The challenges that are facing the globe at the moment are shivering the global economies, straining healthcare schemes to their confines, and upheaving people’s daily lives. Currently, more than half of the worldwide population is under some lockdown. Well, this means that no business, government, or individual has not felt the impact of coronavirus, even to some degree. With the unfolding of this COVID-19 pandemic, one noticeable effect is that the e-commerce sector has had an upsurge on their sales. This has been attributed to the directives to stay at home to combat the spread of the virus. This has necessitated the need to shop online and hence a significant spike in demand for pick up services and online grocery deliveries. This has had notable players in the e-commerce sector, such as Amazon, Instacart, Target, and Walmart, struggling to service their markets and the new audiences in the past few days. Before this pandemic, online grocery sales, for instance, in the United States summed up as the smallest portion of the sector, with less than 12% of United States consumers using these services more often. This sector has, however, made significant growth in the past few weeks, with substantial players recording over 120% growth in their demands, having their best days than Black Friday each day.

Therefore, it is not off the point to say this experience is an inflection point in terms of adopting the habit of online trading. This is because the majority of people are trying this sector for the first time. This does not mention that every single trial translates to an acquired customer, but this height of trailing is going to be a significant point of receiving new clients into the e-commerce sector. This outbreak is going to accelerate and instill an online trading habit into people. 

As for me, since staying at home and not going out, I usually buy things online. However, due to the impact of Coronavirus, express delivery will be slower than usual.  

NYIAX is a utility for the advertising industry, which is an advanced marketing place for discovering, managing, and reconciling upfront advertising contracts. NYIAX, founded in 2012, provides buyers and sellers with a unified solution that reduces costs and creates efficiencies by applying trusted financial industry trading concepts to advertising.

NYIAX Company deals with upfront advertising. The company supports the marketplace with consolidated workflow tools as well as enhanced reconciliation processes to assist both sides of the market to reduce manual operations, forecast more efficiently, increase security, eliminate cost negotiations, and eliminate misaligned metrics. For publishers, the company helps them to predict revenues, have an efficient reconciliation process, and have standardized market taxonomy. For advertisers, the company helps them with planning and discovery tools, accurate supply chain transparency, and reduced friction and hidden fees. NYIAX consolidates the negotiation, purchasing, management, as well as reconciliation of advertising contracts into a streamlined workflow, and thus it reduces the manual processes and discrepancies. The company upfront marketplace gives media buyers access to high-quality future inventory as well as tools to negotiate, manage, and secure their ad campaigns with confidence and clarity. To ensure honesty and transparency in price discovery and negotiation of terms, both the buyer and the seller are known to each other.

Through a partnership with Nasdaq, NYIAX brings a co-patented matching engine from the financial world to the complex advertising industry. They make new economic models accessible to all industry participants and other potential entities.

The relationship between Nasdaq and NYIAX is that the latter is built on top of the former financial framework. NYIAX works with Nasdaq blockchain technology in order to enhance the aspects of transparency, immutability, and self-effectuation. In addition, NYIAX advanced contract management platform is linked with Nasdaq, and it enables the advertisers as well as publishers to buy, sell, and trade upfront advertising contracts with unmatched clarity and confidence.   

Blockchain is an existing database that is distributed across several computers all at the same time. When new data, which are known as blocks, are added onto it, it continues growing. The new blocks are assigned a timestamp and are linked to the previously added blocks, hence creating a chain. Any group or individual does not control the existing database, but it is in such a way that everyone who has network access can get a copy of the database. The old blocks that are already in the database are preserved forever, therefore when the new sets of data are added to the ledger, the action is irreversible, making it impossible to manipulate the information.

The use of blockchain technology eliminates the middleman. This is because the data is usually never saved in one place; hence it is secure. Therefore, every user is abreast of the developments across the chain. Blockchain can also be used for every use-case, for example, they can be private, public, permission access, or a combination of any of those. It is every use-case makes it so versatile that it can be used in different applications. Due to its ever-increasing growth and popularity, governments have also turned to blockchain use for transparency. An example is Estonia, where they have adopted this technology in various governance services to bring efficiency and ease to doing business.

