Practicum Report August 2006 Jie Shi

PhotoMap Business Plan
Practicum Report
August 2006
Jie Shi
55138098
MECB
Xiangjie Gao
55136966
MECB
Jiayuan Li
55231116
MECT
Quan Zhou
55137695
MECT
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Declaration
We hereby certify that this material, which we now submit for assessment on the
program of study leading to the award of the Master of E-Commerce Degree in
Dublin City University, is entirely our own work and has not been submitted for
assessment for an academic purpose at this or any other academic institution other
than in partial fulfillment of the requirements of that stated above.
Signed:___________________________
Signed:___________________________
Signed:___________________________
Signed:___________________________
Date:____1 August 2006______________
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Acknowledgements
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people for their help and
support:
Thanks to all the lecturing staff at Dublin City University, for their support and
guidance over the past one year. Special thanks to our project supervisors, Cathal
Gurrin and Regina Connolly, for their great help and patience.
We would like to thank everybody who took their time to participate in our
questionnaire including our fellow MECB/MECT students.
Thanks to all the people who gave us guidance and help.
Thank you all.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Table of Contents
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................7
1.1 MISSION STATEMENT ...........................................................................................................7
1.2 OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................................7
1.3 SERVICE OFFERING ...............................................................................................................7
1.4 MARKET OVERVIEW .............................................................................................................8
1.5 BUSINESS MODE .....................................................................................................................8
1.6 VALUE PROPOSITION ............................................................................................................8
1.7 COMPANY BACKGROUND....................................................................................................9
1.8 FINANCE ...................................................................................................................................9
2 COMPANY SUMMARY........................................................................................10
2.1 Company History ......................................................................................................................10
2.2 Company Founding...................................................................................................................10
2.3 Company Location....................................................................................................................10
2.4 Company Roadmap...................................................................................................................11
3 STRATERY AND IMPLEMENTATION .............................................................13
3.1 Value Chain Analysis................................................................................................................13
3.1.1 Attract ............................................................................................................................................................. 13
3.1.2 Interact ............................................................................................................................................................ 13
3.1.3 Act .................................................................................................................................................................. 14
3.1.4 React ............................................................................................................................................................... 15
3 .2 Revenue Model Analyses.........................................................................................................16
3.2.1 Current trend of online advertising spending .................................................................................................. 16
3.2.2 Current trend of online advertising revenue.................................................................................................... 17
3.2.3 Current main problem of online advertising ................................................................................................... 18
3.2.4 The solution of online advertising within our web site ................................................................................... 19
3.3 Growth Strategy Analysis .........................................................................................................20
3.3.1 Initial Phase / (pre-site testing) ....................................................................................................................... 21
3.3.2 Expansion phase / (implementation phase) ..................................................................................................... 21
3.3.3 Further development phase ............................................................................................................................. 21
3.4 Marketing mix...........................................................................................................................22
3.4.1 Product............................................................................................................................................................ 22
3.4.2 Place................................................................................................................................................................ 22
3.4.3 Price ................................................................................................................................................................ 22
3.4.4 Promotion ....................................................................................................................................................... 22
3.5 Management Structure ..............................................................................................................23
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PhotoMap Business Plan
3.5.1 The Change of Management Structure............................................................................................................ 23
3.5.2 Management Duties ........................................................................................................................................ 23
4. MARKETING ANALYSIS ...................................................................................25
4.1 Market Research .......................................................................................................................25
4.1.1 Research Methodology ................................................................................................................................... 25
4.1.2 Research Results ............................................................................................................................................. 25
4.1.3 Target Market ................................................................................................................................................. 27
4.2 PEST Analysis ..........................................................................................................................27
4.2.1 Political Factors .............................................................................................................................................. 27
4.2.2 Economic Factors............................................................................................................................................ 29
4.2.3 Socio-cultural Factors ..................................................................................................................................... 31
4.2.4 Technological Factors ..................................................................................................................................... 31
4.3 Porters Five Forces Model ........................................................................................................32
4.3.1 Bargaining Power of Suppliers: ...................................................................................................................... 32
4.3.2 Bargaining Power of Customers: .................................................................................................................... 33
4.3.3 Threat of New Entrants:.................................................................................................................................. 34
4.3.4 Threat of Substitutes: ...................................................................................................................................... 35
4.3.5 Competitive Rivalry within the industry:........................................................................................................ 35
4.4 SWOT Analysis: .......................................................................................................................37
5 TECHNICAL REPORT .........................................................................................38
5.1 Architecture Overview..............................................................................................................38
5.2 Operational Model ....................................................................................................................40
5.3 System Components..................................................................................................................41
5.4 Function Test ............................................................................................................................43
5.5 Functions...................................................................................................................................43
5.5.1 Register/login.................................................................................................................................................. 43
5.5.2 Search photos.................................................................................................................................................. 43
5.5.3 Upload/manage photos.................................................................................................................................... 44
5.5.4 Share photos with friends................................................................................................................................ 44
5.5.5 Order photo print............................................................................................................................................. 44
5.6 Usability....................................................................................................................................44
5.7 Risks analysis............................................................................................................................45
5.8 Technology used .......................................................................................................................46
5.8.1 Web 2.0........................................................................................................................................................... 46
5.8.2 Mapping API................................................................................................................................................... 46
5.8.3 Ajax ................................................................................................................................................................ 47
5.8.4 GPS ................................................................................................................................................................. 47
5.8.5 Server-side technology.................................................................................................................................... 47
5.9 FUTURE EXPANSIONS .........................................................................................................48
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6 FINANCIAL SUMMARY......................................................................................49
6.1 Total Income Vs Expenditure ...................................................................................................49
6.2 financial ratios...........................................................................................................................49
6.3 Annual Financial Statistics........................................................................................................49
6.4 Finance Risk..............................................................................................................................51
Bibliography ...............................................................................................................53
Appendix.....................................................................................................................54
Appendix I—Database Structure ....................................................................................................54
Appendix II Financial Appendices..................................................................................................55
Appendix III—Management Profile ...............................................................................................58
Appendix IV Digital Camera and Camera Phone Sales Overview .................................................59
Appendix V Questionnaire and Result............................................................................................61
Appendix VI Digital Camera and Camera Phone Sales Overview .................................................68
Appendix VII Digital Printing Overview........................................................................................70
Appendix VIII TOP 20 COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST NUMBER OF INTERNET USERS.....72
Appendix IX TOP 20 COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF INTERNET DSL
BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS - 2004 Q4...................................................................................74
Appendix X GPS Embedded Mobile Phone and Camera ...............................................................76
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PhotoMap Business Plan
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The following document is a business plan for PhotoMap. PhotoMap is a website
based on the online mapping service and the concept of Web 2.0. PhotoMap
provides the capability of uploading, managing and sharing photos in an
interactive way.
1.1 MISSION STATEMENT
To enhance users online photo storing, managing and sharing experience by
providing photo-map integrated service.
1.2 OBJECTIVES
z
User: We want our users have a different online surfing feeling through our
active and communicative service.
z
Profit: To generate sufficient profit to finance future growth and to provide
the resources needed to achieve the other objectives of the company. We
predict a net profit of 198,873.05 in our third year of operation.
z
Growth: We expect our company grow in a manageable and sustainable way
by our unique business model and web concept, and with the financial
assistant of venture capital, we want to grow up as the world-class
online-photo album service provider.
1.3 SERVICE OFFERING
1. We want to help people make their photos available to the people who they
want to share photos with..
