Advantages & Disadvantages of Virtual Office

Advantages

• Environmental benefits from not driving a motor vehicle in slow-moving traffic and polluting the air
• Reduction in traffic congestion
• Reduction in stress levels from not having to drive in congested traffic to and from work
• Time saved not commuting to an office
• Monetary benefits from savings in gas, wear and tear on your car, business clothing, and lunches out
• Benefits from being able to manage your time more effectively
• Productivity benefits from being able to work when you are most productive
• Health benefits of being able to eat a better diet that includes less fast food
• Opportunities to get physical exercise when needed mentally
• Reduced stress benefits
• Benefit of living a more balanced life
• A more relaxing work environment
• More opportunities to hire part-time or contract workers
• A larger pool of employee applicants because location isn't as important

Disadvantages

• Lack of face-to-face communication increases chances of miscommunications or misunderstandings
• Technical difficulties hindering communications or work progress
• Feelings of separation or disassociation among employees
• Less camaraderie among workers meaning possibilities for less cohesive work teams
• Problems separating your free time from your work time because your work is always "there"
• Less convenient to run errands at lunch time
• Feelings of isolation if you are always home alone
• Lack of support - both administrative and managerial

Virtual Office

• The company has a physical location, but employees have no assigned offices. Employees may have lockers and "check out" a desk for the day, they may set up an "office" in their hotel, etc. This term is distinct from "Virtual Company" which refers to companies that have no one physical location at all, no collection of inventory that's held by the company, etc.

• A Virtual Office is a location which allows many people doing business to share an office address and business machines. The facility often includes mail support, telephone banks, fax machines, copiers, computers, and sometimes even answering services.

Project management tools

A lot of software is available on the internet to help you run your projects. On this page we will provide some pointers on where to get applications for free. And let me start by saying: free is as good as any kind available.

There are three types in existence:

1) desktop applications,
2) web-based services and
3) web-based systems.

Free desktop software for project management

This type of applications are installed on your PC. Think in the line of MS Office and MSProject. A nice free software package in this category is GanttProject. This actually looks like an MS Project knock off.

Web-based services

By this I mean websites that offer an on-line internet application that supports project management. You don't have to install anything, you just signup for a service that is running on someone else's server.

An example is iTeamWork, which is kind of a collaboration tool, where you can define projects and tasks, assign people to them, track and trace them, view to-do lists, etc.

Web-based systems

The difference between web-based services and systems is that with the latter you do have to install software on your own hardware. As open source development is taking more and more ground, some of these applications are quite powerful.

The are all more collaboration tools the just plain project management tools. So, if you just need something to create a nice Gantt chart, don't use this category, as it would be overkill.

Project Management

• Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to a broad range of activities in order to meet the requirements of the particular project. A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to achieve a particular aim. Project management knowledge and practices are best described in terms of their component processes. These processes can be placed into five Process Groups: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Closing. ...
• The leadership role which plans, budgets, co-ordinates, monitors and controls the operational contributions of property professionals, and others, in a project involving the development of land in accordance with a client's objectives in terms of quality, cost and time.
• A controlled process of initiating, planning, executing, and closing down a project.
• Both a process and set of tools and techniques concerned with defining the project's goal, planning all the work to reach the goal, leading the project and support teams, monitoring progress, and seeing to it that the project is completed in a satisfactory way.
• The application of modern management techniques and systems to the execution of a project from start to finish, to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, quality, time and cost, to the equal satisfaction of those involved.

Wiki

• The simplest online database that could possibly work
• Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.
• Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself.

Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users.

Example of popular Encyclopedia

• Wikipedia
• Banglapedia
• Britannica

History of Encyclopedia

17th-19th centuries

20th century

21st century

Encyclopedia

• A book or set of books of informative articles usually arranged in alphabetical order.
• A reference source containing information on a variety of topics. This information may be supplied in short paragraphs or in lengthy articles that include citations to other works on the same topic. Encyclopedias can be general - covering all topics, or specialized - focusing on a particular discipline such as art or philosophy.
• A work containing factual articles on subjects in every field of knowledge, usually arranged alphabetically. A SUBJECT encyclopedia is a similar work on a single field of activity or a single subject. An encyclopedia can be one volume or many volumes, depending on the amount of material included.
• A reference source containing informational articles on different or a specific field that provide brief but thorough overviews of a range of topics, usually arranged alphabetically by subject.
• An item which provides background information and an overview of a particular subject, person, place, or event. They summarize and synthesize information from a variety of sources and often include a selective bibliography of authoritative books and articles on a topic.

