Information Technology Applications in Marketing

Extra Credit; Study Guide; Case Due Date etc.

2005-05-06T01:39:00.000-07:00

The extra credit assignment has been posted under the "Exams and Grades" page (http://www.buec.udel.edu/sivaramana/Exams%20&%20Grades_Spr_477.htm). If you choose to do it, it should not take more than 15 minutes for you to complete this assignment.
Final Exam Study Guide and Sample Final exam have been posted on the same page.
Due to popular demand, the last case submission date has been extended from Monday, May 9 to Wednesday, May 11 at the start of class. If you would like to turn in your case before May 11, you may do so.
Please remember that your project is due on May 11. Also, your peer evaluations are due on or before May, 11.
Also, the student presentations on my website have been updated. Please go through the articles discussed in those presentations for your final exam.

Blog Office Hours: Wednesday, May 4 (tomorrow)

2005-05-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

I'll be in Anu's office from 12 - 2 pm tomorrow, Wednesday May 4 if anyone needs to stop by and discuss their blog and cover any issues with the blog project etc.

Promotional Blogs on the Rise

2005-05-03T02:02:00.000-07:00

Further testimony that blogging is becoming an important marketing tool, clickz has released an article: Promotional Blogs on the Rise.

Nice to see it cite the King Kong movie blog as an example of giving fans an inside look into the movie development. A blog this class site has linked to from the beginning as a good example of a blog. The article also talks of using blogs to promote TV shows which also seems a natural fit, especially given the number of class blogs we have covering TV shows / watching and movie reviews etc.

Readings for May 4: Emerging Technologies

2005-04-30T01:50:00.000-07:00

Readings for May 2: New Product Development and Emerging Technologies

2005-04-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

Blog: More on building community

2005-04-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

Many bloggers write posts that essentially 'comment' on other bloggers' posts. What do you achieve by this ? You are showing another blogger you are interested in what he / she has to say, and you have additional insight to add. This should draw that blogger to your site, thus adding more to your community etc. So how do you do this ?

Go to a blogger search engine, i.e. technorati.com Key in a search term that is related to your blog (if you are a Yankees blogger, yankees should work, a desperate housewives blogger would key in "desperate housewives" ("" are needed for a phrase)). The results are results of the most recent entries of blogs around the blogosphere that have included the keyword(s) you are looking for. Find something interesting ... and "blog it" (i.e. write an entry that includes a direct link to the post you are writing about).

Class Notes for April 27: Chapter 15 Wireless Marketing

2005-04-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

The following are the slides for class, chapter 15.

EDIT: added:

Handouts for April 25

2005-04-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

The following are the handouts for Predictive Modeling Techniques.

Blog Project: Second Feedback and Office Hours

2005-04-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

I plan to e-mail you, over the course of the next few days, a second set of feedback. I hope to complete this by next wednesday. On wednesday, April 27, from 12 - 2 pm, I will be in Anu's office and available for any issues you are having with your blog. I have also just posted the guidelines for the grading of the project.

Questions for Case: Living on Internet Time

2005-04-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

(45 points) What are the similarities and differences between the four approaches to product development? What drives these differences?
(50 points) An old friend from college has come up with a great video game idea. The game would be aimed at high school and college students, and would allow them to play with or against each other on the Internet. The software would allow them to build cities in cyberspace, trade with each other, wage war, and engage in a variety of other activities. Your friend has a lot of experience with writing game software, but would like your help in designing a process for taking that idea to market. You have decided to accept this challenge (you love the idea.) Assume that you have funding for hiring enough (a half dozen or so) software developers, and any equipment that you might reasonably need. Specify the sequences of project phases, gates, and milestones, as well as any specific methodologies (user needs, contextual analysis, etc.) that you think you should use. Your process design should define the sequence of major product development activities.
(5 points): Formatting and cover page. See the following section for details

Formatting Guidelines for Writing up the Case Analysis
(Same for all cases to be analyzed this semester)

Case Analysis Submission Instructions
Submit assignment at the beginning of class.
Cover Page

Assignment Title: Case Analysis Assignment

Your full name:
Course Title and Number – BUAD 477: Information Technology Applications in Marketing
Semester: Spring 2005
Assignment
The assignment is to be written in the form of a memorandum addressed to the Instructor.
Format:
Text should be double-spaced and use a 12-Point Font
1 – inch margin on all sides
Page Limit: Max. 5 Pages. - Not including cover page.
Space saving hints
Include Tables and other visuals in the appendix.
Do not re-state information from the case. You can just refer to the information by stating the page number on which the information appears.
Any format violation will be penalized with negative points.

• General Instructions for Written Assignment

Papers will be evaluated for correct spelling, structure, grammar and punctuation.
Remember, the spell and grammar checker on your computer does not catch everything.
There is no substitute for careful proofreading to find typing and careless errors.
If you use any information from external sources (print or otherwise), use a writer’s reference or writing style guidebook for assistance with effective writing or refer to the next section titled “Documenting Sources for an academic paper.”
Written assignments are to be submitted with letter quality printing.

