Ecommerce Diary

Early development
The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years.


Original
Electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, use technology. For example: Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funs Transfers (EFT)


Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) refers to the structured transmission of data between organizations by electronic means. It is used to transfer electronic documents from one computer system to another from one trading partner to another trading partner. It is more than mere E-mail.



Electronic Funs Transfers (EFT) is any transfer of funds, other than a transaction originated by a paper instrument, that is initiated through an electronic terminal, telephone, or computer or magnetic tape and that orders or authorizes a financial institution to debit or credit an account.



Late 1970s
Allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. For example: acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM).


A credit card is part of a system of payments named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. It is a card entitling its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services.



Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) an unattended electronic machine in a public place, connected to a data system and related equipment and activated by a bank customer to obtain cash withdrawals and other banking services.




1980s

Telephone banking also forms of electronic commerce




Telephone banking is a service provided by a financial institution which allows its customers to perform transactions over the telephone.




1990s onwards

Additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.



Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an industry term for the broad set of activities that helps a business manage the important parts of its business.








Data mining is the process of extracting hidden patterns from data. As more data is gathered, with the amount of data doubling every three years, data mining is becoming an increasingly important tool to transform this data into information.







Data warehouse is a repository of an organization's electronically stored data. Data warehouses are designed to facilitate reporting and analysis




Event

1984
EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

1992
Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

1994
Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995
Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

1999
Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.

2000
The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

Time line

1990
Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer

1994
Netscape released the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Pizza Hut offered pizza ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opened. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. Adult materials were also commercially available,
as were cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 in late 1994 introduced SSL encryption that made transactions secure.

1995
Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com and the first commercial 24 hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and NetRadio started broadcasting. Dell and Cisco began to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay was founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.

1998
Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.

1999
Business.com was sold for US $7.5 million, which was purchased in 1997 for US $150,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster was launched.

2000
The dot-com bust.

2003
Amazon.com had its first year with a full year of profit.

2007
Business.com acquired by R.H.Donnelley for $345 million

2008
US eCommerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17 percent over 2007