Push and Pull Technologies in E-commerce

Webcasting Technology

• Amazon.com uses push/pull technologies to remember products consumers have purchased or searched in prior visits and pull information of similar products to the user in the next visit.
• Push technologies allow consumers to download programs, receive news updates, and interact with the webcaster in different formats such as audio, video, text, and graphics without actively searching for the information.

Benefits of Push Technologies

• Push technologies bring "intelligence and efficiency" to the distribution of information, giving webcasters more control over what users see and when.
• They provide effortless reception of materials with little consumer knowledge requirement and save consumers time to find information on the Internet.

Interactive Push Technologies

• The latest development in push technologies is to become more interactive and automatic, providing information based on users' past behaviors and their response to previous information.

Challenges of Push Technologies

• Inherent problems of push technology surround how much information should be provided to the audience and the potential invasion of Internet users' privacy.
• Users are increasingly intolerant of unsolicited materials that webcasters send without permission.

Benefits of Webcasting

• Webcasting can provide a professional event experience at a lower cost compared to in-person events, which can be expensive.
• It allows independent media to flourish, enabling average citizens to produce and broadcast online content on various interests and topics.

Interactive Webcasting

• Webcasting enables real-time interaction with customers through interactive chat rooms, allowing audience members to interact with each other and ask questions.
• It can be used for various purposes, including marketing, training, and corporate communications, to press conferences and Q&A sessions with customers.

Applications of Webcasting

• Training: Webcasting can be used for customer and employee training, creating extensive training sessions that can be viewed live or on-demand.
• Marketing & Demand Generation: Webcasting can be used for brand awareness and demand generation, providing analytical data to gauge levels of interest throughout the webcast.
• Corporate Communications: Webcasting can improve internal communications by hosting regular town hall events, enabling employees to hear from executive teams and submit questions.
• Human Resources: Webcasting can be used to provide important information to employees, from onboarding new hires to communicating benefits updates.
• Education: Webcasting can be used to broadcast lectures, college placement testing, and virtual webinars.
• Conferences: Webcasting can be used to host virtual conferences, converting in-person events to virtual ones.

Types of Webcasts

• Webcasts typically fall into two categories: managed and self-service.