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Online Marketplace Services
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The web is tightening up. More and more content sites are becoming paid sites
today. And users are more willing to pay for valuable content too. And if you
can become one of these content sites by just connecting the people concerned -
the authors and the buyers and provide a platform for them to interact on, what
more can you ask for. Content like market reports, trends in the industry, a la
Gartner and IDC are the kinds that are up for grabs on the Internet today. Now,
you might wonder, "what's in it for me? I don't have the content and don't know
whom to sell it to." Yes, we agree! But would you like to tap into this
industry and make a killing? By connecting the content experts with the people
who are interested in buying the content through the Internet?
Yes, you can provide the platform and build a marketplace for content. You
might be wondering about how you will campaign for the right content experts
and get them to use your website as a platform for their content? Today, if
authors want to publish their work they would need to contact the right
publisher and then make the right promotional efforts in order to sell their
work. Through the right marketing strategies and the right distribution, the
book might just get sold. The process of publishing, marketing and selling is a
daunting task indeed. A simpler method is to sell the content online. We are
not talking about ebooks here. Instead we are talking about content that is
created solely for the purpose of selling on the web. The hard copy is created
if/when the user needs it.
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Why provide a channel for content?
The Internet makes it easier and cheaper to exchange information, it allows
sellers to reach new potential customers and conversely allows buyers to
compare the offerings of a greater set of suppliers. As a result, sellers can
think of better ways to gauge customers and demand for their products, thus
being able to make changes and adjustments to their products accordingly.
The Internet becomes the marketplace where buyers and sellers can use it to find
out more about each other, from reputation to the authenticity of the content
and the transactions that happen on the site. Internet technologies permit
faster and more cost-effective matching of demand and supply thus allowing for
faster negotiation methods and transaction settlements. The important factor to
remember is that such e-marketplace sites can be designed by anyone, starting
from the infrastructure provider to the content provider or the buyer or any
third party.
Let's look at some of the paybacks involved.
Individual market participants hope to get a leg up on their competitors by
deploying information systems that provide faster and better market information
or that helps close a transaction faster. Since such a website will provide a
platform that will act as a marketplace where there are three players - the
content providers or the experts, the buyers and the website that hosts and
sells this content.
For the author or the expert who creates the content, what are the benefits?
Usually the content that is sold will be in the form of reports - business
analyst reports and market research reports.
How does the content expert distribute and market
content?
By contacting a printer, or a publisher and then marketing the content through
the right channels. If he shells out content in a number of categories, then
the job of tracking the content, the transactions, the buyers and other useful
statistics can be quite cumbersome indeed. He can avoid this painstaking
process by using a common platform (the web site) that in turn does all the
work for him. If the content is in the form of a pdf doc, or html or any other
file, he can just upload the file at the website. He can specify the kind of
format he wants it displayed in too. He can write a summary or a teaser that
can be viewed as a preview of the content details. He can also specify whether
the website can sell the soft and the hard copy, and if there is a hard copy he
can give printer specifications. This saves him a lot of work and makes the
process of selling easier. The bookkeeping process of accounting, tracking
buyers and other statistics can be cumbersome indeed. In addition, there is no
immediate investment upfront, he gets paid whenever a sale is made on the site
and in turn pays a commission to the website for the transaction.
For the buyer:
The buyer can access a common platform to read content belonging to various
categories. He can be assured of quality because the site affords a rating and
review section. Costs are cheaper because the process of selling and
distributing content is cheaper. The buyer can select the paper quality, size
of the page, etc for the printed version. He can also create customized content
where he selects content from various authors and various types, etc.
How can we help you become a key player in this business?
Let's look at what an e-marketplace for content will do.
What are the features and what are the processes involved?
Let's look at the different players in such a scenario:
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Content Expert
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Platform provider - the website owner
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Buyer
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Admin
The active areas of the website are:
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Admin Area: Where the administrator of the site logs
in and reviews the reading patterns on the site, receives a status report for
each transaction and takes the necessary action regarding each sale.
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Member Area: Users can become members and avail
personalization features
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Buyer area
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Transaction Area (cash details, checks, credit card
etc)
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Statistics Area (useful to make decisions on whom to
promote)
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Delivery / Shipping Area
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Content Area (categories, content management, search)
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Benefits |
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Registration/login/member panel
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Facility to upload content - files of pdf, html, doc files, preview docs like
summaries, free articles, digital content, what format it should be available -
hard or soft and if there is a hard copy, any specifications.
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Identifiers for paid content items
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Rate/costs for content items
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Transaction area - where the amount details can be checked
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Statistics area - that displays how many people saw the summaries, how many
viewed details of a particular type of content.
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Site creation area - where they can create a site within the main site that
will showcase info about their content.
Features:
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Browse facility
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Search facility
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Read free content (teasers)
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Add to shopping bag
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Check-out (payment, formats)
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Mode (email or download)
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Personalization - member panel, no need to enter details while checking out,
history, recommendation engine
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Create micro sites
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Technologies
In Use
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.NET Languages
Microsoft® ASP.NET (Web Forms) , Visual C++.NET, Visual C#, and Visual Basic
.NET
Client software
Windows XP, Windows CE, and Microsoft Office XP
Development tools
Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET
Servers
Microsoft Windows® 2003, Microsoft SQL Server™, and Microsoft BizTalk® Server
XML
XML Schema, SOX, RELAX, XSD, XHTML, XPATH, SOAP, XML-RPC, WSDL, UDDI, SAX, DOM,
JDOM, Xerces, Xalan, SAXON
Methodologies
UML, Design Patterns, OOAD/OOP, XProgramming
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