Maybe they want to keep an album of moments captured on their camera phone,
or maybe they want to show off their best pictures to the whole world in a bid for
web celebrity. Or maybe they want to securely and privately share photos of their
kids with their family across the country. PhotoMap makes all these things
possible.
To do this, we want to get photos into and out of the system in as many ways as
we can: from the web, from mobile devices, from the users' home computers and
from whatever software they are using to manage their photos. And we want to be
able to push them out in as many ways as possible: on the PhotoMap website, by
email, by posting to outside blogs or ways we haven't thought of yet.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
2. We want to enable new ways of organizing photos.
Once you make the switch to digital, it is all too easy to get overwhelmed with the
huge number of photos. Albums, the principal way people go about organizing
photos today, are great -- until you get to 20 or 30 or 50 of them. Part of the
solution is to make the process of organizing photos collaborative. In PhotoMap
you can tag your photos and post them in the map, so people can search by
manage their photos by location information. And this feature makes the process
of displaying and searching more interactive.
1.4 MARKET OVERVIEW
Online photo sharing and managing is a fairly new market in the internet. A few
companies are playing in this area. In the same time, the online map service is
becoming a hot topic. We are entering a new market as the concept of web 2.0 is
just released and more interactive and personalized web service is just starting
booming.
1.5 BUSINESS MODE
At present we provide a free user account and storage space to the customer and
our profit will come from online advertising. Generally we have two type of
advertisement.
Google AdSense: The ads are dynamic and are related to the photo’s tags or search
keywords.
Location-based Ads: We put small advertising items on the map.
Both two ways of posting ads is related to users request and interests, and will
have a high click through rates.
In the future, other value-adding service such as Gigabytes of storage space, photo
printing and delivering, proving photo API can provide a sustainable revenue
source.
1.6 VALUE PROPOSITION
We are going to offer internet users a unique service that will help them embrace
the new online-mapping service on the Internet named location based photo
management and in the future GPS-integrated digital cameras and camera phones.
We will also provide them sharing and managing their photos with people all
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PhotoMap Business Plan
around the world.
1.7 COMPANY BACKGROUND
We are a group of Masters in Electronic Commerce students from Dublin City
University who have come together to develop a location based photo album
service using our individual talents and expertise.
1.8 FINANCE
We assumed first 3 years financial ratios for our website.
Year 2006 to 2007
Year 2007 to 2008
Year 2008 to 2009
Revenue
€84,625.00
€170,850.00
€479,400.00
Investment
€40,000.00
Sales
€44,625.00
€170,850.00
€479,400.00
Expense
€130,238.65
€165,128.90
€240,724.40
Profit
-€45,613.65
€5,721.10
€238,675.60
Balance
-€45,613.65
-€39,892.55
€198,873.05
Profit %
-53.9%
3.3%
49.8%
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PhotoMap Business Plan
2
COMPANY
SUMMARY
2.1 Company History
Our company is founded by four university postgraduate students who are from
business stream and technical stream in electronic commerce. Due to the
consistent view and opinion to the present and future status of Internet, these four
postgraduate students form a team, work together and set up a company in Sep
2006.
The main service offered by this company is to provide a new and free photo
sharing and managing platform to all Internet users. This service is distinctive to
the most of existing websites that are based on online photo album. Users can
share and enjoy their real lives with their friends, students, colleagues, or relatives
by uploading and downloading photos. The main advantage of this service is that
it provides an enhanced user experience by providing interactive photo sharing
service.
2.2 Company Founding
The four founders of the company have spent almost more than three months
planning this business venture, which include business model analysis, market
analysis, finance analysis, risk assessment, management structure analysis and
technical analysis, so we are confident in company success. Therefore we have
decided to invest €5,000 each to assist in the start-up costs of the company. Major
costs include our initial IT needs e.g. service space for our web site, and some
necessary office equipments e.g. PCs, printer, scanner.
2.3 Company Location
In the initial phase, our company will be located in the campus of Dublin City
University. This is because within this phase, in terms of technical aspect, our
company urgently needs some necessary technical support from our lecturers and
computing school. We believe that our lecturers and computing school will timely
support us. In terms of business aspect, we can fully utilize the good relationship
with our campus students to launch our business. At moment, more than 15,000
students are studying in this campus, which include full-time and part-time
students, all of them would be our potential users of the service, so it would be
great to help us propagate our service to other colleges, and form a good start
point and foundation to our company.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
2.4 Company Roadmap
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3 STRATERY AND IMPLEMENTATION
3.1 Value Chain Analysis
In terms of eCommerce value chain, our company is strongly around the
following four steps—Attract, Interact, Act, React
3.1.1 Attract
Attract
Website Ads
Print Ads
E-mail Ads
Our company provides a useful and free communication platform for users to
share their pictures of different events from different locations with their friends
over Internet, so it can greatly attract massive Internet users. Our company
strongly believes that this kind of service will greatly satisfy the needs of Internet
users globally, and allow them to more easily communicate their latest events.
Because this kind of web service is completly new, we decide use some simple
and effective ways to make people know and visit our web site in order to improve
the page view of our web site, which include web Ads, print Ads and e-mail,
3.1.2 Interact
Interact
Capture
personal
contact info.
Keep
contacting with
users
Provide
effective
feedback
At this stage, our web site fully utilize the advantages of the internet, it means
Internet users can not only become our potential customers, but also a free and
abundant “source of supply” to our web site. This is because our web site allows
users to upload their photos for free. So in this stage, we can clearly see that the
Internet users carry the dual roles for our company, this will bring our company
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PhotoMap Business Plan
huge benefits. So we should use different ways to keep interact with our users,
such as capture user’s personal information, keep contacting with our users over
e-mail, provide effective feedback to users.
3.1.3 Act
Act
Free upload
photos
Free download
photos
Online
advertising
The stage of act within our web site value chain is a key and core stage. This is
because this stage mainly describes the services provided by our web site and the
major profit format.
Our web site mainly provides a free communication platform for Internet users
who focus on sharing their pictures with their friends over Internet worldwide; this
is because this kind of service can greatly meet the further needs of most internet
users. Nowadays, internet users are not satisfied with making friends and simply
chatting over internet; they need further keep contact, share feelings, and get into
each other’s lives. Pictures are one of the best ways due to the application and
popularization of Internet, digital cameras and all kinds of equipments with the
function of camera. The purpose of this service is to make the users know their
friend’s true life, sufficiently share their true feeling and farther know their living
environment.
Additionally, because the service provided by our company is completely free for
all Internet users, the profit of our company is mainly from various advertisings.
This is because online advertising is the most important and main profit format for
most of online web site. At the same time, our company can firmly make sure that
our company’s reputation and the page views of our web site will be gradually
improved by meeting the correct needs of most Internet users; it will build a stable
and firm base/foundation for the online advertising with this improving good
company reputation.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
3.1.4 React
React
FAQ
Answer customer
queries
Satisfy users’
further needs
In the last stage of our value chain, we mainly focus on answer the queries from
our customers, and further satisfy the user’s needs. Because we think this stage is
very important to keep the current users and customer, attract more potential users
or customers, and in this way improving our web site reputation.
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3 .2 Revenue Model Analyses
3.2.1 Current trend of online advertising spending
In terms of revenue model, advertising is the most popular and adoptive revenue
model for many online companies and web sites. From the following diagrams,
we can clearly see that the general trend of advertising spending on the Internet is
dramatically increasing and booming world widely since 1999. So we can predict
and believe that this trend will keep and retain for the following years.