Documenting Sources for an Academic Research Paper

As stated by Diana Hacker, the author of A Writer’s Reference, “In academic research papers and in any other writing that borrows information from sources, the borrowed information – quotations, summaries, paraphrases, and any other facts or ideas that are not common knowledge – must be documented.”
See information on Plagiarism on Page 4 of Class Syllabus.
Be careful not to copy words or paraphrase thoughts from the text, readings, or other sources.
If you do use words or paraphrase thoughts from readings, text or other sources, you must properly document and cite your source of information.
Use a writing style book, writer’s reference or a guide to writing research papers for specific guidelines for complete citations for books, articles, government publications, company annual reports, home pages, etc.
As a general rule, provide as much information about the source as possible including author, editor, title, publication, publisher, date published, etc.

Examples to help with your assignments

Book:
Berkowitz, Eric N., et al. Marketing. 6th edition. Boston: Irwin McGraw–Hill, 2000.
Article:
Thurm, Scott. “Scanner Prices Plunge as Prices Soar.” Wall Street Journal December 17, 1998, Section B.
World Wide Web Site:
“History: Budweiser Through the Years…The Company Timeline.” Budweiser Homepage [Online]. Available: http://www.budweiser.com/archives.html [1999 Anheuser-Busch Inc., St. Louis, MO].

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Remember that there is no right or wrong answer. The emphasis of the discussion will be on the analysis of a number of issues in arriving at a “well-thought out” decision on the ideal strategies for Internet ventures.

Blog Project: Grading Scheme

2005-04-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

Blog project: how it will be graded.

We will ask you to e-mail alex@udel.edu during the last week of classes. This e-mail should include relevant links you will need to provide with respect to your blog project work (appearance in google, site's you have commented on etc.) and your assessment of your group members' blogs. Your blog will be graded as follows:

Overall Design 25%
This comprises the look and feel of the blog. It includes the extra links, consideration of the additional 'headers' used in the template and other resources and content linked to the template.

The grade will be assigned based on the overall look of the design and how the design is impacted by the additional content that has been included and linked to from the template (other links, other blogs, affiliate programs, adsence programs, other content included in the template that helps add context to the blog etc.)

Commenting: 25%
You will need to provide me all the blogs' URLs to which you have commented, this includes classmates blogs as well as outside of class blogs. It would be helpful if you provided me the direct link (permalink) of the actual entries to which you commented. I will also determine how well you have responded to comments on your own blog.

Content of your blog: 40%
This falls into two parts.
A. Content re: your posts
The quality of the posts (relevance to theme, writing style etc.), the frequency of the posts and the links provided within the posts.

B. content re: what you add to your template (links and additional resources etc.)
Additional content that has been included and linked to from the template (other links, other class blogs, Other theme-related blogs, sitemeter, affiliate programs, adsence programs, other content included in the template that helps add context to the blog etc.) Note, it is not a question of the more links and resources you have the better it must be, its the quality of the links and resources and how they tie to your blog that is critical.

Bloglines Subscriptions: 10%
You need to subscribe to:
A. this class
B. other blogs within your group
C. other resources, theme-related blogs (esp. those listed on your blog)
You need to make your subscriptions public and make sure this is listed on this class site along with your blog. If this is not the case, please e-mail me the appropriate link.

Opportunities for extra grade consideration. (10% extra)
While not required for a full grade, you will be rewarded for the following additional things:
a. your blog's appearance in google (need to send me the google URL of the search that lists your blog as one of the results)
b. your blog's link from other, NON class blogs (need to provide me the URL of the blog that lists your blog)

We will also get feedback from you about your group members' blogs. This feedback may be used to increase your overall grade. We will ask each of you to provide an overall assessment of each of the blogs within the group, the assessment will focus on the design and utility of the blog. The feedback you provide about your group members will also be assessed, in terms of its value to the blog that you are assessing, and again could effect an increase in your grade.

Some of the previous entries on this site with respect to the blog project:

Building Community

Initial Group Project Guidelines

Class Project

BusinessWeek article on Blogging

2005-04-22T08:12:00.000-07:00

The following cover story on BusinessWeek: Blogs Will Change Your Business seems to be a decent 'survey' of the explosive growth of blogs and their potential impact on business and mainstream media. At the end of the story BusinessWeek announces its own blog: blogspotting.net It may be interesting to follow this new entrant to the blogosphere!

Class Notes for April 18

2005-04-18T01:37:00.000-07:00

The following are the slides for class, chapter 10.

More on RSS

2005-04-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

The following is a very good explanation of RSS for us non technically-minded from What's Next Online. Found at Diva Marketing.

