[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
ICS 691 News 4(1)
ICS 691 News, Week 5, Issue 1
In this issue:
* Apology from the editor
* "Feedbefore" and suggestions for presentation
* Presentation advice
* How "real" should a VCommerce site be?
* Please do presentation homework individually
* ASP vs. real pages, due dates
* Networking slides available now
* Homework for this week
---
Apology from the editor
I intended to send this Issue with the homework for this week early
yesterday morning, but a minor medical emergency in my family forced
me to leave work unexpectedly. (Everything is fine now.) I am
shortening the homework due to the short time left to do it. My
apologies.
---
"Feedbefore" and suggestions for presentation
A student writes:
> It would be nice if the presentation group can get some
> "feedbefore" from the class, from the future entrepreneur's
> expectation, it would be a great help for their preparation.
> For example, for next week's presentation, I would like
> to know: (1)are there any difference between internet DB and
> other DBS. (2)what are the main design issues about internet DB?
> (3)Some the non-ICS students might want to see a step-step
> DB designing, constructing, reviewing (testing and modifying
> probably not possible here) based on a very simple model.
> (4)List some critical issues that the developer should be
> careful about designing the internet DB?
> From the other group i want to know: (1)How to set up video
> stream on line (i.e. a 24 hour music channel). (2)The compatibility
> issues of different media data on the internet. (3)Any trick that
> we can play to increase our website's performance? etc.
This is an excellent idea! From now on, if any of you have questions
you would like answered during presentation topics, please send them
to me and I will forward them on to the groups (or you can email the
questions to the group directly if you prefer.) I am sure all of the
groups would appreciate your advice on what you would find helpful.
---
Presentation Hints, Part I
I want to summarize five of the general hints I've been telling
presentation groups in my meetings to help make sure we get the most
from the presentations and to make sure presentation groups use their
preparation time efficiently.
1. The presentation should be oriented toward the practical needs of
Internet entrepreneurs who are starting a business in the next six
months. As most of you are finding out, most of these topics could
fill an entire course by themselves. Thus, you must filter the
material heavily. The proper approach is to present only information
that is of immediate, practical benefit to someone who is starting an
Internet business in the next six months. Throw out everything else.
2. Each slide should have "archival" value. Remember that we are
going to make your slides available for downloading. As you produce
each slide, ask yourself: is there *practical*, *useful* information
on this slide that an Internet entrepreneur could benefit from? If
the slide doesn't say anything useful or provide any useful detail
that people could refer back to in three months, then redesign it so
it does. If you can't redesign the slide to provide useful
information, then eliminate that material since it's clearly not
useful.
3. Plan for each slide to require 1.5-2.0 minutes to present, or
20-25 "archival" slides for a 40 minute presentation. A good
"archival" slide will take at least a couple of minutes to talk
through. You will only need about 20 good slides for a 40 minute
talk. You can always include more just in case there's extra time or
as reference material for people to read when they download the
slides. However, note that so far, no group has had "extra" time!
4. Don't present "concepts" or "history" first, leaving the "good
stuff" for last. A big mistake is to spend the first 10-20 minutes
of your talk covering "concepts", "definitions", or "history". This
is a mistake because (a) that kind of stuff is boring, and the class
will get restless and inattentive, (b) if we're running short on time
and I have to cut your talk to 30 minutes, you will end up without
time to present half of your "good stuff". Instead, *start* with the
good stuff, and talk about concepts, definitions, and history only as
supporting data for the good stuff. A good way to *begin* your
presentation on topic X is with a slide that's titled: The Top 10
Most Important Things About X. That will get people interested in
your talk because they'll have a teaser about what you're going to
cover and why it will be interesting for them to say involved. (If
you then spend two slides on each of the top 10 list, you'll be
done!)
5. Typical issues of interest include: (a) useful software, (b) the
*future* of the area, and (c) local companies, costs, and resources,
(d) good online web sites. Although your content will certainly
differ depending on your area, you should certainly consider
answering the following questions: What software should an Internet
entrepreneur considering buying or downloading to support this area,
and what are the trade-offs between them? What are the emerging
technologies or trends in this area (and how do they create business
opportunities)? Who are the local businesses in this area, what do
they do, what do they charge for their services, and how can they be
contacted? What are useful online resources?