Source: http://www.click2advertising.com/images/slide2.jpg
Now, let us look at the following diagrams, they can clearly reflect the detailed
situation of online advertising spend in different countries and areas, which
include US (2000-2004), France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain (2004—2006). So
this will further confirm the general trend and our prediction about online
advertising spending.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
From the above analysis and diagrams, we are satisfied with the trends of online
advertising spending. So we think that it could be a right revenue model, and we
can have a good expectation of profit
3.2.2 Current trend of online advertising revenue
After analyzing the current situation of online advertising spending, then how
about comparing online advertising revenue versus spending? We all think this is
a very important issue to any investors, it means if this continuous increasing
online advertising spending could not generate a continuous improving online
advertising revenue, otherwise the investors will lose their confidence on
investing online advertisement industry. Fortunately, we can see a good result for
the online advertising revenue.
The following diagram can clearly provide us a promising result for the online
advertising revenue. This diagram shows us that the global Internet advertising
revenue is steadily improving form 2003—2006, and this trend will also keep
within the following years by confirmed estimation and forecast.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
So, by above analysis of online advertising spend and revenue, our company
decided to focus on advertising as our main revenue model.
3.2.3 Current main problem of online advertising
In terms of network or online advertising, the click ratio is very important, this is
because click ratio is a vital symbol and indication to network advertising or
online advertising, it can accurately indicate the advertisement effect and impact,
and can clearly tell us whether or not the service advertised or product advertised
can cause the people’s attention or interest. However the current click ratio is still
very low, which include different advertisement formats and different areas. Now
let’s look at the following data diagrams.
Data Source: http://news.eastday.com/service/advertise.htm
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PhotoMap Business Plan
http://www.mediachina.net/index_news_view.jsp?id=45791
http://www.mediachina.net/index_news_view.jsp?id=82587
From the above data diagrams, we can see clearly that the online advertising click
ratio is very low even though the online advertising spending and revenue
satisfied us. So how to improve the online advertising click ratio is the key issue
for our company revenue. By our analysis we think the reason for the low click
ratio is that the advertising does not have the directly relationship with the content
that the Internet user is reading, so this advertisement will not cause the user’s
interest, and the most of users will not click and visit it. Take a online news page
as an example When people visit this page, they only pay attention to the news
content, and there may have some irrelevant advertisements on the page, which
include insurance, laptop and eircom. Obviously most visitors will ignore these
irrelevant advertisements and won’t click them to see these advertisements, and
the click ratio would be very low with these irrelevant advertisements in this news
page.
3.2.4 The solution of online advertising within our web site
In order to improve the online advertising click through ratio, we think that the
online advertisement should have the direct relationship with the content that the
people are browsing. In terms of our web site, it means when user chooses a photo,
the relative advertisements about this scene or facilities round this scene will be
shown. For instance, when a user selects a picture of DCU campus, the linkages of
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PhotoMap Business Plan
online advertising for Sports Club or Helix will be listed, so it would benefit the
users to further explore more about the DCU campus, and the users would not be
limited by the single photo.
Another way of improving click through ratios is that we are using Google
Adsense, it means when users enter one or more key words to look for a photo
within our web site, the Google Adsense will automatically list the top 5 relevant
online advertisements. The great benefit of this way is not only helping our web
site to find the most relevant online advertisements, but also can make a relation
between the location of taken photo and the location of advertisement. For
instance, if a user uploads a photo that is taken in Dublin, Google Adsense will list
some online advertisements that are relative to Dublin. For example: Dublin hotels,
Dublin real estate. In this way users can be motivated to find out what are around
the location of photo and improve the online advertising click ratios.
Through the above analysis, we believe that the click ratio of online advertisement
within our web site will be much higher than the average advertisement click ratio.
By our estimation, it would be reach to 3%-5% or more.
3.3 Growth Strategy Analysis
The growth strategy for our web site involves following three different
phases—initial phase, expansion phase, further development phase. And in each
phase, we will emphasize different aims.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
3.3.1 Initial Phase / (pre-site testing)
In this phase, since our company is a new entrant in this market, so the primary
duty in this stage is to make more users know our web site and encourage them to
visit our web site. Besides all kinds of propagation formats such as online Ads,
print Ads and direct mail, our web site will specially focuses on our DCU students,
friends, and relatives. This is because it is relatively easy to obtain their
information; we can easily contact them and introduce our web site to them. In
terms of DCU students, at moment there are around 10000 students in DCU,
which include both full-time and part-time. We can send our web site address to
them by the student mail list, and introduce them about our web site and it
functions.
On the other hand, we can quickly get feedback or suggestion from the above
them; additionally they could have a potential and feasible opportunity to
propagate our web site to their friends, relatives and students. So we think this will
make a good foundation and starting point for our web site, and make our web site
occupy a position in a competitive market environment.
3.3.2 Expansion phase / (implementation phase)
In this phase, our web site will continue to expand the user’s amount, web
reputation. We are still going to focus on college students, the range of college
students will be from DCU to the other colleges in Dublin, Ireland, EU and US.
Additionally, in this phase we are going to expand the range of users into
professions, whose age would be from 26—35 years old. This is because the
professional people within this age range have a good education background and
good internet or computer skill, digital camera, camera phones and other digital
equipment with camera function are quite popularized within this group.
3.3.3 Further development phase
In this phase, We will mainly focus on provide more service to our users such as
photo printing. We can also provide specialized tools to help the user achieve their
personalized photo album.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
3.4 Marketing mix
3.4.1 Product
The primary intention of our product is to provide an online communication
platform to all Internet users, sharing their life and events by photos. The most
significant feature of our product is that it integrates both photo and maps.
3.4.2 Place
Due to fast penetration and wide popularization of Internet, our product /service
will be directly operated for the widest Internet users over the Internet, so our
product will be distributed to any place where can access to the Internet. In
another word, our product/service and users will be worldwide. So the Internet
will greatly benefit our product/service, and help us effectively save the logistic
and transport fee of our product/service.
3.4.3 Price
The price of product or service is of main considerations to our customers and will
give us a competitive advantage over competitors. This is because the low price of
product or service can have a stronger attraction to customers, and it can also help
us form a more powerful competency against our competitors. In terms of our
product /service, it is completely free to our users. This kind of free service will
attract more users, encourage those potential users to try our product/service, and
build up our unique competency. With the growing of customer numbers, our
product/service reputation will grow up, create a famous brand for our
product/service, and form a good foundation for our revenue model.
3.4.4 Promotion
Even though our product/service is completely free, we still have to try to market
our product/service at any online or offline marketing environments, and let the
users know that our product/service is existing. We would like to advise initial
promotion of our service to involve commercial radio in different cities such as
Dublin, Cork; billboard advertising is very useful and effective at various key
locations such as the Port, Airport, bus stop and train stations; we will also
consider the online advertising on some popular local web sites such as
www.fm104.ie, and the print Ad is a very useful and cheaper way of promotion.
We all think the above promotion ways should be kept at any time, this is because
promotion is not only help us market our product (service) and create a famous
reputation, but also can assist us to maintain and solidify the position in the
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PhotoMap Business Plan
competitive market environment after we get success on our product (service)
3.5 Management Structure
3.5.1 The Change of Management Structure
Network era emerged with the wide application of ICT (information
communication technology) and Internet since 1990’s, it caused huge change on
every aspect. In terms of management structure, this change is so fast and deep.
Traditional management structure has been changing from vertical pyramid
structure to the parallel structure.
This is because all powers and rights are centralized on the top level within the
traditional management structure, all information and command had to be passed
from one level to another level, from one department to another department. This
kind of management structure strictly regulated and restricted the relationship of
organization members.
