eGovernment in Ireland.

eGovernment is “the use of IT to support government operations, engage citizens and provide government services”. In Ireland half a billion euro has been spent on eGovernment, and we have a long list of services that are being run successfully, but with such a large amount of money should we not be seeing better results from our government?

In 2015 there are some new projects in the works including passport renewal and welfare benefit and entitlement applications. This will increase the success of eGovernment as these are large processes to deal with and also very complicated. A recent improvement for Ireland was with the NDLS, which is the service that handles drivers licences and permits. It took over from a more paper based system where the applicant would go to the motor tax office, fill out a form and then queue up with two passport pictures then leave with the licence on the day.

The new system is in my opinion a huge improvement, the NDLS is now separate and is appointment only meaning people can avoid the long queues experienced in the past. In the new process, you still fill out a form but your picture is taken on the cameras provided and details are entered on a touch screen computer. It is a much securer process and it shows what the government is capable of doing. I hope to see a similar improvement with the passport service which has been promised to us.

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

With Web 1.0, you could read articles and reviews etc. but there was no interaction between the reader and the poster, this was all before the phenomenon of Social Media and the introduction of Web 2.0. Now when you read an article or watch a video on your favorite website, there is the option of leaving a comment or rating it. When you go onto a website, there is nearly always the option of setting up a profile that allows the website to give you a username to post from and gives them access to your personal information.

Web 2.0 is all about social interaction and collective intelligence, users can bounce ideas off each other or argue on behalf of their beliefs on internet forums. Even politicians use social media outlets to campaign, which is very effective at getting the younger generation interested and voting. Web 2.0 is a very powerful tool for all of us, and one that we take full advantage of.

What I have mentioned above is the main and most important difference between the two of them and while it is nothing too astronomical, it does make me wonder what’s in store for us in Web 3.0? What can we do in future generations to improve on Tim Berners-Lee’s invention? Only time will tell.

TripAdvisor – a review website to rival them all.

When buying a new product that may have a high cost most of us will look it up online first. We do this by going on to product review sites where we see both experts and the normal consumer discussing the product, they will give their own opinions and we will decide to purchase based on these reviews. These sites can be very valuable to a business, even the small little cafe in your local town will be reviewed on websites such as Trip Adviser and a good review could mean a lot of new customers!

TripAdvisor is a site that anyone who is visiting an area for the first time will scour to find the best places to stay, go sightseeing, out for meals and nightclubs, the list goes on. It is an American company founded by Stephen Kaufer in February 2000.  It started off as a website that had descriptions based on guidebooks or magazines, it was a button that allowed users to input their own reviews that really helped the business take off. Soon after, user review surpassed professional reviews. The company was bought by IAC in 2005, this helped the company expand to China through the website http://www.daodao.com, adding another 20,000 hotel and restaurant reviews.

As of now, TripAdvisor is known as one of the most influential travel websites with over 280 million unique users a month. It is amazing to think that this all was made possible by their thought to add a simple button to their user interface.

‘Social Shopping’- Will it take off?

Graham Charlton of E-consultancy asked a group of e-commerce professionals what were there predictions of big trends in 2015 and one of the trends mentioned was ‘Social Shopping’.

As an avid internet shopper, this really interested me! Social Shopping is the idea that one can be looking on their favourite social media site (e.g. Facebook or Tumblr) see something they like and buy it directly from the site at the click of a button. I have my worries about this trend, will we be exploited by multinational corporations paying millions of dollars to place advertisements on every page, tempting you to buy products when all you want to do is scroll through Twitter and see the latest celebrity scandal? The answer is more than likely yes and it is a very smart move by these companies to do so.

Another side of “Social Shopping” is Depop, an App that was set up by Italian entrepreneur Simon Beckerman. His goal was to set up a mobile marketplace to connect with friends. Depop definitely has the power to become an e-commerce success story. The idea is that users scroll down through a feed showing friends items that they are selling, and ultimately end up buying something. It has a large following of bloggers and YouTube “superstars” setting up their accounts encouraging fans to do the same, thus building a good user-base. The company has proved very successful in the EU and USA, having set up new teams and offices across both areas.

In my opinion, Social Shopping will only continue to grow and business need to jump at this opportunity while it still has the ability to give the company competitive advantage!

Hello world!

Hello, I am a second year student in NUI Galway. I am studying Business Information Systems and I will be writing a blog about e-business topics that I am interested in. I am planning on updating the blog weekly so stay tuned and I hope you enjoy reading.

-Sarah Walsh