Coindesk is a platform that was created to help investors explore the various ways blockchain and its extension cryptocurrencies contribute towards the global financial evolution. Its website contains information about markets, the usage of cryptocurrency around the world, and the regulation of the use of technology. The use of blockchain technology has revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives. An example of its use is in the decentralized cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins and Litecoin. They are used to make transactions anywhere in the world. Another example is that it can be used in the insurance sector in processing claims. The technology provides a perfect system for transparency and management that is risk-free hence increasing efficiency.  

Blockchain technology is the series of immutable data managed by distributed computer operating systems using the cryptographic principles. The network does not have a centralized authority – it is transparent enough to allow every user engaged to be accountable for their operations. It is a safe and automated way of data transmission from one network node to another. The sender initiates the transaction by creating a block that has to be verified by distributed computers. Once verified, the block includes a chain with a unique history and records. The block contains details such as time, date of transaction, participants, and transaction position. The information stored in one block makes it distinguishable from the rest. Every new block added to the chain is made publicly visible to other users for review. A blockchain does not have a single event that can be vulnerable for manipulation; instead, causing interference would mean manipulating every block in the network.  Therefore, security is guaranteed through archival storage.

E-commerce platforms like Amazon apply blockchain technology for customer placement of orders. Once a customer makes an order, its properties such as user id, item, amount, and height (numerical rank) are updated automatically. In case an intruder tries to manipulate single transactions, its properties change, which will consequently change its height and thus moving to a different position in the blockchain. Therefore, it means that a hacker would need to manipulate all the blocks that come after it to manipulate the chain successfully. As the information changes, the original block remains unaltered.

Another example is Facebook status functionality. The newest post is updated into the blockchain and made publicly visible to the relevant users. The latest post is pushed to the end of the chain, thus making it the first to be viewed. Any attempt to alter any block in the chain affects the next block and so on.

E-commerce also named electronic commerce. It allows customers to electronically exchange goods and services with no barriers of time or distance. More and more industries are adopting e-commerce since this is a trend in the future. Many companies have made significant achievements in e-commerce. I believe that everyone must have consumed from these companies.

Top 1

Amazon founded in July 1994. The company was initially named “Cadabra.” Amazon.com launched in 1995. The company initially started as an online bookstore that later diversified to products, including media, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. Nowadays, Amazon expanded to many countries like Canada, England, France, Germany. Amazon has become the uncontested global leader of e-commerce and developed further into brick-and-mortar retail with the acquisition of Whole Foods Market, as well as publishing, electronics, cloud computing, video streaming, and production. 

Amazon is one of the most popular online marketplaces used by both individuals as well as businesses. Moreover, the site is available in many different countries and languages. Amazon Kindle is one of its most popular products, as well as the Amazon app store. Lastly, Amazon offers software and infrastructure solutions for businesses and individuals.

I am most excited about Amazon’s announcement of a two-day delivery service in 2018, Amazon Prime, and had surpassed 100 million subscribers all over the world. Now when I buy things on Amazon, I will use Amazon Prime since students can get a discount when subscribing to Amazon Prime. It’s very convenient and fast. 

Top 2

Walmart founded in October 1969. Walmart is the world’s largest retail corporation, operating hypermarkets, department stores, and grocery stores. A leader in the United States, it is also engaged in Canada, Mexico, and several other countries through subsidiaries. Walmart not only has many retailers but also has its own online shop. Walmart operates approximately 11,500 stores in 27 countries and eCommerce websites in 10 countries. Its online shop sells a diversified range of products, from food to electronics, from fashion to pharmacy, from home equipment to auto-parts.

As the world’s largest retailer, Walmart is on a mission to help people save money and live better. So that sometimes I buy things from Walmart’s website because the price of items is lower.

Top 3

Home Depot founded in 1978. The company is the largest hardware and home improvement supplies retailing company in the United States, with more than 2,200 stores throughout the country. Home Depot sells tools, construction products, home and garden equipment furniture, and associated services.

Home Depot provides a next-day delivery service that is very fast and convenient. So that when I move out or send a package, I will buy some different size moving boxes, packaging tape, and perforated bubble cushion wrap from the Home Depot website.