We decide to adopt parallel management structure because this kind of structure
can make the whole management structure flat, reduce the management levels,
and different levels or department can cooperate together as a whole team.
So due to the above analysis of management structure, our company decided to
adopt the parallel management structure. See the flowing structure diagram,
CEO
Financial
Director
Marketing
Director
Technical
Director
In the above diagram, we can clearly see that each part of organization is not a
single unite or entity, the relationship between these parts have essential
connection, it emphasizes parallel cooperation within the management group.
3.5.2 Management Duties
So all the duties are assigned and performed within our company based on this
kind of structure. The following is going to introduce the detailed duty of each
part of our management structure.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
z
CEO
--Designing the strategic plan for the company long-term development
plan.
--Managing, supervising and cooperating with the functional departments
z
Marketing Director:
-- Building a good reputation for our web site.
-- Identifying potential customers who can adopt the services provided by
our web site successfully.
--Acting as Sales Representative in Ireland and EU.
--Designing the sales plan and sales process.
z
Financial Director:
--Controlling and monitoring the company finance implementation.
--Providing accurate reports of financial spending activities.
--Forecasting future spending and revenue levels.
--Management of financial function including sourcing capital, account
preparation, wages, financial control and budget plan
--Designing the feasible budget plan
z
Technical Director:
--Management of administration function including our web site system
development and performance.
--Ensuring security when users are transferring information
--Development of web application software
--Researching potential technologies that could be used by the functions of
our web site.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
4.
MARKETING
ANALYSIS
4.1 Market Research
4.1.1 Research Methodology
z Primary research
Our primary research is composed of a set of questionnaires we designed for
our potential customers. Our purpose is to find that how much do they know
about the GPS embedded camera phones and are they willing to use online
album to organize the photos. Further more, we investigated the potential
benefits that we can get from our service as providing traveling and
accommodation information from our website. And the questionnaire is based
on about 200 testers, so we think they can represent most of our target users in
some ways.
z Secondary research
After executed the Primary ones, we arranged several online meetings with
people who are working in Chinese Telecommunication Industries now to take
their advices in a formal way. Additionally, we browsed and sent our queries to
some main online statistic sponsors like ComReg and OECD to collect the
useful tables and policies which can help us to develop our service in the future.
4.1.2 Research Results
After investigating 200 potential users for our web service, we found some
satisfying and helpful results for our research.
Our primary age group is around:
Please indicate the age group to which you belong?
Percentage
Responses
<15
0.0
0
15-20
1.5
3
21-25
44.5
89
26-30
44.0
88
31-35
6.5
13
36-40
3.5
7
41-45
0.0
0
46-50
0.0
0
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PhotoMap Business Plan
>50
0.0
0
Total responses:
200
The daily usage of their mobile’s camera is:
How often do you use your mobile phone’s camera?
Percentage
Responses
Daily
19.0
38
Weekly
12.5
25
Monthly
19.5
39
Never use it
18.5
37
Not sure
30.5
61
Total responses:
200
Their interests of the GPS embedded camera are:
Are you interested in any of above GPS embedded device?(5 means strongly
interest and 1 means no interest)
Percentage
Responses
5
18.0
36
4
22.5
45
3
38.5
77
2
10.5
21
1
10.5
21
Total responses:
200
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PhotoMap Business Plan
And how much the users are willing to see the service and information provide on
our website:
Are you willing to see traveling information (hotel, restaurant, etc) on online
photo management system?
(5 means very interest and 1 means not at all)
Percentage
Responses
5
36.5
73
4
20.0
40
3
27.5
55
2
12.5
25
1
3.5
7
Total responses:
200
4.1.3 Target Market
From our research results, we concluded that nearly 90% of our respondents who
have camera phones are between the age of 21 to 30, and half of them are students,
the rest are professionals. They’re willing to use their mobiles to take pictures
within a weekly basis. And more than 80% of them have strong interests on GPS
embedded camera phones. Nearly half of them are using online album now to
organize their photos. So we think that our initial target market is based on 21 to
30 year olds students and professionals who are willing to use our service for both
business and personal use.
Our website also provide up-to-date travelling information for each member,
according to the recent Irish tourist policies and the extension of EU members,
more and more people are attracted to visit Ireland as tourists. So our website will
definitely benefit them and they will be our potential and target user as well.
4.2 PEST Analysis
Our initial target and market research are all based on Ireland, so we just outline
our PEST analysis for Ireland now and we will further our analysis step by step
with the worldwide extension of our product.
4.2.1 Political Factors
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PhotoMap Business Plan
The steady political circumstance that Ireland has facilitates the IT company and
online corporate hugely in recent years. The main purposes of the latest policies
indicates that foreign companies mostly from American benefit a lot from these
and drive the whole Ireland IT industry to a speedy and stable development way.
A really good example to explain that is the Broadband Policy in Ireland:
1998: Information Society Action Plan:
z
Establishment of the Office of the Director for Telecommunications
Regulation- ComReg.ie
z
Full liberalisation of the telecommunications market from 1 December 1998
z
Public/private partnership approach for telecommunications and internet
infrastructure provision
z
Implementation of ICT in the public service
z
Establishment of a Digital Park [Digital Economy]
Country DSL Service Launch Date
Canada
US
Korea
UK
Sweden
Japan
Ireland
1996
1997
April 1999
July 2000
September 2000
September 2000
May 2002
Source OECD, 2001 The Development of Broadband Access in OECD Countries.
The Government’ Position for Broadband is providing targeted infrastructure
investment:
z
Framework international connectivity deal with Global Crossing
z
Grant aiding the development of additional high-speed backbone infrastructure
z
Provision of state owned infrastructure operating on an open access, carrier
neutral basis
z
Development of community based infrastructure
z
The provision of broadband is a matter for private sector companies in a
liberalised market
z
The Irish Government has recognised that the market failed to respond to demand
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PhotoMap Business Plan
z
The state have undertaken a number of initiatives to stimulate competition in the
market [Digital Economy]
And as the COMMUNICATIONS REGULATION ACT 2002 ruled by ComReg
(The Commission for Communications Regulation) informed, much more focuses
have been changed from the traditional industry to IT ones in Ireland by political
factors. Also more and more mobile company like Nokia and Sony Ericsson start
to manufacture variousy kinds of GPS mobiles, and trying to put it directly into
the Irish market. The stable policies may properly accelerate the development of
the GPS mobiles and our business may also be boosted with the great influence of
Ireland’s political factors. Further more, with the GPS popularization worldwide,
we can also expend our business all over the world in the near future.
4.2.2 Economic Factors
Ireland experienced rapid growth over the period 1990 – 2000
GDP annual average growth rates
Ireland
US
Japan
EU 15
1970-80
4.7
3.2
4.4
.92
1980- 90
3.6
3.2
4.1
.86
1990-00
7.3
3.2
1.3
1.62
Source: OECDb. 2004, p.19
As the table indicates, Ireland experienced rapid GDP growth over decade.
ICT(Information Communication Technology) is a main new economy that
affected Ireland’s GDP growth in the following ways:
z
Investment in ICT goods, capital investment, contributes to overall capital
deepening leads to an increase in labour productivity.
z
Rapid technological progress in the production of ICT goods and services may
contribute to more rapid multifactor productivity (MFP) growth in the
ICT-producing sector.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
z
Greater use of ICT may help firms increase their overall efficiency, and thus raise
MFP. Greater use of ICT may also contribute to network effects. [Digital
Economy]
Source: OECD(2003a), OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard.
That’s the mainly diffusion of ICT in OECD, it could help us to clearly go through
all the ICT diffusions among all the OECD countries and make a suitable decision
to choose the right market for us to explore.
