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Vinod Gupta School of Management

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

eCommerce Report
on

Communication Services

Submitted By:
Ambrish Mani Tiwari 09BM8006

Ravinder Pal Singh Dhillon 09BM8039

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CONTENT
1. What is Computer Mediated Communication?

2. The Evolution of Internet Based Communication

3. Some Fun Facts about eMail

4. Who are the Major Players

5. How do they Earn?

6. Google’s services as an example:

7. Digsby as an Example of an IM provider:

8. Trends Analysis:

9. Trends in eMail:

10. Trends in IM Chat:

11. Shift in eMail usage patterns:

12. Shift in eMail usage patterns in India:

13. Porter Five force analysis

14. Opportunities

15. Threats

16. The Future

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17. Conclusion

18. References

What is Computer Mediated Communication?

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through
the use of two or more networked computers. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that
occur via computer-mediated formats (e.g., instant messages, e-mails, chat rooms), it has also been applied to other
forms of text-based interaction such as text messaging. Research on CMC focuses largely on the social effects of
different computer-supported communication technologies. Many recent studies involve Internet-based social
networking supported by social software. The study of communication to achieve collaboration—common work
products—is termed computer-supported collaboration.

CMC can be divided into synchronous and asynchronous modes:

 Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time direct text-based communication between two or more people
using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients.

 Electronic mail, commonly called email, e-mail or e.mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an
author to one or more recipients.

The Evolution of Internet Based Communication

Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an
author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks.

Evolution of eMail
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Electronic mail predates the inception of the Internet, and was in fact a crucial tool in creating it. MIT first
demonstrated the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in 1961. It allowed multiple users to log into the IBM
7094 from remote dial-up terminals, and to store files online on disk. This new ability encouraged users to share
information in new ways. Email started in 1965 as a way for multiple users of a time-sharing mainframe computer to
communicate. Among the first systems to have such a facility were SDC's Q32 and MIT's CTSS.

 Host-based mail systems: The original email systems allowed communication only between users who logged
into the same host or "mainframe". This could be hundreds or even thousands of users within an organization.
Examples include MIT's 1965 CTSS MAIL, Larry Breed's 1972 APL Mailbox (which was used by the 1976
Carter/Mondale presidential campaign), the original 1972 Unix mail program, IBM's 1981 PROFS, and Digital
Equipment Corporation's 1982 ALL-IN-1.

 Homogeneous email networks: Much early peer-to-peer email networking only worked among computers
running the same OS or program.

 Attempts at interoperability: ARPANET, the forerunner of today's Internet, defined the first protocols for
dissimilar computers to exchange email.
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Evolution of Instant Messaging

 Instant messaging predates the Internet, first appearing on multi-user operating systems like CTSS and Multics
in the 1960’s

 As networks developed, the protocols spread with the networks. Some of these used a peer-to-peer protocol
(e.g. talk, ntalk and ytalk), while others required peers to connect to a server (see talker and IRC).

 Common Protocall: Microsoft and Yahoo! , by the 3rd quarter of 2006 incorporated SIP/SIMPLE followed, in
December 2005, by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal after which Google Talk users were able to
communicate with AIM and ICQ users provided they had an AIM account

 IM From a Webpage: Gmail has instant messaging capacity in webpage itself, which can be used in a web
browser without the need to download and install the IM client. Later Yahoo and Hotmail also implemented it.

Some Fun Facts about eMail

 If email was a country, its 1.8 billion users would make it the largest in the world. Bigger than China, bigger than
the populations of the USA and European Union combined.

 298 billion emails are sent each day. That’s one email every 0.00000034 seconds.

 In the time it takes you to read this sentence, some 23 million emails entered cyberspace.

 Every second, the world’s email users produce messages equivalent in size to over 18,000 copies of the Complete
Works of Shakespeare (assuming a 30KB average email size).

 16.4 billion: the number of direct marketing dollars forecast to go on email in the US in 2009.

 $623 billion: the return from that investment if you use DMA figures on email marketing ROI. That’s four times
the market value of Microsoft.

 181: the number of marketing emails it would take to produce enough revenue to buy one share in Microsoft.

 83,689,738,832,367: the number of marketing emails it would take to produce enough revenue to pay the US
National Debt.
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Who are the Major Players

eMail

 MS Outlook

 Yahoo Mail

 MSN/Hotmail

 Gmail

Instant Messaging

 Windows Live

 Yahoo Messenger

 Gtalk

 Skype

How do they Earn?

Gmail

 Charges a premium for additional storage space over the 7.5Gb free storage

 Makes use of automated Email scanning and uses it to push relevant advertisements to your inbox display

 Adwords and AdSense generate revenue through pageviews and per click/redirect.