Online Books Library

Online books library is a one kind of web library. Where user can visit their desired books on online and buy them according to their need. There are many online books library on web, such as amazon.com. In this books library are many kinds of books such as Business and technology, child books, health books etc. Now a day with books those library also gives some other facilities also. Which can be clothes, furniture, computer accessories etc.

Auction Terminology

Auction Sniper

Auction Sniper is a technique of placing bid at the last moment on online auction service where a certain finished time has been set. Many people have claimed that this technique has helped them win more auctions. Though it is NOT always that every sniping bid can win every auction. The winning bidder is still the person who places the highest bid.

With JustSnipe automate system, you do not need to stay up until the last seconds of your closing auction. Once you have scheduled a target auction, we will place your bid on your behalf at the last seconds before the auction on ebay is closed.

Auction Mentality

Auction mentality refers to the state of mind that causes bidders to see a greater value in winning an auction than the value of the item itself. Usually the source of this extra value is the satisfaction of winning or the feeling of having triumphed over a competitor. Auction mentality often leads to bidding frenzies and can cause items to sell for considerably more than they're worth (even at retail) and buyers to pay considerably more than they might have in the absence of a competing bidder.

Though it can be tempting for sellers to try to capitalize on auction mentality by engaging in shill bidding, eBay sellers should avoid this practice at all costs, since it is both illegal usually leads to rapid (and often permanent) suspension from eBay.

Auctions: Characterization

Supply Auction

Demand Auction

Double Auction

Auctions can differ

According to their nature

Supply: when m sellers offer a good that a buyer requests;

Demand: when n buyers bid for a good being sold;

Double: when n buyers bid to buy goods from m sellers

By the bidding procedure

Open: dynamic price formation process;

Closed: buyers and/or sellers submit sealed bids

By the price formation mechanism

first price, second price,……

Auction

An auction is the process of buying and selling things by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder. In economic theory an auction is a method for determining the value of a commodity that has an undetermined or variable price. In some cases, there is a minimum or reserve price; if the bidding does not reach the minimum, there is no sale (but the person who puts the item up for auction still owes a fee to the auctioneer).

The selling of real or personal property to the highest bidder by a person licensed and authorized to sell the property. The auctioneer is employed by the owner or seller of the property as an agent and normally receives a percentage of the sales price as his or her commission.

New Sales Channel

By becoming a member of a B2B exchange, you open a low cost, highly functional and easy-to-use sales channel for your company. You expose your company to a new targeted audience that otherwise would have been untapped. Prospective customers can buy products and services from you, using various venues and features of the B2B exchange, where you are a member.

Marketplace: All B2B exchanges include a marketplace, where suppliers can post sales offer of their products and services. Buyers, looking for specific products, can easily find best suppliers that suit them from the marketplace. A populated marketplace can easily become a good sales channel for a supplier.

Electronic catalog: As a member of the B2B exchange, you are allowed to add all your products or services to the consolidated online repository of the exchange. Adding your products to the repository helps to create online standardize electronic version of your product specification - if you don't have that before - and use the same catalog with other electronic sales systems - even with other B2B exchanges using XML interface.

You can publish sales offer of your entire catalog to the marketplace, eliminating a need for other web presence. You can add products or services to the repository one by one or you can use XML interface to upload your whole electronic catalog.

Web Store: Some B2B exchanges allow you to convert or integrate your website to their exchange. This helps you to handle sales conveniently from your website and the marketplace of the exchange seamlessly. You can make a web store from scratch with the help of integrated website builder of the B2B exchange as well.

Auctions: One of the great features of many B2B exchange is their auction systems. As we all know from the immense success of EBay, auctioning is a great way of selling products online. Some exchanges boast reverse auction system, where suppliers bid for a deal posted by a buyer.

B2B & B2C

B2B is short for 'Business to Business' and is used to designate those aspects of e-commerce that involve the exchange of goods of services between companies over the Internet.

B2C (Business to Consumer), on the other hand, refers to Internet sales by businesses to consumers. B2B platforms encompass not only commodity exchanges and wholesale supplies on the Internet but virtual auctions as well.

