Unit 2: Doing Business on the Web

In this post I will be discussing four different things involved in doing business on the web. These four things are which services require fast, high quality internet services. I will be investigating local government online, finding out about live chat and finally I will investigate commercial benefits of community websites.

When is There the Need for Speed?

Firstly I will discuss which services require fast and high quality internet access, and I will be explaining why they do. I will go through four examples of thing that will need a fast and high quality internet access. These four things are going to be listening to internet radio, downloading MP3's, downloading videos and buying a basket of 100 goods from an online grocer.

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Listening to internet radio definitely requires fast and high quality internet access. Listening to internet radio requires having a speed internet access so people can listen to the broadcast without it buffering. If the person listening to internet radio has a slow internet speed the broadcast will buffer and keep stop and starting, and this will make it impossible to listen to and ruin the experience for the listener. The internet access will also have to be of a high quality. If the internet is of a low quality the listener will not fully be able to hear what is being said on the radio. If the listener wants to have the be able to clearly hear what is being played on the internet radio they will need to have a high quality internet. So if the listener wants the best listening experience they can have they will need an internet connection which has very good quality and also high internet speeds.

I am going to talk about why downloading MP3's and downloading videos require a fast and high quality internet connection. One reason is that downloading these things will be a very slow and boring process without fast internet. If the user has poor internet connection it will take an extremely long time for the film or MP3 to download and they will not be able to watch the film or listen to the song when they want to. Another factor is the quality of the song or film. If the user has a poor quality internet connection they will not be able to download a high quality version of the song or film they want to listen to or watch. This will make the song impossible to listen to and understand, or make the film impossible to watch. This would ruin the experience of the film or song for the viewer.

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The final task I am going to discuss which needs a fast and high quality internet is buying 100 goods from an online grocer. Completing this task will require a fast internet speed because if the person attempting to buy 100 goods from an online grocer doesn't, it will take a long time for the to complete the order. If the person ordering the goods has a slow internet speed, downloading these goods will take a long time as it will keep buffering. A high quality internet connection will also help as it would also help the speed of the shopping. In this case the speed of the internet would be more important than the quality.

Investigate Local Government Online

There are multiple different purposes to the Bedford Borough Council website. The main purpose of the website is to show what Bedford is like as a town. The website also shows what opportunities there are in Bedford. These could be tourist attractions for people visiting Bedford, or jobs for people who live in Bedford. There is also local news on the website. This is so people can keep up to date with everything that is going on in the town. There is also an advice page on the website. This is to help people who live in Bedford who are maybe in difficult situations and may need help to get out of them. Mainly the Bedford Borough Council website contains news about Bedford and what is happening in Bedford.

The Bedford Borough Council websites main target audience is people who either live in Bedford or are maybe thinking about moving to live in Bedford. The website has targeted these people because these are the people who will want to know what Bedford has to offer them and also they are the people who will need to know what services Bedford has, for example schools.

The major benefits of this website is that it tells the public everything that is happening in Bedford at that current point in time. This is really good because it keeps everyone up to date with what is happening in Bedford. This helps to provide everyone with equal opportunities as everything they need is there and easy to find. Another big benefit this website has is that the layout is extremely clear and easy to use and navigate. This makes the website more appealing to the users as they will easily and quickly be able to find what they are looking for.

The Bedford Borough Council does not have many weaknesses. One weakness is that it only shows information on Bedford and not the whole of Bedfordshire, but the website is not very clear on this. This can lead to confusion of the customers.

The only improvement I can think of this website making is making it a bit clearer about who the website is aimed at and it could also expand the information to cover the whole of Bedfordshire and not just Bedford.

http://www.bedford.gov.uk/

Live Chat

In this part of the task I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages an internet service provider would have with using a live chat service to help communicate with its customers. Firstly I will discuss the advantages of having a live chat service. The biggest benefit is that the Internet Service provider is able to communicate with its customers extremely easily. This is very good as the provider will be able to ask their customers what the main problems with the internet service they provide are. This will help the internet service provider easily identify the problems they have with their service and will allow them to fix the problem faster. This will allow the internet service provider to have great customer service and it will keep their customers very happy.

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Another benefit of an internet service provider using live chat is that the customers can ask questions if they any queries about how something works. This makes the customers feel valued and feel like they are involved. This will keep the customers happy and they will give the provider good reviews. This will market the ISP and will attract more people to use them.

There are also disadvantages to using live chat. One disadvantage is that using a live chat system can make it easy for people to spam the provider. This is waste a lot of the ISP's time and this will be inconvenient for other customers. This spam could be writing things in the live chat which aren't true or giving some of the other customers wrong advice, which will put them off of staying with that ISP.