Dropbox is one of the most straightforward file-sharing tools to use. Once someone installs its applications, a Dropbox flooder appears on his or her computer. Unlike other file-sharing tools that are complicated, when using Dropbox, anything that the user drags into the follower is uploaded automatically to the Dropbox service. It is then replicated across all the connected computers and devices. This is among the many reasons why Drew Houston’s application, Dropbox, has increasingly become popular, making the company a leading Silicon Valley Corporation (Ries, 2011). However, there is a journey that the founder had to travel to get Dropbox where it is today.

For the product to function as intended, the founding team comprised of engineers. This was because Drew understood that the idea he had required a great deal of technical expertise to create. For instance, it needed integration with various computer platforms and operating systems. Such as Windows, Androids, and Macintosh, to name just but a few. Each of these implementations requires a deep level of technical knowledge to make sure that the final product is user-friendly (Ries, 2011). This would explain one of the most significant completive advantages of the product. It works seamlessly in most of the computer platforms and operating systems that the competitors struggle to emulate.

It is worth noting that during its first eight years, the product stored billions of files on behalf of over 500 million computer users. For a start-up company, Dropbox could not store all these files on its own. Like many online tech start-up companies, Dropbox ran its operation on the “Amazon Cloud” (Metz, 2016). This is a platform that is owned by Amazon, which is the largest online retailer, which allows businesses to build and operate software without settings their hardware. However, this is no longer the case because, over the last five years or so, the company built its computer network and shifted its services onto a new breed of machines developed by its engineers. The journey of Dropbox to become one of the largest cloud computing companies in the world can be attributed to the expertise involved in its creation, which led to the development of an efficient product that stood out amongst the competition. The founding team was not comprised of marketing experts, but they understood the need to ensure that their product delivers beyond the clients’ expectations.

What I know about Dropbox is like iCloud, Google Drive, and OneDrive. They are all storage services. For Dropbox, it divided into personal use and team use. It has many types of accounts, such as Dropbox basic, Dropbox Plus, Dropbox Professional, and Dropbox Business. The basic account is free and includes 2 GB of space. However, if you want to get more spaces on your account, you can spend money to buy the storage of your account. I think Dropbox used a freemium business model that means it gives the basic version of its product away at no cost in hopes users will upgrade to more feature-rich versions, for which it charges subscription fees.

Metz. C. (2016). The Epic Story of Dropbox’s Exodus from the Amazon Cloud Empire. Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2016/03/epic-story-dropboxs-exodus-amazon-cloud-empire/

Ries, E. (2011). How Dropbox Started As a Minimal Viable Product. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-product/

The modern contrast of business functions heavily relies on technology to grow. As an entrepreneur, it becomes essential to understand how to utilize individual elements of modern tech space to improve the performance of one’s business. As captured in the series “The Profit,” business owners usually fail to appreciate the minute details that allow for a fluid performance of the business. Instead they focus on those classical ‘notable’ aspects of the business.

In “Mr. Corry Cookies” episode, the basic idea is noble, but the entrepreneurs fail to embrace modern marketing techniques to drive their sales and improve traffic on their business. Even when a product is of high quality and the business blueprint is magnificent, forming a bond with the customers plays an essential role in improving overall performance. This also reflected in the episode “Marijuana Millions,” where the owner of the business needs modern tech platforms to compete with on-the-streets marijuana sales. The difference between enlightening customers as it pertains to “healthy marijuana” and off-the-streets marijuana has tremendous revenues consequences on the business. Technology offers a business marketing avenue that helps tackle technical issues like the ones being faced by this entrepreneur.

Understanding the importance of public perception of a business plays a huge role in helping drive sales. In the episode “Ben’s Garden,” the breakdown in personal and professional relationships affects the functions of the business and its profitability. The need to realign contrasting functions within a small growing business is crucial as it allows for improved performance, as also seen in the episode “Grafton Furniture.” The aging equipment is affecting the business and limiting its function. Similarly, in the modern tech-infused business operation, it is vital that a business appreciates trends and tries as much as possible to keep up.

E-commerce, for small businesses, is all about understanding modern functions and infusing them to help the business grow and remain relevant in an ever-changing environment.