On the Internet, B2B (business-to-business), also known as e-biz, is the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers. Although early interest centered on the growth of retailing on the Internet (sometimes called e-tailing), forecasts are that B2B revenue will far exceed business-to-consumers (B2C) revenue in the near future. According to studies published in early 2000, the money volume of B2B exceeds that of e-tailing by 10 to 1. Over the next five years, B2B is expected to have a compound annual growth of 41%. The Gartner Group estimates B2B revenue worldwide to be $7.29 trillion dollars by 2004. In early 2000, the volume of investment in B2B by venture capitalists was reported to be accelerating sharply although profitable B2B sites were not yet easy to find.

The Difference between E-Commerce and E-Business

Electronic commerce, B2C, or e-commerce refers to online sales. Electronic business Or e-business, on the other hand, refers to more than just selling online.

E-business is about utilizing Internet technologies – such as simple email, online banking solutions, websites, and more sophisticated applications such as web-based Customer relationship management solutions – to provide superior customer service, Streamline business processes, increase sales and reduce costs.

Therefore, any business owner who uses the Internet to develop or enhance their Business is using e-business. This means that you may already be using e-business in your own business.

E-Business LifeCycle Project Delivery Phases

E-Business Life Cycle with the following phases:

eSWOT Analysis - SWOT (i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis is provided from an eBusiness perspective.

Design - The web presentation is designed, presented, adjusted, and approved by the customer before the project proceeds

Organization - Web content is identified and organized. Specific emphasis is given to identifying content as either static, dynamic, functional, database,

Development - Systems are developed to manage web content using a standard web browser via the Internet. Administrative controls are designed to meet the specific needs of our customer (again, via a standard web interface).

Deployment - Review, testing, training, Search (Engine) Propagation, and deployment are achieved upon completion.

Management - Ongoing systems management and support are provided as all of our solutions are hosted in our underground data center. Additionally, eBusiness solutions must be promoted initially and on an ongoing basis to achieve their maximum value.

E-business

• E-business (electronic business) is the conducting of business on the Internet, not only buying and selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with business partners.
• Either (a) the transaction of business over an electronic medium such as the Internet or (b) any organization (for example, commercial, industrial, nonprofit, educational, or governmental) that transacts its business over an electronic medium such as the Internet.
• Business conducted using electronic media such as the Internet, other computer networks, wireless transmissions, etc.
• The processes and tools that allow an organization to use Internet-based technologies and infrastructure, both internally and externally, to conduct day to day business process operations.

Online Marketing

Online marketing, also referred to as Internet marketing or Emarketing, is marketing that uses the Internet. The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing including low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet media, both in terms of instant response, and in eliciting response at all, are both unique qualities of Internet marketing.

Online marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, advertising and sales.

Online marketing methods include search engine marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising and viral marketing.

Online marketing is the process of growing and promoting an organization using online media. Online marketing strategy includes all aspects of online advertising products, services, and websites, including search engine marketing, public relations, social media, market research, email marketing, and direct sales. The Online marketer selects the best of these vehicles, given the organization's goals and audience.

Consumers can access the Internet and learn about products, as well as purchase them, at any hour, any day. Companies that use Online marketing can also save money because of a reduced need for a sales force. Overall, Online marketing can help expand from a local market to both national and international market places. Compared to traditional media, such as print, radio and TV, Online marketing can have a relatively low cost of entry.

Video sharing

A video hosting service, also said a video sharing service allows individuals to upload video clips to an Internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view that video. Because many users do not have personal web space, either as a paid service, or through an ISP offering, video hosting services are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the explosion in popularity of blogs, forums, and other interactive pages. The website, mainly used as the video hosting service, is usually said the video sharing website

Type of photo shearing

Subscription-based photo sharing

For consumers who want photo sharing without the distraction of advertisements or the promotion of prints and gifts to cover the costs of running the service, subscription based photo sharing services are the solution. The primary revenue model for these services is the subscription revenue from account holders. The benefits of paid sharing to consumers are that the company may offer greater guarantees about keeping the photos online and allow friends and family to download the full-size original files. They are also a great way to backup your pictures as many photographers are finding that they have lost many years of digital pictures because they forget to back up their computers continuously. However there are sites that provide free services without advertisement. Typically no ads are allowed on paid accounts since their presence would remove one of their main distinguishing characteristics.

Peer-to-peer photo sharing

With the introduction of high speed connections directly to homes (broadband), it is feasible to share pictures and movies without going through a central service. The advantages to peer-to-peer sharing are reduced hosting costs and no loss of control to a central service. The downsides are that the consumer does not get the benefit of offsite backup, consumer ISPs often prohibit the serving of content both by contract and through the implementation of network filtering, and there are few quality guarantees for recipients. However, there are typically no direct consumer costs beyond the purchase of the initial software, provided the consumer already has a computer with the photos at home on a high speed connection.