Skype

 Allows making calls with the use of prepaid credit which is the primary source of revenue

 Skype also uses advertising on the clients, thus generating a secondary revenue stream

 Has tieups with telecomm players and manufacturers

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Yahoomail

 Has premium accounts that can be purchased for 19.99$

 Uses advertisments as the main source of revenue.

 PC to Phone calling is availible with the use of prepaid credit, and also generates revenue for Yahoo!

Outlook

 Offers Premium webmail services for 20$ with more storage and no advertisments.

 Integration with Bing! and advertising allows for revenue

 It is estimated that they generate about 1$ per user per year.

 Besides these, Outlook is a premium service, which is in use by most corporate, and they charge organizations for
their setup depending on the user bas that would use their service.

There are other clients for chat, which allow users to log into various IM services from one location. These earn
revenues primarily from advertisements on their websites/clients or through the installation of other
applications/toolbars or through data gathering services which can chart usage patterns.

Google’s services as an example:

Gmail is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google. It was launched as an
invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though
still in beta status at that time. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the
Google Apps suite. As of November 2010, it had 193.3 million users monthly.

Spam filter

Gmail's spam filtering features a community-driven system: when any user marks an email as spam, this provides
information to help the system identify similar future messages for all Gmail users. Users may tune the system to
allow mail marked as spam to be handled in particular ways.

Gmail Mobile
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 Gmail Mobile is a version of Google's Gmail email service. Gmail Mobile was released on December 16, 2005

 It is a free service, developed to provide access to Gmail from mobile devices such as cell phones, or
smartphones. Gmail Mobile offers many of the features as Gmail delivered effectively to smaller, mobile screens.
Users have the ability to compose, read, archive, reply, forward, mark unread, add a star, add custom labels or
trash email messages.

 On September 22, 2009 Google brought Push Mail support to its Gmail service using Google Sync for iPhone and
iPod Touch platforms.

 On April 3, 2010, Google announced a new two-pane layout designed specifically for the iPad. It is delivered
automatically to Gmail website users who are signed in using the device's Safari browser.

Google Buzz

 On February 9, 2010, Google commenced their new service, Google Buzz, which integrates with Gmail allowing
users to share links and media, as well as status updates.

 Buzz was launched with an automatic opt-in, causing an uproar in the Gmail community which led Google to
quickly undo its initial moves.

Google Voice in Gmail chat

 In August 2010, Google implemented and released an integrated telephone service in Gmail's Google Chat
interface. The service allows people to make free calls from their Gmail account to U.S. and Canada, at least
through the end of 2010.

 The Gmail service currently provides more than 7 GB of free storage. Users can rent additional storage (shared
between Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs and Gmail) from 20 GB (US$5/year) to 16 TB (US$4096/year).

Digsby as an Example of an IM provider:

It supports

 IM services such as AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft's .NET Messenger Service, Yahoo! Messenger, Facebook
Chat, MySpace IM, Google Talk and LiveJournal's IM.
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 e-mail notifications via POP, IMAP and webmail like AOL, Yahoo! and Hotmail - including the ability to mark
messages as read, as spam or delete them from the client itself.

 supports alerts and newsfeeds from MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Additional features

 customizable skins for the client and IM windows

 aggregated web search from within the client via multiple sites

 composing emails from IM windows

 combining friends from multiple clients into one contact listing

Limitations

 IRC support is missing

 Privacy concerns
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Porter Five force analysis

1. Threat of new Entry

 No technology protections.

 Experience not a prerequisite. Also the trainings are readily available.

 Existing applications can include communication services.

2. Threat of Substitution

 Communication is no longer a stand alone service for a user.

 The entry of Mobiles and integration all around has had a major effect on trends.

3. Buyer Power
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 Peer group has high influence on the user.

 Low switching cost.

 Going for advanced technology and bundle of services at the same place.

 Rapidly increasing suppliers to lure the existing and prospective buyers.

4. Supplier Power

 Easy availability of IT professionals.

 Easy availability of the required infrastructure.

 Can be started and carried on from any place. Location of the offices has little impact.

5. Competitive Rivalry
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Opportunities:
 Rapidly increasing customer base.

 Customer inclination for changes.

 Reducing cost of the required IT infrastructure.

 Increasing importance of being connected for personal and professional aspirations.

 Innovation in services can increase the market share rapidly.

 Integration with various other web-applications.

Threats:
 Low customer loyalty.

 State of the art technology is essential.

 Need for constant integration and innovation, or will be rendered obsolete.

 Privacy concerns.
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CONCLUSION
 Getting into this sector requires high innovation level and innovation rate. Too many big players exist with
state of art technology. Survival is difficult without innovation.

 Low customer loyalty makes it difficult to retain them over long period of time.

 Low cost of customer switch.

 Integration with various other web-applications is essential to enter this sector.

REFERENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-mediated_communication
http://www.comscore.com