About E-commerce, There are some types of E-commerce: Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Customers (B2C), Customer-to-Customer (C2C), Customer-to-Business (C2B), Business-to-Administration (B2A) and Consumer-to-Administration (C2A). I think it’s a commercial transaction to buying and selling of goods or services by using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. For example, online stores like Amazon, eBay, and Shopify are examples of e-commerce websites. It is an excellent way for many companies to increase their profits since it can help you to get more customers.

As I said before, forming a bond with the customers plays an essential role in improving overall performance. E-commerce can help companies more easily build a relationship with customers. On the other hand, in the episode “Grafton Furniture,” the aging equipment is affecting the business and limiting its function. E-commerce can replace these aging equipments to become a significant sales channel for companies. It’s more convenient and efficient.

People have indeed come a long way in terms of technological transitions. The evolution of technology has not only led to the establishment of machines but also facilitating trade through flexible cash flow. Thanks to the effort of financial technologists for creating a dynamic system of trade, unlike the era of barter trade or even relying on real money. The acknowledgment of technologists goes to people who initiated Cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency is a form of virtual or digital currency that is protected by cryptography. In this case, cryptography refers to a strategy of protecting information that involves the communication of two people. The protection of information is achieved through the help of codes. Crypt means hidden, whereas “graphy” refers to a form of writing.

In short, Cryptocurrency is a digital asset that is designed to be used as a medium of exchange that using strong cryptography to ensure the security of financial transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets.

There are many types of Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and so on. Bitcoin is the best example of a reliable form of Cryptocurrency that has been in existence since 2009. It was created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 while trying to invent a peer to peer electronic cash system. It is vital to understand how Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin works in the digital era. The ability to gain knowledge on this topic will then address the validity of Cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Market capitalization is regarded as the total value of a company. With the rise in the number of competitive companies, it is important to keep accurate track records of market capitalization. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying the stock price by the number of shares. For example, a company with 2 million shares that are sold at 15 dollars each will have a market capitalization of 30 million dollars. Cryptocurrencies do well in keeping digital records of each Bitcoin in a computer file or application before any transaction is done.

What I learned about Bitcoin is that the price of each Bitcoin will rise or fall as the market moves. For example, on February 15, one Bitcoin was equivalent to $9,893.17. I think it looks like a stock. People can safely buy or exchange it. However, if you want to make money from this, you need to have a keen insight to predict the future of Bitcoin.

What is the user experience? The precise definition is a person’s perceptions and reactions to the use and expected use of a product, system or service. More simply, user experience is how you feel about every interaction you face when you use it.

Good user experience requires a user to answer these questions:

• Can you use it?

One of the most basic requirements of good user experience is being able to achieve what you’ve set out to do.

• Can you find it?

Good user experience is that you can find the information you need quickly and accurately. Is there a navigation menu or find the product by searching online or by other means.

• Do you want to use it?

If you have a good experience due to a product’s design is intuitive and a delight to use, you’ll want to use it.

Now, let’s talk about some bad user experience!

When the site is too slow, too complicated, confusing, roadblocked, people will click to leave. Bad website design can give customers bad user experience. For example, there is an auto-play video, text or images are too big or too small, confusing icons and so on.

Web page loading speed is very important. If  the site or app slow to load like taking 4 seconds to load, users will click to leave since everyone is impatient.  

There are pop-ups triggered on the first visit to a site after a handful of seconds or triggered right when you’ve shown intent to leave. So, when pop-ups appear, how fast can you find and click the “X”? For me, I will click the “X” immediately because I don’t pay much attention to the content in the pop-up window. Instead, it just affects my user experience.

Since advertising is the main revenue of a website. We usually see a lot of ads on both sides of the page. In general, advertisements with clickbait thumbnails or titles create cognitive load for users. They don’t pay attention to these ads. Like me, when I look through the website, sometimes there are some ads about the products I have browsed before. These ads are redundant to me and I don’t want to see them.

In the end, think of the website as a product that you provide to users who must enjoy the overall experience of using the product. If you think of it that way, you will be able to provide the best user experience that will help you and your users achieve the goals that your site represents.

When talking about the Freemium Business Model, the first step is to understand what does this term means. The word freemium is first brought about by Fred Wilson, which combines two words, free and premium. Generally speaking, if a company adopts the freemium business model, it means that any users are accessible to its simple and basic services and functions for free and there are also advanced or more complicated services and functions provided at a premium.