Peer-to-server-to-peer photo sharing

While peer-to-peer solutions operate without a central server this can create problems since some users don't leave their computers online and connected all the time. Using a server as an intermediate point it's possible to share photos peer-to-peer with the reliability of a central server solution. Photos are stored on the server and downloaded back as needed.

Peer-to-browser photo sharing

A variation on the peer-to-peer model is peer-to-browser, whereby images are shared on one PC with the use of a local (on the computer) software service (much like peer-to-peer) but made available to viewer through a standard web browser. Technically speaking this is may still be described as peer-to-peer (with the second peer being a web browser) but it is characteristically different as it assumes no need to download peer software for the viewer. Photos are accessed by regular URLs that standard web browsers understand natively without any further software required. Consequently photos shared in this way are accessible not only to users who have downloaded the correct peer software (compatible with the software in use by the sharer).

Image sharing / Photo sharing

Photo sharing is the publishing or transfer of a user's digital photos online, thus enabling the user to share them with others (whether publicly or privately).

This functionality is provided through both websites and applications that facilitate the upload and display of images. The term can also be loosely applied to the use of online photo galleries that are setup and managed by individual users, including photoblogs.

Photoblog

A photoblog (or photolog) is a form of photo sharing and publishing in the format of a blog, but differentiated by the predominant use of and focus on photographs rather than text.

'Image sharing'

The same technology that allows digital photographs to be shared can be used for other electronic image formats. This can include computer-generated art or scans of hand-drawn artwork or photographic prints just as easily as it can include digital photographs.

Social Networking

A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.

Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors.

Blog

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media.

Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.

Online store and shopping cart

Shopping cart:

A shopping cart is a cart supplied by a shop, especially a supermarket, for use by customers inside the shop for transport of merchandise to the check-out counter during shopping, and often to the customer's car after paying as well.

PayPal Shopping Cart:

When you use PayPal's free Shopping Cart on your website, your customers can purchase multiple items with a single payment, browse your entire selection, and view a consolidated list of all their items before purchasing. The PayPal Shopping Cart is a low-cost way for you to accept credit card and bank account payments, and can be fully integrated with your website in a few easy steps.

E-commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.

A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, including things such as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.

Online Payment

Online Payment: a transaction of goods and money in any form through the online media.

http://www.authorize.net

The Authorize.Net Payment Gateway is a secure Internet bridge between merchant businesses and the credit card and electronic check payment processing networks.

Step 1: The merchant submits a credit card transaction to the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway on behalf of a customer via secure connection from a Web site, at retail, from a MOTO center or a wireless device

Step 2: Authorize.Net receives the secure transaction information and passes it via a secure connection to the Merchant Bank’s Processor.

Step 3: The Merchant Bank’s Processor submits the transaction to the Credit Card Interchange (a network of financial entities that communicate to manage the processing, clearing, and settlement of credit card transactions).

Step 4: The Credit Card Interchange routes the transaction to the customer’s Credit Card Issuer

Step 5: The Credit Card Issuer approves or declines the transaction based on the customer’s available funds and passes the transaction results, and if approved, the appropriate funds, back through the Credit Card Interchange.

Step 6: The Credit Card Interchange relays the transaction results to the Merchant Bank’s Processor.

Step 7: The Merchant Bank’s Processor relays the transaction results to Authorize.Net.

Step 8: Authorize.Net stores the transaction results and sends them to the customer and/or the merchant. This communication process averages three seconds or less!

Step 9: The Credit Card Interchange passes the appropriate funds for the transaction to the Merchant’s Bank, which then deposits funds into the merchant’s bank account. The funds are typically deposited into your primary bank account within two to four business days.

Ways to Accept Payments:

1. Web Site

An Authorize.Net Payment Gateway account enables you to accept credit card and electronic check payments from your e-commerce Web site.

2. Retail Store

An Authorize.Net Payment Gateway account enables you to authorize, settle, and manage credit card transactions from your retail store (iPod, iPhone) using the speed and security of the Internet.

3. Mail Order/Telephone Order

An Authorize.Net Payment Gateway account enables you to accept credit card and electronic check payments from your MOTO center.

4. Mobile Device

An Authorize.Net Payment Gateway account enables you to accept credit card payments securely and safely from your mobile device.