Source: OECD Productivity Database, OECD Capital Service Database, 2003.
Another main component that inflects the economic growth in ICT sector in
Ireland is the investment in ICT goods. That means if we can take the advantage
of these things, we can definitely grow our business.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
4.2.3 Socio-cultural Factors
With the cheaper and much more convenient usage of the mobiles nowadays,
people who live in Ireland on average have more than one mobile in their daily
life. Mobile becomes a multi-function instrument that facilitates people’s life
everywhere you can see. We can predict that more and more GPS embedded
camera mobiles catch people’s eyes and lead the fashion for a wide range of
citizens aged from 15 to 45. People are willing to take amazing pictures whenever
and whatever they want. That’s not a word “popularization” can easily describe.
Our website can provide the suitable photo management services that meet
people’s needs and become popular easily.
A new business needs chances to start, if we can make fully use of the
socio-cultural, we’ll absolutely take the preferential opportunities and run our own
business successfully with the perfect initial step.
4.2.4 Technological Factors
GPS (Global Position System) has become a vital global utility, indispensable for
modern navigation on land, sea, and air around the world, as well as an important
tool for map-making, and land surveying.
In late 2005, the first in a series of next-generation GPS satellites was added to the
constellation, offering several new capabilities, including a second civilian GPS
signal called L2C for enhanced accuracy and reliability. In the coming years,
additional next-generation satellites will increase coverage of L2C and add a third
and fourth civilian signal to the system, as well as advanced military capabilities.
The Wide-Area Augmentation System (WAAS), available since August 2000,
increases the accuracy of GPS signals to within 2 meters (6 ft) for compatible
receivers. GPS accuracy can be improved further, to about 1 cm (half an inch)
over short distances, using techniques such as Differential GPS (DGPS).
With the rapid development of the GPS technology, mobile industry is now
embedding this new technology into their mobiles. That implies the huge potential
for our website and the more exact services we provide to our customer, the more
exact benefits we can gain from that. All these depend on the high penetration rate
of GPS Technology in Ireland and worldwide.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
4.3 Porters Five Forces Model
Porters model is based on the insight that a corporate strategy should meet the
opportunities and threats in the organizations external environment. Especially,
competitive strategy should base on understanding of industry structures and the
way they change. We use this model to further analyze our external environment
and market for our unique online album service, each element we evaluate may
help us to fully understand the whole competitive circumstance and make the
suitable decision for our future business plan.
4.3.1 Bargaining Power of Suppliers:
The term 'suppliers' comprises all sources for inputs that are needed in order to
provide goods or services.
The online album market does not have a certain number of suppliers. We can use
variety source of online server spaces and the GPS information is automatically
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PhotoMap Business Plan
generated by GPS embedded camera phones and cameras.
z
z
z
z
There are fewer substitutes for the particular input.
The suppliers are fragmented, so their bargaining power is low.
The switching cost from one supplier to another is not much higher.
The buying industry has low barriers to entry
4.3.2 Bargaining Power of Customers:
Similarly, the bargaining power of customers determines how much customers can
impose pressure on margins and volumes.
There exist a certain number of customers who are using the online album now,
especially the youth and middle age people, so there is a concentration of
customers.
This kind of service is undifferentiated and can be replaced by substitutes, but we
have our unique competitive advantage on well combined online map and album
system.
Switching to an alternative service is relatively simple and is not related to high
costs, it’s free for our customer to register their own accounts and we provide up
to 100MB free space for each member,
z
Customers have low margins and are price sensitive, and we provide ideal
services and are not intend to gain profits from our members.
z
Customers can upload and manage their photos themselves, no extra charge
for that.
z
The service is not of strategical importance for the customer but will make
their lives better.
z
The customer knows about the whole process for costs of the service.
There is the possibility for the customer integrating backwards.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
4.3.3 Threat of New Entrants:
The higher the competition within an industry will be, the easier it is for other
companies to enter this industry. In such a situation, new entrants could change
major determinants of the market environment (e.g. market shares, prices,
customer loyalty) at any time. There is always a latent pressure for reaction and
adjustment for existing players in this industry. The threat of new entries will
depend on the extent to which there are barriers to entry.
z
It doesn't need very high initial investments and fixed costs for start-up a new
business to enter the online album market. e.g. we will spend 10000 euro per
person for our initial investment.
z
Cost advantages of existing players due to experience curve effects of
operation with fully depreciated assets, we are also using online maps
supported by Microsoft and may take over the online server in China with a
relative cheap price.
z
Brand loyalty of customers, we have the ability to attract the existing
customers due to our ideal service.
z
Protected intellectual property like patents, licenses etc, new Internet policies
may give new players like us more chances and we can apply for our own
intellectual property. (No monopolization)
z
Scarcity of important resources, e.g. qualified expert staff like us who are
always full of energy and motivated for the new entrant.
z
Access to raw materials as GPS embedded photos are not controlled by
existing players, we can also share them freely and conveniently.
z
Distribution channels are also not controlled by existing players, Internet
could be the mainly one we are using to provide our service.
z
Existing players have relative close customer relations, but with the time goes
by, we can also establish our own brand successfully.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
z
Low switching costs for customers, ‘free to use’ is our slogan.
z
Legislation and government action, no tariffs for us to provide our service
within Ireland.
4.3.4 Threat of Substitutes:
A threat from substitutes exists if there are alternative services with lower prices
of better performance parameters for the same purpose. They could potentially
attract a significant proportion of market volume and hence reduce the potential
sales volume for existing players. This category also relates to complementary
services.
z
Brand loyalty of customers, same as above which we discussed in new
entrants part, the ideal service we provide will definitely attract the existing
and new users.
z
Closer customer relationships.
z
The relative price for performance of substitutes, users can get free of charge
service from us.
z
Current trends, more and more people are willing to use online maps like
Virtual Earth, Google Earth, and such mapping service provider have the
facilitate to join the market online album service.
4.3.5 Competitive Rivalry within the industry:
It describes the intensity of competition between existing companies in an industry.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
High competitive pressure results in pressure on prices, margins and on
profitability for every single company in the industry.
z
There are many players of about the same size, our competitors like Flickr, Bebo
etc, are exactly the same size and probably share the same size of market and
customers in some way. So the barrier could be kind of strong for us.
z
Players have similar strategies, exactly, similar strategies to attract customers and
similar strategies to gain profits (Via Ads) may increase the barrier power in some
degree.
z
There is not much differentiation between players and their products; hence, there
is much price and service competition. Up to 100MB free space per member and
the vivid map combined online album are our unique competitive advantages
contrasting with our strong competitors. Further more, we are going to develop
our own software which automatically collects GPS information when users take
one shot by GPS embedded camera phones and provides certain options for users
to upload their GPS photos to our website.
z
Potentially high market growth rates, during our investigation and questionnaire,
we found that more that 80% of the informants are willing to organize their
photos online and share with their friends.
z
Barriers for exit are low (e.g. cheap and no highly specialized equipment). Even
graduates like us are able to start-up our own online album system freely and
easily. The problem is how to extend our business and retain it with a high growth
rate.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
4.4 SWOT Analysis:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Personalisation
Adaptability
Professional Academic Develop Team
Successful Integration
Ideal development potential
Early development stage
Costly to establish initial prototype
Lack of funding
Lack of Business and Marketing
Skills
Difficult to enter markets as new
comer
Possible implementation problems
Opportunities
Threats
Huge potential for online album
Huge potential in the market
High growth rate for potential
customers
Widely usage of GPS embedded
camera phone
Working with partners
Can also learn from competitors’
strengths
Existing competitors
Potential competitors
Bargaining Power
Security threats: Hackers
New Technological Processes
Government policies/regulations
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PhotoMap Business Plan
5 TECHNICAL REPORT
5.1 Architecture Overview
There are three kinds of users who would access our system, customer, internal
users and our business partner.
