WEB TECHNOLOGY E-Business & E- Commerce Multimedia: Audio, Video, Speech Synthesis and Recognition.

WEB TECHNOLOGY

E-Business & E- Commerce

Multimedia: Audio, Video, Speech Synthesis and Recognition

IntroductionE-commerce refers to aspects of online

business involving exchanges among customers, business partners and vendors.

E-business encompasses these elements, but also includes operations that are handled within the business itself

Benefits of E-business:

PersonalizationEffective customer serviceStreamlined supply-chain management.

IntroductionE-business models are useful for:

Entrepreneurs starting e-businessesPeople interested in e-commerce

E-business models are used by:

Amazon.comeBayYahoo!Other E-commerce sites

E-Business ModelsStorefront Model

Shopping-Cart Technology

Auction Model

Portal Model

Name-Your-Price Model

Comparison-Pricing Model

Demand-Sensitive Pricing Model

Bartering Model

Storefront modelBasic form of e-business.

Buyers and sellers interact directly.

Provides a combination of transaction processing, security, online payment and information storage.

E-commerce allows companies to conduct business 24-by-7, all day everyday, worldwide

It enables merchants to sell their products online.

Storefront modelAn E-commerce Storefront should include:

Online product catalogs

Order processing through their Web sites

Secure Payments

Sending merchandise to customers

Managing customer data.

Shopping-Cart TechnologyIt is an order-processing technology.

Customers can accumulate items they wish to buy as they browse an e-business Web site.

Support for the shopping cart is provided by:Product Catalog – resides on Merchant ServerMerchant Server

It is the data storage and management system employed by the merchant.

Database Technology

Shopping-Cart TechnologyDatabases store customer information,

including names, addresses, credit-card data and past purchases.

Combine a number of purchasing methods to give customers a wide array of options.

Examples: www.kbkids.com, www.eddiebauer.com® and Amazon.com

Shopping-Cart Technology – Amazon.comThe most widely recognized example of an e-business

that uses shopping-cart technology is Amazon.com.

Amazon.com’s catalog is growing constantly, and the site facilitates convenient navigation among millions of products.

Amazon.com uses a database on the server side that offers customers on the client side multiple ways to search for products.

The Amazon.com database consists of product specifications, availability, shipping information, prices, sales histories, reviews and in-depth product descriptions.

Auction ModelAuction sites act as forums through which

Internet users can assume the role of either seller or bidder.

Sellers can post items they wish to sell and deadlines to close the auctions.

Some sites allow users to provide additional information, such as a photograph or a description of an item’s condition.

Bidders may search the site for items they are seeking, view the current bidding activity and place bids.

Auction ModelSome sites automate the bidding process by

allowing bidders to submit the maximum prices they will pay for auction items.

On such sites, an electronic system continues bidding for a bidder until the bidder wins the auction or until the auction surpasses the bidder’s maximum bid price.

Reverse Auction Model:The reverse-auction model allows buyers to set

prices that sellers compete to match, or even beatExample of a reverse-auction site is priceline.comPopular site for purchasing airline tickets and

making travel reservations.

Auction ModelAuction sites usually receive a commission on

each sale.

When an auction is complete, the seller and winning bidder are notified, and methods of payment and delivery are decided on by the relevant parties.

Most auction sites do not involve themselves in payment or delivery.

Auction model also is employed by business-to-business (B2B) Web sites. The buyers and the sellers in these auctions are

companies.

E-bay.com is a popular aution site.

Auction Model – eBay.comThe auction process begins when the seller

posts a description of the item for sale and fills in the appropriate registration information.

The seller must specify a minimum opening bid.

If potential buyers think this price is too high, the item might not receive any bids.

Sellers often set an opening bid that is lower than the reserve price to generate bidding activity.

Auction Model – eBay.comIf a successful bid is made, the seller and the

buyer negotiate the shipping details, warranty and other particulars.

eBay serves as a liaison between the parties, providing an interface through which sellers and buyers can conduct business.

However, eBay does not maintain a costly physical inventory or deal with shipping, handling or other services that other e-retailers must provide.

Portal modelPortal sites offer visitors the chance to find almost

anything they are looking for in one place.

Portals links consumers to online merchants, online shopping malls and auction sites.

The two types of portal are:Horizontal PortalsVertical Portals

Horizontal Portals:Portals that aggregate information on a broad range

of topics. Eg: Search Engines.

Portal ModelVertical Portals:

They are more specific, offering a great deal of information pertaining to a single area of interest.