---
How "real" should a VCommerce site be?
A student asks:
> How "real" the site should be? , for instance:
> - Do we have to contact the vendors we're thinking of displaying on
> the site? In this case, some are locals others not.
Yes, you should definitely contact *everyone* you're listing on your
site. Local vendors should be called, non-local can be emailed. In
all cases, you should be asking permission to list them and telling
them a little bit about the class, and asking them for advice or
comments. I bet that in virtually every case, they are going to be
*delighted* to hear about this. It may well lead to job/consulting
possibilities as well, so don't be afraid to put yourselves out
there!
> - What about the vendors that, theoretically, have add banners. Can
> we just put their logos?
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
> We are not selling items to individuals. We are just providing an
> info. service, however, people can order by linking to the vendor's
> site. We charge a fee to the vendors and sponsors, therefore,
> how/who is going to measure our revenue?
"Charging a fee to vendors and sponsors" sounds exactly like
"advertising revenue" to me, and that is the way your revenue will be
measured.
BTW, in reviewing your business plans, I have been advising companies
who plan on getting revenues solely from advertising to think about
ways to get revenue (via memberships) from viewers in addition to the
free content. As in the real world, making it on advertising alone
is a High Risk proposition. In most of the business plans I've seen
so far, I've been able to think of interesting ways to extract
revenue from viewers in return for additional services.
---
Please do presentation homework individually
On this last homework assignment, I found at least one case where two
students did the homework together and turned in identical
assignments. Upon investigation, I found that there appears to be
confusion about which work should be done individually and which work
should be done in a group. To clarify: your company/website work is
*group* work: you turn in a single document with all of the names of
the people in your company attached. On the other hand, your
presentation homework is *individual* work: you turn in a document
with only your name attached. While you can certainly talk about the
homework with other people in the class and seek guidance, I expect
you to write down the answers by yourself using your own words. To
do otherwise is cheating. I have very strong feelings about cheating
and deal with offenders quite harshly. Let's not go there, OK?
---
ASP Pages, due dates
> 1. For VCommerce purposes ($100 per page, per month), what
> constitutes a "page?" Can I assume one page = one asp or html
> file? I ask because asp can dynamically generate a page, so, for
> example, an asp script responding to a query for X will generate a
> page that's different from a query for Y.
Page charges occur per *file*, so even if an ASP page generates 100
different HTML pages, you only get charged for a single page. In
general, just count all
of the files you upload to your directory on the server and multiply
by 100 to get your page maintenance charge. (Yes, your database file
also counts in this total.)
> 2. I think you said last Friday that you're giving us this Saturday
> and Sunday for preparing for VCommerce cycle 0? Just wanted to
> double-check, since that would be very helpful, workload-wise and
> company-meeting-wise.
Correctamundo.
---
Networking slides available now
See the schedule page.
---
Homework for this week
* Read the multimedia pages at:
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/multimed/contents.htm
http://stud.ifi.uio.no/~jmariuse/oppgave/node1.html
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/multimedia/tutorials/tutorial3.ht
ml
http://www.mediabuilder.com/
http://kmgi.com/
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm?term=multimedia
http://www.mediabuilder.com/
* Do the following cute puzzle (you do not need to turn this in):
Please fill in the blanks.
1. M _ _ _ _
U
2. _ _ _ _L
T
3. _ I_
4. _ _M _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
5. _ _E _
6. D _ _ _ _ _ _
I
7. _A _ _ _ _ _
1) A _______ integrates sound, music, and voices with computer
graphics and animation presenting information in an exciting dynamic
way.
2) Smallest unit of the screen, short term for picture elements
3) A standard format for images, good with simple drawings/cartoons,
stores 256 colors
4) Term for squashing files to manageable size, taking away refinement
5) Another graphic format which stores 16million colors
6) Media is either continuous or discrete, analog or _______
7) Colors are stored in these
* I do not yet have the list of URLs from the database group, so I
cannot provide you with resources for their talk. As soon as I get
them, I will forward them on. Because this is so late, you will not
have to do any homework for the database presentation, but I still
expect you to read their URLs once I get them.
* The two electronic payment groups should be preparing their list of
URLs and homework assignments for distribution at the end of this
week.
* Everyone should be busily hacking their websites. These will be due
next Monday.
Cheers,
Philip