A couple of interesting excerpts:

What is does:

Essentially, RSS is a technology that allows website publishers to make their headlines and summaries of their content available through a syndicated "feed" that users can subscribe to receive. Users then view the feed with the help of an RSS reader like Bloglines or Feed Demon.

Why its cool:

Manually checking every site in which you are interested is incredibly time consuming. RSS is a better way to be notified of new and changed content on multiple websites. You receive the results in a well organized way, distinct from email.

A couple of marketing / technology resources you may wish to subscribe to to get you started (other than your group members blogs and other theme-related blogs):

Your bloglines subscriptions

2005-04-15T01:55:00.001-07:00

when i next provide feedback on your blog, i will also be looking at your subscriptions, there are still some of your public subsciptions i have not seen. please make sure:

You have subscribed to at least:
1. this class http://buad477.blogspot.com/atom.xml
2. your group members' blogs
3. other theme-related blogs
made your subscriptions public (i.e. mine can be viewed at http://www.bloglines.com/public/alexbrown)
your public subscriptions are listed, with your blog on the left hand column of this blog

Please e-mail me (or leave a comment) with your address of your public subscriptions if you need them listed as in 3.

Handouts for April 13: Customer Lifetime Value

2005-04-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

The following are the handouts for Customer Lifetime Value.

The Effects of Online Advertising: A Focus on Pop-Up and In-Line Ads

2005-04-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

for anyone interested:

The "Department of Accounting & MIS Research Workshop" presentation is scheduled on 4/15 at Alfred Lerner Hall 231 from 11:00 a.m. - noon. Dennis Galletta (Temple University) will be presenting his paper (co-authored with Scott McCoy, Andrea Everard, Peter Polak) entitled "The Effects of Online Advertising: A Focus on Pop-Up and In-Line Ads."

Class Notes for April 13

2005-04-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

The following are the slides for class, chapter 8.

Blog: Hugh Hewitt

2005-04-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I read:

This seems a decent book covering the emergence of the blogging phenomenon. The author has a pretty popular blog. It is very US centric and the author is clearly has a conservative agenda, but aside from that there are some decent insights into the emergence of this new communications medium for sure. The notes I wrote as I was going through the book include:

'open source journalism'
'transparency'
'traditional media scruntiny'
'fact checking'
'symbiosis with traditional media (MSM)'

He dismisses the need for an RSS feed, but we have to recognize that as bloggers we don't all have a talk radio show to 'push' our blog, so i would have liked to have heard more about the importance of RSS and aggregated news readers.

On the whole a good, quick read, if anyone wants to borrow my copy just leave a comment and its yours (to borrow).

Monday's Class (April 11)

2005-04-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

There are no slides for this class. There will be Handouts on Customer Lifetime Value - which will be made available in class.

More on Building Community: link to blogs, visit, comment, and subscribe!

2005-04-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

As you are now getting more familiar with the blogosphere and your particular blog etc. I thought I would write a little more on the practicalities of building community around your blog. Basically you NEED links out and links coming into your blog, especially those of blogs that you are interested in and have a similar theme to yours.

Why ?

Basically, when you link to a blog from your blog, and then follow that link to the targeted blog, the targeted blog can see that there is a link on your blog to their blog by referring to their referrer stats. (via sitemeter etc.) The targeted blog owner, like you, is also trying to build community, and, especially if it is quite a 'new' blog, will certainly visit your blog to see what it is about. If the targeted blog (owner) sees your blog is interesting enough, not only will that person visit your blog, but will create a link to your blog from their blog (returning the favour, a tradition in the blogosphere) and likely subscribe to your blog via Bloglines. This will help build your community, but you cannot get frustrated if you do not see quick results. Building community takes time, and plenty of it. (note, you can also comment on those targeted blogs, this will increase your visibility on those blogs beyond simply their referrer stats.)

I clearly encourage you to seek out blogs from the wider blogosphere to link to etc. but you can also start with blogs from this class that are related to your theme.

i.e. if you are doing a blog on desperate housewives, you might also want to link to the blog on Television Connection. If your blog is on the New York Yankees, perhaps link to other Yankees Blogs from the class etc. If you are doing a blog on movie reviews, you are not the only one ... and of course issues related to being a senior are pretty popular too!

Don't forget, for all the blogs you link to, also subscribe via your bloglines account. That way you only need to visit those blogs once you know there has been an update!

BizRate Case Questions

2005-04-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

We will be discussing the case in class on Wednesday, April 20, 2005. Please read the case and prepare the answers to the following questions. Note, however, that the questions below are meant as a guideline for analyzing the case. Elaborate on questions that would help you make your case. I would suggest that you think about other issues that are not discussed through the questions below.

(20 points) What value does BizRate provide to customers?
(20 points) How does the value BizRate provide compare to that provided by Gomez Advisors?
(20 points) How does BizRate affect the merchant's relationship with its customers?
(15 points) In what ways is BizRate "the antidote to Amazon" and similar to eBay? What are the differences in Web site loyalty for BizRate vs. Amazon?
( 20 points) Did Red October add value for consumers? How?
For merchants? How? What should BizRate do regarding the Red October?
(5 points): Formatting and cover page. See the following section for details.