Eg: Yahoo!

Yahoo! permits users to browse a variety of sites while maintaining the convenience of paying through their Yahoo! Account.

Online shopping is a popular feature of many major portals.

Portal ModelSites such as Hotbot.com, About.com®, altavista.com

and Yahoo.com® provide shopping pages that link users to thousands of sites carrying a variety of products.

Portals that link consumers to online merchants, online shopping malls and auction sites provide several advantages:

Help users collect information on products and servicesFacilitate comparison shoppingAllow users to browse independently owned storefronts

—a capability that some online shopping malls fail to provide.

Customers can state the price they are willing to pay for products and services.

The online business passes each customer’s price request to an appropriate industry partner, who decides whether to sell the product or service to the customer at the stated price.

A customer whose price is rejected can offer another price.

If a price is accepted, the customer is obligated to make the purchase.

Name-Your-Price Model

Comparison-Pricing ModelAllows customers to poll various merchants in

search of the lowest price for a desired product or service.

Comparison-pricing sites often generate revenue from partnerships with particular merchants.

Although such sites can be convenient, users should be careful when employing these services.

Users might not be getting the best prices available on the Web.

Some services promote the products of merchants with which they have partnerships.

Demand-Sensitive Pricing ModelThe concept behind the demand-sensitive pricing

business model is to sell products to groups of people in a single transaction, thus reducing the cost per person.

The sale of individual products can be expensive, because the vendor must include retail and overhead costs in the price while still generating a profit.

www.mobshop.com sells products for the home, electronics and computers using the demand-sensitive pricing model. customers should visit several such sites before making a purchase.

Bartering ModelIt is the offering of one item in exchange

for another.

Traders make initial offers with the intention of bartering until they reach final agreements with buyers.

It allows individuals and companies to trade products through its site.

Eg: Itex.com

E-MARKETING

Introduction E-Marketing, is the marketing of

products or services over the Internet.

E-Marketing, has brought media to a global audience .

Competition is intense in the e-business and e-commerce worlds.

E-marketing strategy can give a company an advantage.

Marketing campaignBrandingMarketing researchE-mail marketingPromotionsConsumer TrackingElectronic advertisingSearch EngineAffiliate Programspublic relations (PR)Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A brand is defined as a name, logo or symbol that identifies a company’s products or services.

Brands should be unique, recognizable and easy to remember.

Brand equity includes the value of tangible and intangible items.

brand’s monetary value over timecustomer perceptions and customer loyalty to a company, its products or services

Branding

BrandingBusinesses that already have a solid

brand may find it easier to transfer their brand to the Internet.

Internet-only businesses must strive to develop a brand that customers trust and value.E-bayAmazon

Marketing ResearchResearch can be performed over the

Internet.

Giving marketers a new, faster channel through which to find and analyze industry, customer and competitor information.

Traditionally, marketing research has consisted of focus groups, interviews, paper and telephone surveys, questionnaires and secondary research.

Marketing ResearchTo target marketing campaigns effectively, it is

useful to learn about the demographics of Internet, World Wide Web and wireless device users.

Knowledge of customers, personal information revealpurchase preferencesbuying power

Knowledge of customers, psychographics, reveal family lifestylescultural backgroundsvalues

Provides an inexpensive and effective method of targeting potential customers.

Personalized direct e-mail targets consumers by using their names, offering them the right products at the right time.

Opt-in e-mail is sent to people who explicitly choose to receive offers, information and promotions.

E-mail marketing

E-mail marketingInternet mailing lists target customers

through personalized e-mail.

Excessive correspondence can decrease the effectiveness of an e-mail campaign.

Spamming—the distribution of mass e-mails to people who have not expressed interest in receiving information from a company.

Give a company a poor reputation.

PromotionsPromotions can both attract visitors to a site

and influence purchasing. Promotions can also be used to increase

brand loyalty through reward programs.Example: frequent-flyer miles, Point-based

rewards, Discounts, free trials and e-coupons.Vital to make sure that customers are

becoming loyal to the company, rather than to its promotions or rewards program.

Costs of the program must be monitored carefully.

By discovering the target market, the group of people toward whom it is most profitable to aim a marketing campaign.

A company can focus its campaign, increasing the number of visits, responses and purchases.

Marketers use log files log file analysis ID cards Cookies.

Consumer Tracking

Consumer TrackingLog files, files that contain data generated by site

visits, including each visitor’s location, IP address, time of visit and frequency of visits.

log-file analysis is the organization and summarization of information contained in log files to monitor consumer information.

