Blog 8. 11/13/2011

This week in class we talked about hackers stealing people's passwords to various things. We talked about cracking in class, which is the process of recovering passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system. We discussed different ways that passwords are stored. One of the ways is in databases that describe who you are. Passwords are also stored as a one way function. Passwords can also be encrypted, some of which are picture based. In class we also talked about the anonymous attack. The anonymous attack is when people hack your password because either it has a weak encryption, they use guessing, they use the dictionary method, or they use brute force. Identifiable attacks on a password were also discussed in class. Examples of identifiable attacks are social engineering, dumpster diving, wiretapping, and shoulder surfing. Social Engineering can be pretexting, phishing, or baiting. We also discussed Kevin Mitnick, who is one of the most infamous hackers. There are three factors that determine how fast a hacker can get to your data. 1. Length/complexity of password 2. Speed of PC 3. Speed of internet connection.

Blog 7. 11/06/2011

I was sick and not able to attend class this week, but I believe what we talked about was the economics of abundance. The economics of abundance deal with cross subsidies. "Freemiums" were also discussed. Zero marginal cost to distribution was discussed because costs are incurred in production and things can be distributed with no appreciable costs to anyone. Labor exchange and a gift economy was also discussed in the lecture on the economics of abundance. The concept of "waste is good" was also talked about in class. Scarcity and abundance were also talked about in the lecture. Scarcity is "No," and abundance is "Yes."

Blog 6. 10/30/2011

This week in class we talked about long tails. There are two different parts of a long tail. The theory of the long tail says to, "forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream." One part is the head, which is where the mainstream and the highest volume things are located. The other part is the tail, which is the bottom part and usually low volume items. We also talked about that now with the online distribution and retail that we are now in a world of abundance. We also learned that the secret to a thriving long tail business is to make everything available and to help people find it. There are nine rules to successful long tail aggregators. 1. Move inventory way in or way out. 2. Let customers do the work. 3. One distribution method doesn't fit all. 4. One product doesn't fit all. 5. One price doesn't fit all. 6. Share information. 7. Think "and," not "or." 8. Trust the market to do your job. 9. Understand the power of free.

Blog 5. 10/23/2011

This week in class we talked about different websites like ebay, amazon, facebook, youtube, and etc. We talked about how those websites use the information you input to decide what type of ads and offers to show you. Facebook places ads on the side of their page that relate to your interests. Youtube puts ads for different things on all of their videos. Ebay and Amazon have a section of things that they show you that are similar to things you have looked at and bought in the past. We only had one session of class this week due to fall break so we did not talk about as many things as usual.

Blog 4. 10/16/2011

This week in class we talked about Facebook.com and Woot.com. We talked about those two websites and different things about them. We talked about how the two websites were built. We talked about key partners, key activities, key resources, value propositions, and customer relationships for Facebook.com and Woot.com. We also talked about customer segments, channels, the cost structure, and revenue streams for the two websites. We talked about all of those things in class on Tuesday this past week. This past Thursday, we had our projects about a technology due.

Blog 3. 10/9/2011

This week in class we talked about building a web business. We discussed the business plan for a web business, which is 1. Acquire Customers 2. Online Experience 3. Business Outcomes. We also talked about the "Business Model Generation," which has nine key parts. The first is customer segments, which is how an organization serves one or several customer segments. The second is value propositions, which seeks to solve customer problems and satisfy customer needs with value propositions. The third is channels, which is how value propositions are delivered to customers through communication, distribution, and sales channels. The fourth is customer relationships, which are established and maintained with each customer segment. The fifth are revenue streams, which result from value propositions successfully offered to customers. The sixth is key resources, which require assets to offer and deliver the previously described elements. The seventh are key activities. The eighth is key partnerships, which means some activities are outsourced and some resources are acquired outside the enterprise. The ninth is cost structure, which is the end result of the business model elements.

Blog 2. 10/2/2011

This week in class, we talked about disruptive technologies among other things. Disruptive technologies are technologies that help create a new market and eventually disrupt and existing market, displacing an earlier technology there. Some examples that we talked about that were disruptive technologies were Ipods, flat screen televisions, and automobiles. Ipods are examples of disruptive technology because when Ipods came along, things like walk-mans and cd players became a thing of the past. Ipods made it easy to buy a single song instead of having to buy a whole album. When Ipods came along, the art of making an LP and telling a story went away because people started buying single songs instead of albums. An automobile is also and example of a disruptive technology because automobiles made it a lot easier to transport things such as goods. Before automobiles came along, goods were moved my boats and trains among other things. However, now automobiles do a good portion of the transporting that boats and trains used to do.