Highlighted Blogs

2005-04-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Having gone through each of the class blogs, I thought I would highlight a couple that show some interesting 'developments' that may be of interest for other blogs.

Atlanta Falcons. I like the introduction in the template AND the image in the template. As we know, flikr does not seem to allow you to do this outside of entries on your blog. When I asked Ryan how he had worked around this issue his response was:

"All i did was up load it to flickr
and said to blog this photo. After that i viewed my
source page to see where it put the picture. I cut
and pasted where it put the picture originally and
then found where it says "begin profile" and i pasted
the picture there. I was pleased to see that it
actually posted in the right place!!!"
Japanese Kaizen. Creative use of ebay to show auctions of the products being sold. I am sure something like this may work for some other blogs.

Class Notes for April 6

2005-04-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

The following are the slides for class, chapter 5.

More links to follow.

Feedback for your Blogs

2005-04-04T02:25:00.000-07:00

Everyone should have received an e-mail offering feedback on your blog to date. Most went out yesterday. If you did not receive an e-mail, please let me know.

I will repeat this in about three weeks in order to guage your continued progress.

cheers, alex

Monday's Class: Guest Speaker

2005-04-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

Monday's Guest Speaker is Joy Lynam who is the Associate Director of the University of Delaware's MIS department. She is responsible for the maintenance and development of the UDEL website. She will be talking about website development and maintenance issues.

Bloglines Helps Bridge The Vastness Of Space

2005-04-01T06:08:00.000-08:00

Given our familiarity with bloglines for this course I thought you might be interested in their latest move to broaden their reach.

The Annual 'Bloggies'

2005-03-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

OK so this many not be the oscar or bafta awards, but blogs have their own annual award ceremony, the bloggies.

mid term results

2005-03-29T09:09:00.000-08:00

have been e-mailed to you. if you did not receive the e-mail (a couple bounced) e-mail me and I will resend.

Your bloglines Subscriptions

2005-03-28T02:15:00.000-08:00

I have added a link to your bloglines subscriptions on the left, along with your blog. Could you please check I have yours and if not e-mail me the URL. If you have any questions, please 'comment'.

Links to each chapter's slides

2005-03-22T11:50:00.000-08:00

M and A in the internet space

2005-03-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

Clearly there was a market 'correction' in the late nineties and early part of the 2000s when the bubble burst on many internet-related businesses. It seems we are now seeing more and more 'action' in mergers and acquisitions that may be a good sign for the resurgent health of this space. I was catching up with slashdot (via my bloglines news reader) and noted a couple of recent transactions that are closely related to some of the technology we have been using:

Ask Jeeves Bought for $2 billion (ask Jeeves had recently acquired bloglines)
Yahoo buys Flickr

Evolution of a start up: Another experience

2005-03-21T10:21:00.000-08:00

To compliment the Collabrys case I thought it would be interesting to see my own experience with start-ups, which also has an evolutionary component.

We will also discuss Firefox for a completely different look at new product development.

.

Pre Mid-Term Office Hours

2005-03-20T15:41:00.000-08:00

Given that we have a mid-term this week i'll be available, from noon - 2 pm monday and wednesday, in 207 Alfred Lerner Hall. This may also be a good opportunity for those of you still struggling with your blog etc. to stop by.

Two articles that were handed out, and will be used for the mid-term

2005-03-20T13:52:00.000-08:00

the following two articles, that were handed out, will need to be covered for the mid-term:

Future of blogging and news reader development

2005-03-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

The following story: Microsoft to dominate Blogging sooner then expected... is an interesting article on the potential outcomes as Microsoft moves into the blogging space with free / bundled tools for blogging and for news aggregation. Essentially the potential for this move to drastically reduce the likelihood of innovation in this area. Feel free to post your comments to this story. We will discuss this, and related issues on monday (along with the case discussion).

Case Questions for Callabrys

2005-03-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

Quick reminder, here are the case questions for monday's class, for discussion.

Group Presentation Slides

2005-03-17T02:21:00.000-08:00

I will post the group presentation slides to this blog later today (now I have figured out a .ppt file displays on the web)! Each class will be responsible for the material on the slides for their particular section for the mid term.

Edit: now posted.

Class bookstore expanded!

2005-03-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

I just added a couple of books to the class bookstore. Both books, about web-site design, are excellent. Again, not a bad idea to e-commerce enable your site by either:

being an amazon affiliate for books / CDs etc. that are related to the theme of your blog. For example, I assume those sites that are related to sports teams could link to books written about said sports team etc.
link to search results on ebay for products related to your site theme. For example this could be concert tickets for bands you are following etc. (ok, not directly e-commerce here but creative use of the internet to make the content of your blog more rich).