ID cards are tracking devices that provide Web sites with the numerical addresses of and information regarding consumers’ operating systems.

Cookies, another type of tracking device, are text files stored by Web sites on individuals’ personal computers.

Electronic AdvertisingAdvertising gives e-businesses the

opportunity to establish and strengthen branding.

Online advertising can include the placement of links and banners on other companies Web sites.

Businesses can charge other companies for placing their advertisements on its site, providing businesses with additional income.

Electronic AdvertisingBanner advertisements are similar to

billboards seen along the highwayBut banners offer the additional feature of

interactivity. Examples of companies that offer banner-

hosting servicesValueclick.com Doubleclick.com

Advertisers pay only when a viewer clicks on the banner ad and goes to that Web site

A search engine is a program that scans Web sites for desired content, listing relevant sites on the basis of keywords or other search-engine ranking criteria.

Search-engine ranking is important to bringing new visitors to a site.

The method used by a search engine to rank a Web site will determine how “high” a site appears on lists of search results.

Search Engine

Search Enginemeta tag is an XHTML tag that contains

information about a Web page.

Search engines often use meta-tag information when ranking a site.

Search engines rank sites by sending out a program, called a spider to inspects each site.

The spider reads the meta tags, determines the relevance of the Web page’s information and keywords and then ranks the site according to that visit’s findings.

Affiliate ProgramsAn affiliate program is a form of

partnership in which a company pays affiliates on the basis of pre-specified actions by visitors who click-through from an affiliate site to a merchant site.

Affiliate programs also can increase Web-site traffic.

Affiliates post links on each other’s sites in exchange for referral fees.

Befree.com is a fee-based service that helps users set up affiliate programs.

Provides customers and employees with the latest information about,productsservices company promotions and consumer reactions.

A vital aspect of public relations is communication with customers and employees through press releasesSpeechesSpecial eventspresentations and e-mail.

Public Relations

Public RelationsPress releases, which announce current events

and other significant news to the press, can be delivered over the Web.

Example, PR Web (www.prweb.com)

Crisis management, an aspect of PR, is conducted in response to problems a company is experiencing.

When a company is doing poorly, its public-relations department offer issue information regarding the causes and

Steps will be implemented to remedy the problem.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)Customer relationship management (CRM)

focuses on the provision and maintenance of quality service for customers.

Effective CRM involves communicating with customers

Customer satisfaction is key to business success.

Because it is far less expensive to keep current customers than it is to acquire new ones

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)Aspects of CRM are

call handlingsales tracking transaction support.

call handling- maintenance of outbound and inbound calls

from customers and service representativessales tracking- tracking and recording of all sales

made.transaction support - support for technology and

personnel involved in business transactions

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)Unique functions of eCRM, the application

of CRM to an e-business strategy, include

personalization and customization of customers’ experiences

interactions with a Web sitecall center or any other forum for customer

contact

Online Payment and security

Online paymentSecure electronic funds transfer (EFT)

is crucial to e-commerce.

Methods for conducting online transactionsCredit-card paymentsDigital cash and e-walletsSmart cardsMicropayments Monetary transactions on the Web

Credit card paymentSecurity concerns - many people resist

online credit-card transaction.Security issue – credit card fraud by

merchants and third parties.Credit cards have features that enable

secure online and offline payments are,Prodigy Internet®Mastercard® andAmerican Express

Credit card paymentTo accept credit-card payments, a

merchant must have a merchant account with a bank.

Traditional approach, point-of-sale (POS) transactions - that occur when customers present credit cards at stores.

Growth of e-commerce has resulted in Card-not-present (CNP) transaction - online credit-card transactions.

Digital cashDigital cash is digital currency

Stored electronically

Used to make online electronic payments

Digital-cash accounts are similar to traditional bank accounts

Consumers deposit money into digital-cash accounts for use in digital transactions

Digital cashOvercome security concerns of online

credit-card transactions.

Allow people who do not have credit cards to shop online.

Digital cash is used in conjunction with other payment technologies,digital wallets

E-WalletsTo facilitate the credit-card order process,

many companies are introducing electronic wallet services.

E-wallets keep track of billing and shipping information.

It can be entered with one click at participating merchants’ sites.

E-wallets also store E-checksE-cash and credit-card information for multiple cards

Contain embedded computer chips.Smart cards hold more information than ordinary

credit cards with magnetic strips.