Customers are our vast majority of users accessing the system by the Internet. In
this online photo management system, they could register themselves as registered
user, having some advanced functions. After registering the system, user could
upload their photos, manage them and share with their friends. Users could define
the photos they upload as private or public. If it is private, only users’ friends
could view these photos. If it its public, every customer, even not registered, could
use our search engine to view photos. Customer who has photos uploaded could
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PhotoMap Business Plan
manage these photos anytime. For example, he/she could add a new photo, delete
a photo, rename a photo, modify the description of photo, etc. On our site, we will
provide photo printing service in the future. If customer are satisfied a photo of
our site (may be his own or belongs to someone else), he could make an order that
we would print them and delivery to customer’s home.
Internal users, most of which are our staffs, could access not only the site, but the
internal system by Internet and Intranet, such as administrator mode, server and
database. Different staff could access different parts of system. For example, staff,
whose duties are to maintain the system, may have the right to access
administrator, then they could update the content; staffs, whose duties are to deal
with customers’ order or backup database, may have the right to access database.
So different staff would have their own username and password to access the
system and system would authenticate and authorize them to corresponding part
of system. In the daily maintaining the system, we may need some useful
information, such as the popular area of uploading photos, most popular photo
which has most clicks, so another work for our staffs is to record and analyze the
site statistic data. Then we may know ourselves better, having more confidence
when talk with our business partners.
We may have 3 kinds of business partners providing different services to us. One
is search engine company, such as Google. We have our own search engine for
searching a particular photo according to customer’s need. But when we like to
provide some relevant advertisement to our customer, we may need outside search
engine. For example, if customer wants to search a photo of Paris, when the
results are given, our system would also give some link to some Paris hotels or
Paris travel agency. All these advertisements would be dynamic and only relevant
to customers’ search, so we may need help of outside search engine. Another kind
of business partner is filter system. We need some company providing filter
system to do some photo filter work if photos uploaded are not legal or suitable on
our site. We also need some company providing firewall service for us, and then
we can provide better service and sufficient security for our clients.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
5.2 Operational Model
Our online photo management system is a typical 3 tier System. Web browser is in
the front tier. Here http protocol and TCP/IP is used to transfer data to client side.
Server service is provided in the middle tier. All service and report components
are held and executed on this middle tier. The advantage of this configuration is
that the service and report components execute at the speed of the Server device,
not the Client. Third party, also called business partners also provides services
for our clients or us. The end tier is database tier. SQL would be used to manage
the database from servers. Between each 2 tiers, firewall is always set for security.
Access Control is also used to provide authorization. The reason why we use
3-tier architecture is to provide more efficiency. Using 3-tier architecture, we
could update or replace any of 3 tiers independently as technology always changes.
It is easy to develop 3 simple parts than a complex one.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
5.3 System Components
1. User
User is the client who uses browser-based front-end application to accept and
process data.
2. Internet
Internet is a huge medium including lot of routers and servers to transfer data
between users and servers.
3. Firewall
Firewall is piece of hardware or software to prevent some communications
forbidden by security policies.
4. Security Filter
Security Filter does web content filtering and blocking
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PhotoMap Business Plan
5. Web Server
Web Server accepts HTTP requests from users and serves them web pages, which
usually are HTML or other type documents.
6. Content Management System
Content Management System is responsible for creation, modification and
deletion of content, which might be HTML pages, XML files or, other forms of
documents.
7. Directory Service
The Directory service in the Architecture is responsible for storing information
needed to perform authenticating users who want to access the application. These
authentication credentials include the User ID and password. The Directory
component will also access rules that help establish what the functions and data
that the users are authorized to access within the system. This component would
store the different access rules and, given an access request, determine if the user
is allowed to perform that task. This component should be flexible in the types of
tasks and user groups, allowing for customization at all levels.
8. Request Management
Request Management receives the HTTP request from web server and interacts
with session management system to establish a new session to get session data.
Then it would receive response and choose a response page based on the type of
service. So that a response could be sent to user by web sever.
9. Session Management
Session Management system deals with tracking a user’s interaction with the
system during a session. Session tracking mechanism, such as cookies must be
used and it must be secure to prevent some user hacking other user’s session.
10. Database
Database is usually a mainframe, used to store data. It would probably needed to
custom written using SQL queries.
11. Backup
Backup is used for store data in another place. In case main database was attacked or
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PhotoMap Business Plan
destroyed by some reason, backup data could be used for support.
5.4 Function Test
Action
Situation
Response
Register
Different Password
PASS
Login
Wrong Password
PASS
Edit Profile
Different Password
PASS
Add comment
More than 255 char
PASS
Location Search
Place does not exist
PASS
Photo zoom in/out
Maximum and Minimize
PASS
Photo classification
See
private
photo
in PASS
public
Download
Download large file
PASS
Upload
File doesn’t exist
PASS
Delete user
User doesn’t exist
PASS
Delete comment
Comment doesn’t exist
PASS
Logout
Staytime
less
than
1 PASS
minute over than 1 hour
5.5 Functions
5.5.1 Register/login
When user log on our site, if he/she need more services from us, not just search a
photo, he/she could login. To a registered user, he/she just needs to type the
username and password, and submit it. To an unregistered user, he/she is required
to fill our registration form. This is a very simple form and only took about 2
minutes. All information filled would be kept secret from our user being annoyed
by junk mail or other ways.
5.5.2 Search photos
Search function is available for both registered user and unregistered user. User
could input the location he/she wants to search and submit, and then user will get
the most match photos. The location might be a country, city, town or even a street
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PhotoMap Business Plan
or park. As some photos are private, search function could only provide users
public photos unless you are already a log on user and your friends’ photo are
search available to you. When you found photo from our map, you will also find
some recommendation places near the place you are looking for, such as good
restaurant and hotel. Our site also provides user links to some local travel agencies
that might help users know these places better.
5.5.3 Upload/manage photos
As a registered user, you will have a space to upload your own photos and you can
manage these photos anytime you want. Besides uploading, you can also modify
file name, add a comment to photo or even delete the photo. If the photo you
provide does not include longitude and latitude, then you need to add these
information your self or locate it on your global map system. This way could
make your photos easy to search. At last, a user needs to define the classification
of each photo, public or private which whether allow others to search or not.
5.5.4 Share photos with friends
If user set his/her photo private, other normal users could not see these photos. Only friends of
this user who this user has defined could view these photos. This is a very interesting part in
this system. Just think about when you want to see all your friends photo, all you need to do is
nothing more than open one site, then you can view all of these photos. You can even use
search function to find the most wanted photo. This could make you and your friends closer.
5.5.5 Order photo print
When you find some interesting or attractive photo on our site or you just want to
print your own photo, you can use the print ordering system, which could provide
an easy and efficient way for users to get a physical photo. All steps needs to do is
to click mouse and wait at home. That’s it. Leave the rest to our professional staff
and they will print photo you want and send to your place on time.
5.6 Usability
z
Structure
Photomap.com left all navigation buttons on the top left corner and all buttons
about login or register on the top right corner. On the right side, we leave all the
related information links to let users know if they need these kinds of information.
