, new concerns such as location awareness have arisen for Cloud adopters. Discuss why location is a concern and outline the issues adopters should look out for in Cloud computing contracts to ensure they are not over exposed to location related risks.
Question 4: “Business models are perhaps the most discussed and least understood aspect of the web.” Describe the business model classification frameworks proposed by Ticoll et al. (1998) and Timmers (1999) and discuss the importance of such frameworks to our understanding of the e-business landscape.
Question 5: Describe the characteristics of a “Web 2.0” technology/product/service. Make reference to a specific technology/product/service of your choice and analyse the advantages/disadvantages of these characteristics.
Question 6: Outline the Web 2.0 Design Patterns by (O’ Reilly 2005)
Question 7: Discuss the information richness/reach argument that has been proposed by Evans and Wurster (2000) and outline the properties of the Internet that are most affected by their hypothesis. Use example(s) of a sector of your choice to support your answer.
Question 8. In his book, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson argues that three key forces are driving the “Long Tail” phenomenon. These are (1) the democratizing of the tools of production, (2) the democratizing of the tools of distribution, and (3) the creation of mechanisms to better connect supply and demand. Using a company or companies of your choice discuss in detail these three forces and the electronic business opportunities they create.
Question 9: Central to the “Web 2.0” phenomenon is the idea that web applications should be able to aggregate and integrate data and functionality from multiple sources and should provide their own data and functionality in a way that allows others to do the same.
Discuss in detail the opportunities and challenges presented by these concepts for electronic business decision makers.