Product Description

The prosperity of our economy is primarily due to the growth and success of businesses.  A business is a commercial or industrial enterprise that is designed to provide goods, services, or both to consumers and other businesses. Creating and starting a business is a very difficult and time-consuming affair, which has many planning and research phases. Each phase has a different role in starting a business and each phase is crucial to the businesses survival. One of the phases involves researching and accessing the Internet.  Accessing the Internet is one of the most important parts in establishing an online business. You cannot have an online business unless you access the Internet and establish a website. 

Creating an online business has many aspects.  There are many parts to creating an efficient and working online business.  These aspects are picking a type of ISP, what company and speeds will you pay for, how will you create the website, what features will the site have, and how will you protect the site.  Each of these aspects has a vital role in creating an e-commerce website, and without any one of the aspects the website would fail.  First off, an ISP is an Internet Service Provider.  There are many companies that connect to international networks and provide consumer with access to the Internet, in addition to other services.  Some of these companies are Verizon, Cablevision, and DSL.  There are many different types of ISP’s, including dial up, a cable modem, ISDN, DSL, Satellite, and Fiber Optics. Each type of ISP has different features and some are faster then the others.  When picking an Internet Service Provider you must consider the delivery method, delivery track record, the services offered, and fee structure.  It is very hard for an ordinary person to start and make a website that will fit all of their specifications.  To do this more easily, you can hire a computer programmer. A computer programmer is someone who specializes in creating websites and working with the Internet, and is someone who will create the perfect website for money.  Before you create the website you must decide what features you want on your website. These features are on the website to assist the customer in navigating through the website to find what they want. These features are used to help the customer. The last aspect of creating the website involves protecting the website. A website is a very vulnerable asset to a company. If a website does not have any security, a Hacker or Cracker can break into the website and do what they want. This is a problem because the intruder can steal information, install viruses, or shut down the website.  To protect this, a website much have security features.

My business, like any other e-commerce business at its beginning, must begin to plan out my website. This includes researching and finding out how I want my website to be run, what features my website will have, how fast my website will be, how much the website will cost, and how I can protect my website and customers.  First off, my business is an online tutoring company that uses webcams.  My business is going to revolutionize the tutoring world because students are going to feel as if they have a teacher in the room with them, while actually a teacher will be at home and a student will be at home as well. In my business, I am going to be assigning a certified teacher as a tutor to someone who needs a tutor.  My tutors will access and interact with the students using webcams and a form of chat, in order to communicate with the student.  As you can see, my business is hugely based upon the success and speed of my website and the Internet.  The first aspect of creating my website is choosing the type of ISP.  The type of ISP that I will use is Fiber Optics.  Fiber Optics are cables made of pure glass that is drawn into a very thin fiber to form a core. An optical network then transmits the digital data that has been converted to light.  Fiber Optics is the fastest access option to the Internet.  I have chosen to use Fiber Optics because they are very quick, easy, efficient, and the top Internet Providing Companies use Fiber Optics.  One such company that uses Fiber Optics is Fios. Fios is branch of Verizon Wireless, and is one of the top Internet Providing Companies around.  After much research and factoring in delivery method, delivery track record, services offered, and fee structure, I have decided to use Verizon Fios as my company that is an ISP.  I chose Fios because it offers extremely high speed Internet, is wireless, and is able to connect to people all over the country.  This is exactly what my business needs because it is spread all across the country, is extremely fast, and extremely reliable.  Although Fios is expensive at $144 per month, it is the best fit for my company. Now that I have the type of ISP and company that I will use settled, it is time to figure out how to create the website.  I know that I am not capable of starting my own efficient website, so I am going to hire a computer programmer.  Although it is very expensive I am going to hire a computer programmer from Stony Brook University. I know, from research that there are students and professors at Stony Brook University who would be happy to get paid to create my website.  When I find my programmer, I am also going to have to tell him what features I want my site to have.  I need my website to be easily accessed, easily navigated, easily understood, very fast, and very safe.  All of these conditions are necessary because my website is going to be the headquarters to my business. It is where customers are going to research and learn about my business, pay for services, ask questions, and apply and ask for a tutor.  These are the essentials or necessities of my website.  To reach all of those aspects I am going to have tabs on the side of the site that will apply to each of those aspects. For example, on the home screen there will be a tab labeled “About the site,” as well as other tabs saying, “Purchase a plan,” or “Types of Plans.”  That is just some of the parts on the home screen when you are not logged in.  Once you establish an account and login, you can choose to go to the student site or the parent site. On the student site, there will be tabs to ask a question, to find a tutor, and there will be a tab where you can access different study guides and website.  In this tab there will be different hyperlinks that can take you to your necessary destination. Each hyperlink will lead to a different study website, where the student can research and study on their own.  On the parent site, you can follow your child, buy a new plan, and you will receive a detailed and personal description on your child from the tutor who he works with.  Each paragraph by the tutor will arrive within 24 hours after the session.  My website will be very complicated with many tabs (which access information), hyperlinks (which access other websites), and animation (to create a fun atmosphere for the student and adult).  The last aspect of my website is the security.  Security is a very crucial part to my business because customers are going to be paying via online transactions using credit cards, accessing the website often, and using tutors which will go through the website.  There are many levels of security in my website and business. For instance I must protect the students from harmful tutors, I must protect the customers or parents by ensuring the safety of their credit card information and numbers, and I must protect myself from viruses, crackers, hackers, fraud, and any other danger to my site.  Since all of the information and data will be flowing through my website I must make it a point to have high security.  I must first protect students from harmful instructors and tutors. You never know what the person is like, and especially for my business, where I am going to be working with strangers, I must ensure that my tutors are not creepy, pedophiles or involved in anything illegal.  I will do background checks on all employees and monitor random video chats to make sure everything is going well. Next I must protect the customers or parents credit card information. To do this, I will have all credit card information come to my website in code where it will be deciphered by credit card companies who will only send me the information. I will not see or deal with the actual information. I will only get confirmation that the transaction was received and was successful. This will protect my customers from having their identity stolen. The last part of security is protecting myself.  I must protect my website from viruses, hackers, crackers, and online fraud. Viruses are small computer programs that are designed to make copies of themselves over and over until the congestion causes the website to slow down and shut down.  Hackers are people who take over a site to have fun, but don’t actually steal anything. These people will shut down the site for hours. Crackers are people who will take over a website and harm the site. They will destroy the site.  Online Fraud is when people use fake identities and other people’s credit cards to buy items. This is a problem because it is not the real person and the money may not really be there to pay. Also I do not know whom I am working with. I will protect myself from all of this by not opening unknown emails, using firewalls and protective agents and tools.  Also I will make it so that I only know the password to my website, and I will make it very difficult to operate the site and take over the site. Last I will eliminate online fraud by not accepting orders from people outside the US, and I will make sure I get approval from the credit card company before I grant membership to my site.  The security of my customers and myself is very important to me.  My site will be very detailed, creative, efficient, and successful. This in-turn will allow my business to thrive.