Class Notes for March 15

2005-03-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

The following are the slides for class (chapter 9).

Some additional links relevant for the chapter:

Links for student presentations:

More on Flickr

2005-03-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

for those of you using flickr to post your pictures to your blog, check English for Marketing Class Blog for additional detailed instructions.

Searching for related Blogs

2005-03-14T06:51:00.000-08:00

As part of your blog project it will be important to link to blogs of similar themes in order to help build your community. While using google should enable you to find related blogs you can also try the following blog-specific search engines:

These blog resources have been added to the 'other resouces' section.

Dell Case

2005-03-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

As we discuss the Dell Case today, I thought it would be useful to link to the Dell site during the time of the case study (and thanks to archive.org we can do this).

December 1996: 150,000 site visitors per week, sales approximately $1 million / day
June 1997: 250,000 site visitors per week, sales approximately $2 million / day
Fall 1997: $3 million per day in sales.

Blog: Archives, what happens to old entries ?

2005-03-12T12:52:00.000-08:00

A blog is designed to show the most recent entries on the front page. Older entries are archived and can be viewed by linking on the appropriate archive pages (on the left hand nav.) Thus if you are looking for the questions for the Collabrys case, you need to link to the february archives.

Added Resources and Search Engine Optimization!

2005-03-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

Under the 'other resources' label (on the left hand nav.) I have added links to Amazon Associates and Google AdSense. For those of you with blogs that would be appropriate for e-commerce and / or advertising, I encourage you to explore these resources.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical component of internet marketing. In class on wednesday we looked at some referer stats for the MBA Admissions Blog. I wanted to remind those of you who could not see the google search results the following search: Harvard round 2 interview. Now that is interesting (the Wharton blog coming #1 on a Harvard search)! Blogs are very google-friendly I think and a useful part of any SEO strategy.

Viral Marketing: Subservient Chicken

2005-03-09T14:26:00.000-08:00

As I could not demonstrate the site in class today I thought Subservient Chicken deserved its own blog entry. You can also google it to get a sense of how its has traveled across the internet (not forgetting all the e-mail forwarding etc.) I hope you enjoy the site and feel free to forward it to your friends! Found at: Scobleizer.

Blog: Add some contact info.

2005-03-09T09:54:00.000-08:00

Many of your blogs do not include a direct means to contact you (other than the use of the comments section). It may make sense to add your e-mail contact information so you can be contacted directly (and privately) if needed. This should be added to your template (much like you have added additional links etc.)

The code for adding a direct e-mail link is:

<a href="mailto:alex@udel.edu">alex@udel.edu</A>

(of course replacing my e-mail address with yours!)

Some people get concerned about spam coming from e-mail addresses that are posted all over the internet, thus you may decide to use the following format:

alex 'at' udel 'dot' edu

Uploading images to your Blog

2005-03-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

Basil on deck
Originally uploaded by alexbr.

A few of you have asked how to upload pictures to your blog. Basically what you need is somewhere to store your pictures online, and then link to them. You could do this on your Delaware account (if you have this set up) etc.

One alternative is to sign up for an account on flickr, store your images there and then blog them from there to your blog. This is exactly what I am doing now with a picture of my dog (Basil).

If you want to add an image to the template that is a little more complicated (i.e. the flickr solution seems designed to only allow for images in an entry). Anyway, you can go to the flickr page where your image is displayed, 'view source' and find the url of the image (ending in .jpg) and then include the code needed to add an image in your html in the template. (which is <img src="graphic.jpg"> ).

Materials for Chapter 7

2005-03-08T00:51:00.000-08:00

The following are the slides for class (chapter 7).

Some additional links relevant for the chapter:

Links for student presentations:

Class Notes for March 7

2005-03-07T04:16:00.000-08:00

The following are the slides for class (chapter 6).

Some of the links referenced in the chapter:

Blogging and building community

2005-03-06T16:30:00.000-08:00

I thought I would highlight a class blog: Australia. This blog includes links to fellow bloggers on the same topic. You can find fellow bloggers probably easiest by using google and doing searches on your blog theme with the additional keyword 'blog'. Once you have a good list of fellow bloggers, start following their blogs, comment on their blogs etc. This will help create community on your blog by drawing those bloggers back to your site. If you include sitemeter on your site you will see the referrer URL of your visitors, this indicates whether you have been 'linked' from these sites. Its good blog etiquette to link to blogs that link to your blog etc.

Edit: Adding Living with the Military, another good example.

Writing your blog entries: HBS Application 'Storm'

2005-03-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

I found this useful post on Diva Marketing that highlights a few resources to help you with writing your blog entries. Following the links to the appropriate blogs should provide you some interesting insights in writing for your blog, and public writing in general.

On another note, HBS has run into some issues with its application process (r2 applicants could, for a brief period of time view their status). This occured early this week and while has some press coverage at this point, the real issue for them was the storm that brewed very quickly in the blogging / discussion board world. Managing a 'crisis' in the internet era is very different to managing under traditional media (PR statements etc.)