Thus the structure of the site would look very compact and user could find useful
information very quickly.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
z
Simplicity
Pages of Photomap.com look very terse. As our main focus is our photos on the
map ,so we are trying to make pages terse that users would really notice the most
interested part of our site, not others.
z
Visibility
Photomap.com is a easy-to-use site. The site provides all buttons, links or
instructions to users that almost all tasks in photomap would be easy to
implement.
z
Feedback
System would return feedbacks automatically if users finish tasks, such as register
successfully, login and update photo space and so on. Then customers would not
be confused and know what they have done. They will like this kind of feedbacks
and be more confident on our site.
z
Tolerance
Photomap.com is a flexible and tolerant site which allows users to undo and redo,
such as canceling and going back. This prevents users doing some mistakes and
gives chances to get them right.
5.7 Risks analysis
z
z
z
z
z
z
Failure of website may caused by:
Failure of hardware
Failure of software
Problems of surroundings, power failure, fire or flooding
Loyalty problems of staffs
Virus or attack by hacker
For the first 3 causes, our company will have a good mechanism in managing staff,
training staff in order to lower the possibility of hardware/software failure and
surroundings problems.
Human is the most important wealth to our company. If staffs leave, what we
loose is not only just a talent staff, customer information, business secrets and
system information might be also gone as well. So besides providing good
benefits, our company would give a full training and build a good management
system to all staffs to avoid security issue because of staff quitting.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
The server and database might be attacked through virus or by hacker. According
to site attack statistic from mini honeypots, simple CGI telnet command execution
constitutes 65.58% of all attacks. To detect these attacks and protect system, we
would have a lot of methods to implement, such as set access control list on router,
set password on operating system and router, install antivirus software and
firewall, use cryptography software on some important data. Besides these, the
most important thing to do is to back up the database and important files, which
could make company not lose everything if the system was really crashed.
http://www.marston-home.demon.co.uk/Tony/uniface/3tierhardsoft.html
http://www.rootsecure.net/?p=attack_stats
5.8 Technology used
5.8.1 Web 2.0
“Web 1.0 was commerce. Web 2.0 is people.”
------- Ross Mayfield, CEO of SocialText
Web 2.0 is a concept rather than a technology. It defines web as a renaissance with
changing rules and evolving business models. Proponents of the Web 2.0 approach
believe that Web usage is increasingly oriented toward interaction and
rudimentary social networks.
We take this concept in developing PhotoMap. We want create a more interactive
environment for our users.
5.8.2 Mapping API
There are several mapping APIs that available for our project. Two of them which
provided by some big-names are: Google Map and Microsoft Virtual Earth. All of
them stand out for their high-quality, up-to-date, accurate maps and let developers
embed the maps in their own web pages with JavaScript. You can add overlays to
the map. Another useful feature is that you can also zoom in on satellite photos of
urban areas in these countries.
The most important reason for us in deciding to adopt Virtual Earth is that Google
Maps prohibit commercial use and Virtual Earth gave their blessing to commercial
use.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
5.8.3 Ajax
Ajax, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development
technique for creating interactive web applications. Nowadays, almost all the
mapping service is using Ajax. It will increase the web page's interactivity, speed,
and usability. It is also effectively working on lightweight mobile applications.
We are using JavaScript to manipulate the map at this stage and in the future we
will fully enable Ajax to enhance users’ experience.
5.8.4 GPS
Stand for Global Positioning System. More than two dozen GPS satellites
broadcasts precise timing signals by radio to GPS receivers, allowing them to
accurately determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude) in any
weather, day or night, anywhere on Earth.. The accuracy is between 5 and 40
metres provided there is a clear view of the sky.
5.8.5 Server-side technology
We use PHP, Apache Webserver and MySQL database, the most popular
technology used in web application. They are all open source software and free of
charge. This feature meets our initial needs since we have a limited start funding.
We chose the most stable release at the time of development.
PHP: PHP is a server-side scripting language that developed by Zend
Technologies. Using this technology we can generate dynamic content in the
server.
The version we used is 4.4.1
MySQL: the world's most popular open source database. Its architecture makes it
extremely fast and easy to customize. Extensive reuse of code within the software
and to produce functionally-rich features has resulted in a database management
system unmatched in speed, compactness, stability and ease of deployment.
The version we used is 3.23.49.
Apache Server: Develop by Apache Software Foundation (ASF), it supports Linux
and Windows operation systems. Apache is the most-used web server software
package in the world for its ease of use and stability.
The version we used is 2.0.58.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
5.9 FUTURE EXPANSIONS
z
MMS/Direct browsing and uploading from mobile phones
In the future, we will provide mobile version of our website, which means
users can access to the photos directly from their mobile. And users can
upload the pictures their space from their mobile phone.
z
GPS Issues: direct embed the photos to the map
As you know, GPS embedded cameras is still rare in the market, but we
believe that these kind of cameras will dominate the market in the future.
Users don’t have to set up the location information manually and the system
can recognise the geographic information from the JPEG header and tag the
picture automatically.
z
Registered Users: value-added service
We will provide other value-adding service for registered users. For example:
larger album space and photo printing in the future.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
6 FINANCIAL SUMMARY
6.1 Total Income Vs Expenditure
Here are our Sales, Expenditure and Profits expectation within first 3 years.
€ 500,000
€ 400,000
€ 300,000
Sales
Expenditure
Profits
€ 200,000
€ 100,000
€ 0
-€ 100,000
1
2
3
Years
6.2 financial ratios
Year 2006 to 2007
Year 2007 to 2008
Year 2008 to 2009
Revenue
€84,625.00
€170,850.00
€479,400.00
Investment
€40,000.00
Sales
€44,625.00
€170,850.00
€479,400.00
Expense
€130,238.65
€165,128.90
€240,724.40
Profit
-€45,613.65
€5,721.10
€238,675.60
Balance
-€45,613.65
-€39,892.55
€198,873.05
Profit %
-53.9%
3.3%
49.8%
6.3 Annual Financial Statistics
Year 1
Page 49
PhotoMap Business Plan
Annual Financial Statistic
€50,000.00
€40,000.00
€30,000.00
€20,000.00
Sales
Expenditure
Profits
€10,000.00
€0.00
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
-€10,000.00
-€20,000.00
Month
Year 2
Annual Financial Statistic
€25,000.00
€20,000.00
€15,000.00
Sales
€10,000.00
Expenditure
Profits
€5,000.00
€0.00
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
-€5,000.00
Month
Year 3
Page 50
8
9
10
11
12
PhotoMap Business Plan
Annual Financial Statistic
€60,000.00
€50,000.00
€40,000.00
Sales
Expenditure
Profits
€30,000.00
€20,000.00
€10,000.00
€0.00
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Month
6.4 Finance Risk
With the process of our business, it is inevitable that our company will face the all
kinds of risks, and finance risk is the most important one of them. This is because
finance risk will directly effect our business situation and processing, if we can’t
forecast or prepare for those finance risk, we will meet some unpredictable
difficulties or obstacles for our business, so it is vital for us to assess finance risks
By our analysis, we think we will meet the following finance risks.
z
Cash Follow
Due to the limitation of our initial founding (40,000 Euro), after we spend some
essential cost, which is about more than 30,000 Euro, we do not hold enough cash
flow in company’s account. It means we are weakness on some emergencies, it
will limit our reacting capacity in competitive marketing environment. Especially
when we are in the initial phrase.
z
Budget Deficit
We think this problem would be emergence in the second phase of company’s road
map. This is because during this stage our main company’s aim is going to focus
on expanding the amount of our web site users. By our analysis, due to the rapid
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PhotoMap Business Plan
expanding mount of users, we need more investment in our facilities—rent more
servers. If our prediction of users amount is less than the actual user amount, we
have to rent more servers for these additional users. It will directly result in budget
deficit, and affect our other payout within this phase. If we change our budget, it
may result in extra cost. Additionally we have to consider whether or not we can
get balance between the additional cost and revenue when we change our budget.