Provide higher-level of security than credit cards.

Smart cards can require users to enter passwords.

Information maintained on smart cards can be designated as,“read only” or “no access.”

Smart card

Smart cardEnhanced with additional security features,

encryption and photo identification

Two types of Smart cards, contact contactless

Contact smart card – contain a computer chip.

Smart card must be placed in a smart card reader.

Slow transfer of data.

Smart cardContactless smart card - contains

coiled antenna and computer chip.

Contactless smart card transmit information

Fast transmit of data.Ex: automatic toll payments.

MicropaymentFee for each credit-card transaction.

Becomes costly for inexpensive items.

Sometimes, the cost of an item is actually lower than the standard transaction fee, causing the merchant to incur losses.

Micropayment enables ways for nominally priced products and services to be sold profitably over the Web.

MicropaymentFor Example, a phone bill is essentially

an aggregation of micropayments that are charged periodically at set intervals to justify the transaction fee.

To offer micropayment processing, some companies have formed strategic partnerships with telephone carriers and utility companies.

Online securitySecure transaction must meet four

fundamental requirements,

PrivacyIntegrityAuthentication NonrepudiationAvailability

authentication issue – verification sender and recipient identities.

Online securityPrivacy issue - ensuring that the information

transmitted over the Internet has not been captured or passed on to a third party.

Integrity issue - ensuring that the information sent or received has not been compromised.

Non-repudiation issue - legally proving that a message was sent or received .

Availability - ensuring that the network and the computer systems to which it connects will remain in operation continuously.

CryptographyPrivate information transmitted through

network is protected by encryption techniques.Cryptography

Cryptography transforms data by using a key.

Unencrypted data is known as plain text

Encrypted data is called ciphertext.

Intended recipients possess the corresponding key to decrypt the ciphertext into plaintext

Secret-key cryptographyKnown as Symmetric-key cryptography.

One key used to encrypt and decrypt a message.

Sender encrypts a message using the secret key.

Encrypted message and the symmetric secret key is sent to the intended recipient.

Provides integrity privacy to message.

Secret-key cryptographyDifficulty in exchange of secret key

between sender and receiver.

The privacy and integrity of the message could be compromised if the key is intercepted.

Transmission of secret-key from sender to recipient overSecure channels orPhysical method.

Avoid compromising of key.

Public-key cryptographyPublic-key cryptography is asymmetric.

Uses two keys: public key private key

Private key is kept secret by its owner.

Public key is openly distributed.

If the public key is used to encrypt a message, only the corresponding private key can decrypt it, and vice versa.

Public-key cryptographyPublic key cryptography provides,

AuthenticationData integritySecret-key exchange

Digital signatures, electronic equivalent of written signatures.

A digital signature authenticates the sender’s identity and it is difficult to forge.

Used in public-key cryptography to solve authentication and integrity problems.

Public-key cryptographyOne problem with public-key cryptography is

that anyone with a set of keys could potentially assume another party’s identity.

For example, imagine that a customer wants to place an order with an online merchant. customer does not know that the Web site indeed belongs to that merchant or to a third party who is masquerading as the merchant to steal credit-card information.

Public Key InfrastructureAuthentication problem is solved using

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

PKI integrates public-key cryptography with digital certificates and certificate authorities.

PKI authenticate parties in a transaction.

Digital certificates are digital documents issued by a certification authority (CA).

SSLSSL – secure socket layer.Developed by Netscape Communications, is a

non-proprietary protocol commonly used to secure communications between two computers on the Internet and the Web.

SSL not designed specifically to secure online transactions.

Does not protect private information, such as credit-card numbers.

SSLSSL is built into many Web browsers,

Netscape Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer

Hardware devices, peripheral component interconnect (PCI) cards used in SSL transactions.

PCI installed in web servers.

Reduces the time and power that a server must devote to SSL transaction processing.

WTLSWireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS)

is the security protocol for the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

WAP is a standard used for wireless communications on mobile phones and other wireless devices.

WTLS encrypts data sent between a WAP-enabled wireless device and a WAP gateway.

WTLSAt the gateway, data is decrypted from

WTLS and subsequently, encrypted into SSL.

For a few milliseconds, the data is not encrypted and,therefore, unsecure.

The brief lapse in security is called the WAP gap.

But it is extremely difficult to exploit the WAP gap in practice.

IntroductionMultimedia consists of Video, audio and

images.

Multimedia files can be quite large.