To follow the story check these resources:

If we get tie next week we can discuss this 'live' case in ciris management, or do so at some point in the semester.

Clarification for Case Analysis Reports

2005-03-03T12:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some clarifications regarding the Case Analysis Reports.

Please answer all the questions laid out in the
guidelines when you prepare the case analysis report. You
are free to elaborate more on certain questions and less on
certain questions but we would like you to address all the
questions.
You do not have to work on the questions in the order in
which they have been laid out...you can move them around to
suit your writing style.
It is best if the case analysis is written in paragraphs
of text. If you want to write certain sections as bullet
points, make sure you elaborate on these bullet points.
Whenever you make a suggestion/recommendation/observation
in the project report, make sure you justify it with
relevant data from the case.
Do not use any information from outside of the case in
your case report (For example, do not use any current stock
market information or current website information etc.) Use
only the information that is available to you in the case.

February 28 Class Notes

2005-02-28T01:18:00.000-08:00

The following are the slides for class.

Some of the links referenced in the chapter:

Student Presentations, Chapter 6

Innovative Online Marketing Research Methods

Digital Devide

Online Data Capture

Collabrys, Inc. (A) case: For Discussion Only

2005-02-27T01:09:00.000-08:00

I have listed below some of the questions to guide your reading of the Collabrys, Inc. (A) case. We will be discussing the case in class on Monday, March 21st, 2005. I would suggest that you think about other issues that are not discussed through the questions below.

What is the Business Environment like for Benjamin Wayne and the other managers in Silicon Valley in the year 2000? Specifically, consider the following issues:

What are characteristics of the business environment make starting a new business difficult?
Which of these characteristics are “generic” and which are the characteristics that are specific to the Internet boom and bust?
Why starting a business at this particular time and in this particular place exacerbates those difficulties?

Consider the major turning points in the evolution of this startup. What did they learn at each stage in their development?

To begin, determine what is Collabrys’ product/service. What is the value of the service that Collabrys delivers?
Identify the major stages/turning points in the evolution of Collabrys.
What did Wyane and his team learn at each stage?
What are the rules implied by the various decisions Wayne and the other senior managers make? (Read article: Strategy as Simple Rules)
What kinds of rules are these (refer to the how-to rules, boundary rules, priority rules, timing rules and exit rules discussed in the article “Strategy as Simple Rules”)?

Which of the two strategic options should Collabrys take? Why?

To respond to this you have to essentially answer the questions – Should Collabrys be selling technology? Or Should Collabrys be delivering a service?
It will help to create a table of “pros and cons” for each of the two business models – the Selling Technology model and the Delivering Service model.

Chapter Presentation Guidelines

2005-02-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

The follow are the guidelines / expectations for chapter presentation:

A presentation (preferably powerpoint or at least overhead slides) that does not exceed 15 minutes. You can store the presentation on your e-mail and pull it up from the class laptop when you need to present it.
The presentation should discuss articles in great detail. For example, you can discuss an article and visit the website of the company discussed in the article etc.
You should send the links of the articles, the sites you intend to visit and the presentation at least a couple of days before the presentation.

Group Project Guidelines

2005-02-25T05:24:00.000-08:00

This is a guideline to get you running with your blog project. We will follow up in a couple of weeks with more specifics (i.e. what part of the grade is associated with which tasks etc.) This should help you continue to move in the right direction.

You will be graded on your blog, and the criteria will include:

The focus and quality of your entries, and the frequency of entries (1 per week is a minimum)
relevant links within your entries and included in your blog template. These links will include related resources, related blogs (from outside this class), other bloggers from your group etc.
community you develop. this will be measured by the quality of your comments, and the 'traffic' you can generate (if you include sitemeter or similar so this can be measured.) We will cover more about developing community on your blog as the semester unfolds, but suffice it to say identifying and linking to other related blogs is a first step.
your bloglines subscriptions will also be reviewed, minimum suscription = this class and your group members. we will look at other resources to which you are subscribed.

You will be graded as part of your group, and the criteria will include your participation in other group members' blogs (and class memebers' blogs). This can be satisfied in 3 ways:

your thoughtful (value adding) comments on your group membersblogs
your support to help your group members make their blogs as good as they can be (i.e offering technical / design support when appropriate). We will survey you at the end of the semester to determine your level of support in this area.
your thoughtful (value adding) comments on non-group member blogs (but blogs of real interest to you) will also be evaluated for this part of the grade. You should link to these blogs from your blog.

What should you be doing at this stage ?

have your blog set up (and linked to this blog).
first post accomplished.
links to outside resources (either within a post or / and on the template.
set up an account on bloglines.
subscribe to your group members blogs (need to e-mail each other what the URLs are OR get them directly from the class site)
subscribe to the class blog.

Check your comments: Confirm I am subscribed to your blog!

