SOCIAL NETWORKING

The role of Social Networking on E-commerce

Abstract

In this paper, we try to focus on the role of Social Networking on e-commerce. The papers identify social networking effects on e-commerce in today's mobile work force. The paper also writes about companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc, that have online businesses. The paper includes opportunities and threats involved in E-commerce. The paper also writes about the changes that incurred in 20 years on E-commerce. Finally I added my own personal experience about my online activities that I am involved.

The role of Social Networking on E-commerce

Introduction and Background

E-commerce is a term that refers to electronically mediated financial transactions between two parties, and these commercial interchanges can be between organizations, individuals, or a combination of both. In 1989, the networks forming the backbone of the Internet became accessible to business and commercial users. The liberalization of the Internet networks (originally designed for military, then educational and research use only) to allow commercial transactions led to rapid and exponential growth of the number of Internet users and commercially orientated websites (Amor, 2009).

During this period, the term e-commerce came into popular usage as a result of the commercialization of computer networks forming the Internet and the growing number of firms that rushed to sell online. Business trading rapidly expanded as commercial organizations across the United States, and then Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world entered into financial exchanges via the Internet. The rate of adoption of e-commerce websites has continued to grow to the present day, and in many nations over 90 percent of firms have websites. Not all websites are e-commerce enabled, however, as more consumers and firms move online; more websites include transactional facilities.

Growth in commercial online trading has given rise to a proliferation of new phrases, acronyms, and terms—for instance, e-commerce, business-to-business e-commerce (B2B); business-to-government e-commerce (B2G); business-to-consumer e-commerce (B2C); consumer-to-consumer e-commerce (C2C). The parties involved in the exchange provide details of the context in which the e-commerce transaction takes place and indicate where it takes place in the supply chain; for instance, B2C transactions are between retail suppliers and the end consumer of the product or service (Arenius, 2005).

Networking, as differentiated from merely community or relationship, also can include a web like structure connecting people with a common interest or goals. Social networks can include group issues (although each member may have individual desires or needs to be served) and a system of shared values—a kind of subculture within greater mainstream culture. For example, bridge night, Bible studies, and bowling alleys were key ingredients in the American social networks in the mid-1970s. People with similar interests and values gathered in homes, churches, or other central locations to participate in the activity that linked them (Autio, 2005).

Social Networking Becomes the Buzzword

Although the term networking was coined by a professor in the 1950s to describe a group of people brought together through family, work, or social activities, it became a buzzword for these types of relationship-building entities in the ...