Some multimedia technologies require that the complete multimedia file be downloaded to the client before the audio or video begins playing.

With streaming technologies, audio and video can begin playing while the files are downloading

Used for reducing delays.

Audio and VideoAudio and Video files can be:

Embedded in a Web page.Placed on a Web Server.Downloaded “on-demand”.

A file’s format is determined by:Encoding compression.

An Encoding algorithm or CODEC compresses media files.Taking the raw audio or video as inputTransforming it into a format that Web pages can

read.

Audio and Video - FormatsCommon video file formats include:

MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group)Quick-TimeRealPlayerAVI (Video for Windows) MJPEG (Motion JPEG).

Audio formats include :

MP3 (MPEG Layer 3)MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)WAV (Windows Waveform) AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format—

Macintosh only).

Web based audio and videoHTML Tags are used to embed

multimedia into web pages.The bgsound tag has four key properties

srcloopbalance volume.

Usage: <bgsound

src=“http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/sounds/carib.MID” loop = "-1">

</bgsound>

Web based audio and videoThe img element incorporates both images and videos Properties include:

src – for imagesdynsrc – for videos

Usage:

<img dynsrc = "car_hi.wmv“ start = "mouseover" width = "180" height = "135" loop = "-1" />

Web based audio and videoThe embed element, which embeds a

media clip (audio or video).

Properties include:srcloopwidthheight

Usage:<embed src = "humming.wav" loop = "true">

Microsoft Agent ControlMicrosoft Agent is an exciting technology for

interactive animated characters in a Windows application or World Wide Web page.

The Microsoft Agent control provides access to Agent characters such as:Peedy (a parrot)GenieMerlin (a wizard) Robby (a robot)

These Agent characters allow users to interact with the application using more natural human communication techniques.

SMIL - Synchronized Multimedia Integration LanguageEnables Web document authors to coordinate

the presentation of a wide range of multimedia elements.

XML-based description language that allows static and dynamic text, audio and video to occur simultaneously and sequentially.

One way to render SMIL documents is with RealPlayer.

Apple’s Quicktime plug-in also plays SMIL in both Windows and Mac OS environments.

Sample SMIL document<smil><head><layout><root-layout height = "300" width = "280“ background-color = "#bbbbee" title =

"Example" /><region id = "image1" width = "177" height = "230“ top = "35" left = "50"

background-color ="#ffffff“/> </layout></head><body><seq><par><img src = "book1.jpg" region = "image1“ alt = "book 1" dur = "1s" fit = "fill" /><audio src = "bounce.au" dur = ".5s" /></par></seq></body></smil>

SMIL Syntax<head>

All information for setting up the document.

<layout>Sets layout attributes for the document.

<root-layout>Set document size, color and title

<width>, <height>Size of the region

SMIL Syntax<top>, <left>

Relative position

<body>Encloses contents of the document

<seq>Sets child elements to execute sequentially

<par>Sets child elements to execute simultaneously.

SVG – Scalable Vector GraphicsDescribes vector graphic data for JPEG, GIF and

PNG formats.The GIF, JPEG and PNG file formats store images

as bitmaps. Bitmaps describe the color of every pixel in an

image and can take quite a bit of time to download. Due to the method in which bitmap information is

stored, images of these file types cannot be enlarged or reduced without a loss of image quality.

Vector graphics are produced by mathematical equations which describe graphical information in terms of lines, curves, etc.

Speech synthesisIt is the Artificial production of human speech.The speech capabilities that can be added to an

application are Text-To-Speech (TTS) System.Speech Recognition (SR).

TTS:This involves turning a string into spoken language The complexities of turning words into phonemes are

catered for by a TTS engine installed on the machine.The end result is that the computer talks to the user to

save the user having to read some text on the screen.

Speech SynthesisSynthesized speech can be created by -

concatenating pieces of recorded speech that are stored in a database.

Storage of entire words or sentences allows for high-quality output.

The quality is measured based on:Similarity to the human voice Understandability.

Uses: People with visual impairments or reading

disabilities can listen.

Overview of text processing

Speech recognitionConverts spoken words to text.

Voice recognition - trained to a particular speaker.

Speech recognition - recognize anybody’s speech.

It basically means two things:

Command and Control (CnC)The application can understand and follow simple

commands that it has been educated about in advance. 

Speech RecognitionCnC is sometimes referred to as context-free

recognition.

Alternatively an application can support dictation.

Applications: voice dialingcall routing domestic appliance control word processors,emails aircraft cockpits

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