2005-02-24T06:53:00.000-08:00

Make sure to check and respond to your comments. I will be making comments over the next week or so, offering some suggestions on 'improvements' to blogs. I will access your blog when i see an update from bloglines so please make sure your blog is listed on my list of subscriptions: http://www.bloglines.com/public/alexbrown.

I have already visited about 4 blogs this AM (that were updated on bloglines) and I am _very_ impressed with what I am seeing, and I left a comment on each blog.

Dell Case pushed back to Wednesday March 9: Chapts. 6 and 7 Moved

2005-02-24T01:59:00.000-08:00

As was correctly pointed out in class, I had not given you the necessary 2 week lead time for the Dell case. This has then been pushed back to Wednesday, March 9.

Chapter 6 will now be Wednesday, March 2 and Chapter 7 will be Monday March 7. For those groups planning to present the impacted chapters, if you are not able to do so given the new schedule, please e-mail me and include which chapter you would prefer.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Cheers, alex

February 23 Class Notes

2005-02-22T12:49:00.000-08:00

The following are the slides for class.

Some of the links referenced in the chapter:

Creating links to outside resources

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To be completed by monday, February 28 class (a post that links to another site, and links included in your template).

Your blog should include posts that include relevant links to other resources, or issues about which you are blogging (i.e. if your blog is a 'movie review' blog, and you are writing about a particular movie, when you mention the movie you should link directly to its web-site (assuming it has one).

Your blog should also include relevant links that are included in the template (so they appear permanently in the left hand, or right hand column (depending on your particular blog design.)) For this blog, they all appear in the left hand column. I will demonstrate this in today's class.

But to get you started, how do you hyperlink to another web resource ?

Easy!

To include a link to this Site from your blog, simply change this blog reference from:

Information Technology Applications in Marketing (My favourite Class)

to

<A HREF="http://buad477.blogspot.com">Information Technology Applications in Marketing (My favourite Class)</A>

Note: It is not important to know what <A HREF means, nor do you need to remember, whenever you need to create a hyperlink, you can simply view source on a document that contains a hyperlink ... and that is why writing html is not complex!

Note: when creating a 'post' for your blog (and if using blogspot)
select: edit HTML option

Any questions ? Use the comments area.

Class Blog Examples

2005-02-19T02:11:00.000-08:00

Japanese Kaizan. Nice addition of links, not only in the first entry, but also in the template on the left hand column to relevant resources.

UD Relay For Life. This blog will actually be used by the UD Relay for Life 'team'. It already advertises a meeting to be held next tuesday.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below. Happy blogging!

More on blogging

2005-02-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

The following articles will give you some additional insight into the use, and potential dangers, of blogging from the bloggers' as well as the entities' perspective. I'll plan to discuss these a little on monday so please review the articles (and respective blogs) beforehand. (also feel free to use the comments option to post your thoughts).

SLU attempts to silence a controversial blog, and the blog in question: TAKE BACK OUR CAMPUS! Thought this was interesting given we are an academic institution!

Chief humanising officer, and the blog in question: Scobleizer. Putting a human face on the often criticized Microsoft.

Have a blog, lose your job?, and the blog in question: ninetyninezeros (i think). Note the irony with this story ?

HBS Article (Evans and Wurster)

2005-02-16T15:50:00.000-08:00

to be reviewed for monday has been put on reserve at the library. You can go the library and make a hardcopy of the article for reading. We have also been working with the library to put the article on electronic reserve. The four digit password is 8801.

February 16 Class Notes

2005-02-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

The following are the slides for class.

Some of the links referenced in the chapter:

Webvan: it was all wrong!

2005-02-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

I was a little 'surprised' that no one in the two classes seemed to have heard of Webvan which is, in my opinion, the poster child for what was all wrong with internet investment in the late 1990s. Anyway, from the google search WEBVAN interesting links include: Wikipedia definition: Webvan and Wired: Why Webvan Drove Off a Cliff.

February 14 Class Notes

2005-02-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

The following are the slides for the February 14 class.

Some of the Links referenced from the Text:

Additional Reading.
For additional resources you can also access:

Bloglines Subscription: Make it public

2005-02-13T02:39:00.000-08:00

For your bloglines subscription, please make it public. This will enable other students (and teachers) to view your subscriptions and also help me know you are subscribed to our class. While doing this you can select individual subscriptions to remain private (if you are concerned, and do not want to share one or two of your choices)!

To make your subscription public:

click on the 'share' tab (from one of the horizontal labels)
add a username (under the "Blogrolls" header)

save it.

that should do it. it does not 'activate' straightaway, but works. you can test it by using the URL: http://www.bloglines.com/public/alexbrown (replacing alexbrown with your username)

cheers, alex

What's a blog ?

2005-02-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

To help those still puzzled by the idea of what a blog really is, check out What the Blog?” Yvonne DiVita found at Diva Marketing via my Bloglines subscription!

