Below are your tasks, with an estimate of the time required for each. Please finish everything by Class 8 except for Homework 8. All articles are in the Course Reader except as noted.

    The first item concludes the module on the Information Technology Foundations of E-Commerce.

1) [15 min] Read as far as you can in "XML: Enabling Next-Generation Web Applications" in the time alloted. Class 7 handout on-line on course home page (not in Course Reader). This is preparatory to Class 8's Demo 10 on XML, a very important technology just now coming in for e-commerce and other Internet applications.

    The next two items conclude the module on Business-to-Consumer Electronic Commerce.

2) [15 min] Read R.V. Dragan, "Advice From the Web," PC Magazine, 16:15 (Sept. 9, 1997), 133-144, on-line at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/advice/_open.htm. This is a nice introduction to recommendation systems, which are destined to grow more important in the years ahead. Read the front matter (prior to the reviews), the reviews of the Firefly and Net Perceptions products, and the "Making it Personal" box.

3) [1.5 hrs] HOMEWORK 10: Recommendation Systems
Recommendation systems are being used increasingly in e-commerce to help consumers find just what they are looking for. If your last name begins with the letter A-L, you will focus on Firefly; otherwise you will focus on Net Perceptions. Explore the home Web site for the recommendation system developer/vendor assigned to you. Using the information-gathering tools covered in this course -- search engines, library databases, e-mail lists, Usenet news groups, Web-based forums, and resource compendia -- study the system assigned to you, look at commercial examples of its use, examine what users and pundits say about it, and write a brief critical appraisal of its current and likely future place in e-commerce. Your appraisal should show evidence that you have actually used the system you are evaluating.

Your appraisal should address aspects that you deem important. For example, you may wish to comment on what the system assigned to you does, its most plausible applications, how well it works, your long-term prediction for its success or failure, and whether you think the main obstacles to complete success are technical, consumer-based (e.g., privacy concerns), or managerial in nature. You might also want to think about the main alternatives if you don’t use some sort of recommendation system. Class discussion will be organized around the above topics.

By comparing the appraisals done by both halves of the class, we all should be better able to arrive at an informed opinion about these two major competitors.

Turn in your appraisal in hard copy form. You may wish to attach particularly informative supporting documentation that you found. So that your profile can be shared with your classmates, please put it on-line (minus supporting documentation if you wish) as http://internal.anderson.ucla.edu/student/YourFirstName.YourLastName/hw10.htm. Full credit will be given only if this convention is followed correctly.

Optional: Read A. Borchers, J. Herlocker, J. Konstan, and J. Riedl, "Ganging up on Information Overload," Computer, 31:4 (April 1998), 106-108, on-line at http://dlib.computer.org/dynaweb/co/co1998/@ebt-link;hf=0?target=if(eq(query(%27%3CFNO%3E+cont+r4106%27),0),1,ancestor(ARTICLE,query(%27%3CFNO%3E+cont+r4106%27))). This article discusses the GroupLens research system, begun in 1992, that was later commercialized by Net Perceptions. It gives a useful perspective on the underlying problem that recommendation systems attempt to solve, some useful comments on collaborative filtering (the approach taken by GroupLens), and additional references. Note: For those who want to know more about recommendation systems, the March 1997 issue of Communications of the ACM had a nice 7-article special section on this topic (including a long article on GroupLens). The full text is on-line, but only for subscribers.

Optional: Read J. Nielsen, "Top Ten Mistakes of Web Management," Alertbox, 15 June 1997, on-line at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9706b.html (not in Course Reader). This is all good advice for anyone who manages a Web site for e-commerce.

    The next two items continue the module on Discussion Groups and Virtual Communities.

4) [2.9 hr] Read H-A Chaps. 2 and 3, and skim Chaps. 5-7. Next week I’ll comment at length on this provocative book.

There will be a class discussion on H-A. Here are some things to think about:

1. H-A predicts that VCs will result in "an unprecedented shift in power from vendors of goods and services to the customers who buy them".  Do you believe this?  Why?
2. H-A predicts VC economic returns will be extremely attractive (p. 2) as a result of an economic phenomenon called "increasing returns" (sometimes also called  "network externalities") well exemplified by Microsoft.  Do you believe this?  Why?
3. H-A give 5 defining properties of VCs (p. 8 ff.).  Do you agree?  Why?  Do you know any VCs that satisfy all of these?
4. H-A list 4 basic needs that VCs can meet (p. 18).  Do you agree?  Why?
5. Which of our business models can benefit from H-A's defining properties #2 (Tight Integration of Content and Communication) or #3 (Strong Support for Member-Generated Content)?
6. You've heard a lot of authors tout the importance and promise of on-line communities in the context of EC.  What are your "bottom-line" (if tentative) conclusions about this based on H-A, other readings, and your personal experience to date?

5) [1 hr] HOMEWORK 8: Participation in Discussion Groups and Virtual Communities [5 hrs --1 hr week 5, 1 week 6, 1 week 7, 1 week 8, 1 week 9 (due)]
Continue working on this homework, which is detailed in a Class 4 handout. Nothing is due until Class 9, but successful completion requires that you keep up with your e-mail lists, USENET news groups, and Web-based discussion groups.

    The next item continues the Wrap Up module.

6) [.4 hr] Skim K Chap. 12, "Strategies for Electronic Commerce". This chapter deals with important topics having to do with standards (and the lack of them), organizational design, integrating e-commerce into the fabric of an organization, commonly-arising issues, and (at the very end) with the natural progression of sophistication for most organizations. When the time comes that your role is to help lead a company’s e-commerce activities, you’ll want to read this chapter carefully.

7) [1 hr] Work on your Term Project.