Tasks to complete by class 2/14

2005-02-10T07:04:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder, the following tasks should be complete by monday:

a. e-mail alex@udel.edu your team
b. e-mail alex@udel.eduyour blog theme for approval
c. sign up for an account on http://www.bloglines.com
d. subscribe to this blog via bloglines
e. complete and return the personal data form (you can bring this to monday's class)
f. READ the syllabus carefully

(note, all e-mail communications to alex must include buad477 in the subject header).

Additional things to begin:

a. once the blog theme is approved, sign up for your (very easy to use) http://www.blogger.com account (or other blogware account if you choose).

cheers, alex

Class Project

2005-02-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

Each student is required to create a 'blog' around an approved theme (approved theme, such as: my hometown; my sports team; conflict in iraq; a country; etc. Note: Be passionate about your theme!) Please e-mail your theme idea to alex 'at' udel 'dot' edu You are advised to use http://www.blogger.com as your blog platform as it is free, easy and hosted.

Each team member is required to subscribe to each team members' blogs, and this blog (via a news aggregator: bloglines). (You must use bloglines for this part of the project.

Thus each blog needs an RSS feed. For those blogs created by blogger, and therefore on the blogspot domain, the URL of the feed will be in the format:

http://yourname.blogspot.com/atom.xml (for example, this class' feed is http://buad477.blogspot.com/atom.xml).

Each team member is required to 'comment' 10 times throughout the semester on each team members' blog entries. Comments are to be thoughtful responses to the entries posted by the blogger. Each blog must contain at least one new entry per week (although you are not limited to only one entry of course). Each blogger is also responsible for responding to the comments posted by classmates (and others who may comment).

There will be certain 'design' criteria for each blog, i.e. link to each
team members' blog, link to other other theme-related blogs etc. These 'assignments' will be articulated using this blog, with updated entries titled: Blog Project: X (where X is replaced with a relevant title such as Make all your H2 tags green).

Welcome to the Class Blog

2005-02-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

This blog is designed for BUAD477, Information Technology Applications in Marketing. This site will serve as a resource, and to manage the student blog projects.

To subscribe to this blog you will need to:

a. sign up for an account on bloglines
b. subscribe to the feed: http://buad477.blogspot.com/atom.xml

This is a requirement for this course.

Information Technology Applications in Marketing

Extra Credit; Study Guide; Case Due Date etc.

Blog Office Hours: Wednesday, May 4 (tomorrow)

Promotional Blogs on the Rise

Readings for May 4: Emerging Technologies

Readings for May 2: New Product Development and Emerging Technologies

Blog: More on building community

Class Notes for April 27: Chapter 15 Wireless Marketing

Handouts for April 25

Blog Project: Second Feedback and Office Hours

Questions for Case: Living on Internet Time

Blog Project: Grading Scheme

BusinessWeek article on Blogging

Class Notes for April 18

More on RSS

Your bloglines subscriptions

Handouts for April 13: Customer Lifetime Value

The Effects of Online Advertising: A Focus on Pop-Up and In-Line Ads

Class Notes for April 13

Blog: Hugh Hewitt

Monday's Class (April 11)

More on Building Community: link to blogs, visit, comment, and subscribe!

BizRate Case Questions

Highlighted Blogs

Class Notes for April 6

Feedback for your Blogs

Monday's Class: Guest Speaker

Bloglines Helps Bridge The Vastness Of Space

The Annual 'Bloggies'

mid term results

Your bloglines Subscriptions

More on blogs: Have a good Spring Break!

Links to each chapter's slides

M and A in the internet space

Evolution of a start up: Another experience

Pre Mid-Term Office Hours

Two articles that were handed out, and will be used for the mid-term

Future of blogging and news reader development

Case Questions for Callabrys

Group Presentation Slides

Class bookstore expanded!

Class Notes for March 15

More on Flickr

Searching for related Blogs

Dell Case

Blog: Archives, what happens to old entries ?

Added Resources and Search Engine Optimization!

Viral Marketing: Subservient Chicken

Blog: Add some contact info.

Uploading images to your Blog

Materials for Chapter 7

Class Notes for March 7

Blogging and building community

Writing your blog entries: HBS Application 'Storm'

Clarification for Case Analysis Reports

February 28 Class Notes

Collabrys, Inc. (A) case: For Discussion Only

Chapter Presentation Guidelines

Group Project Guidelines

Check your comments: Confirm I am subscribed to your blog!

Dell Case pushed back to Wednesday March 9: Chapts. 6 and 7 Moved

February 23 Class Notes

Creating links to outside resources

Class Blog Examples

More on blogging

HBS Article (Evans and Wurster)

February 16 Class Notes

Webvan: it was all wrong!

February 14 Class Notes

Bloglines Subscription: Make it public

What's a blog ?

Tasks to complete by class 2/14

Class Project

Welcome to the Class Blog