Page 52
PhotoMap Business Plan
Bibliography
Allen, K., Launching new ventures an entrepreneurial approach third edition, 2003,
Houghton Mifflin company
Digital Economy, Lecture Notes from Teresa Hogan, Dublin City University.
Enterprise Strategy Group 2004. Ahead of the Curve- Ireland’s Place in the Global
Economy.
Dublin:
Forfas.
[Online]
http://www.forfas.ie/publications/esg040707/pdf/esg_ahead_of_the_curve_full_re
port.pdf [Accessed 29th June, 2006]
IBM IT Architecture Workshop, 2006, Toby Thurston, IBM Corporation
Marc J.Dollinger. (2003) Entrepreneurship: Strategies and Resources. Chapter 5 to
Chapter 6, pp126-217.
OECDb. 2004, p.19
OECD Productivity Database, OECD Capital Service Database, 2003.
OECD, 2001 The Development of Broadband Access in OECD Countries.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, [Online]
http://www.oecd.org/home/0,2987,en_2649_201185_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
[Accessed 22nd June, 2006]
Recklies Management Project GmbH, www.themanager.org,
http://www.themanager.org/pdf/p5f.pdf [Accessed 25th June, 2006]
[Online]
The Consumer Website of the Commission for Communications Regulation,
[Online] http://www.askcomreg.ie/ [Accessed 20th June, 2006]
The
Commission
for
Communications
Regulation,
[Online]
http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/downloads/CC01.pdf [Accessed 20th June,
2006]
http://news.eastday.com/service/advertise.htm
http://www.mediachina.net/index_news_view.jsp?id=45791
http://www.mediachina.net/index_news_view.jsp?id=82587
http://www.marston-home.demon.co.uk/Tony/uniface/3tierhardsoft.html
http://www.rootsecure.net/?p=attack_stats
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000FBDJCK/202-9503623-3408662?v=gl
ance&n=560798
Page 53
PhotoMap Business Plan
Appendix
Appendix I—Database Structure
PhotoMap_users
Field Name
Field Type
user_id
int(11)
username
varchar(32)
password
varchar(128)
email
varchar(128)
sessionID
varchar(128)
Field Name
Field Type
pic_id
int(11)
description
text
owner_id
int(11)
title
varchar(128)
date
date
longitude
float(20)
latitude
float(20)
file
varchar(128)
Field Name
Field Type
id
int(11)
parent_id
int(11)
title
varchar(128)
session_id
varchar(1)
longitude
float(20)
latitude
float(20)
file
varchar(128)
Field Name
Field Type
comment_id
int(11)
author_id
int(11)
pic_id
int(11)
title
varchar(128)
date
date
body
mediumtext
PhotoMap_pic
PhotoMap_thumbnail
PhotoMap_comment
PhotoMap_group
Page 54
PhotoMap Business Plan
Field Name
Field Type
group_id
int(11)
founder_id
int(11)
member_id
int(11)
Appendix II Financial Appendices
Inflows
Investment
Sales
Total Cash Inflows
Quarter 1 Sep Quarter 2 Dec Quarter 3 Mar Quarter 4 Jun
TOTAL
to Nov
to Feb
to May
to Aug
€40,000.00
€40,000.00
€5,100.00
€7,650.00
€12,750.00
€19,125.00
€44,625.00
€45,100.00
€7,650.00
€12,750.00
€19,125.00
€84,625.00
Outflows
Start up Costs
€4,817.00
Rent
€4,200.00
€4,200.00
€4,200.00
€4,200.00
€16,800.00
PRSI
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€5,510.40
€135.00
€135.00
€135.00
€135.00
€540.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€72,000.00
€200.00
€200.00
€200.00
€200.00
€800.00
VAT
€1,071.00
€1,606.50
€2,677.50
€4,016.25
€9,371.25
Online Server
€3,000.00
€3,000.00
€3,000.00
€3,000.00
€12,000.00
Pension
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€7,200.00
€300.00
€300.00
€300.00
€300.00
€1,200.00
Total Outflows
€34,900.60
€30,619.10
€31,690.10
€33,028.85
€130,238.65
Net Cash
€10,199.40
-€22,969.10
-€18,940.10
-€13,903.85
-€45,613.65
Ending Balance
€10,199.40
-€12,769.70
-€31,709.80
-€45,613.65
Broadband
Wages
Advertising
Supply charge
€4,817.00
Page 55
PhotoMap Business Plan
Inflows
Quarter 1 Sep Quarter 2 Dec Quarter 3 Mar Quarter 4 Jun
TOTAL
to Nov
to Feb
to May
to Aug
Sales
€28,050.00
€35,700.00
€45,900.00
€61,200.00
€170,850.00
Total Cash Inflows
€28,050.00
€35,700.00
€45,900.00
€61,200.00
€170,850.00
Rent
€4,200.00
€4,200.00
€4,200.00
€4,200.00
€16,800.00
PRSI
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€5,510.40
€135.00
€135.00
€135.00
€135.00
€540.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€72,000.00
€500.00
€500.00
€500.00
€500.00
€2,000.00
VAT
€5,890.50
€7,497.00
€9,639.00
€12,852.00
€35,878.50
Online Server
€6,000.00
€6,000.00
€6,000.00
€6,000.00
€24,000.00
Pension
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€7,200.00
€300.00
€300.00
€300.00
€300.00
€1,200.00
€38,203.10
€39,809.60
€41,951.60
€45,164.60
€165,128.90
Net Cash
-€10,153.10
-€4,109.60
€3,948.40
€16,035.40
€5,721.10
Ending Balance
-€55,766.75
-€59,876.35
-€55,927.95
-€39,892.55
Outflows
Broadband
Wages
Advertising
Supply charge
Total Outflows
Inflows
Quarter 1
Sep to Nov
Quarter 2
Dec to Feb
Quarter 3
Mar to May
Quarter 4
Jun to Aug
TOTAL
Sales
€79,050.00
€99,450.00
€132,600.00
€168,300.00
€479,400.00
Total Cash Inflows
€79,050.00
€99,450.00
€132,600.00
€168,300.00
€479,400.00
Rent
€3,600.00
€3,600.00
€3,600.00
€3,600.00
€14,400.00
PRSI
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€1,377.60
€5,510.40
Broadband
€135.00
€135.00
€135.00
€135.00
€540.00
Wages
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€18,000.00
€72,000.00
Advertising
€800.00
€800.00
€800.00
€800.00
€3,200.00
VAT
€16,600.50
€20,884.50
€27,846.00
€35,343.00
€100,674.00
Online Server
€9,000.00
€9,000.00
€9,000.00
€9,000.00
€36,000.00
Pension
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€1,800.00
€7,200.00
Supply charge
€300.00
€300.00
€300.00
€300.00
€1,200.00
Total Outflows
€51,613.10
€55,897.10
€62,858.60
€70,355.60
€240,724.40
Net Cash
€27,436.90
€43,552.90
€69,741.40
€97,944.40
€238,675.60
Ending Balance
-€12,365.65
€31,187.25
€100,928.65
€198,873.05
Outflows
Investment: Our research group will initially invest 10,000 euro each for our
opening funds.
Sales: Our sales formula is sales = number of user who browsed our website X
number of pages he browsed X click rate X profits. Example: First Month sales =
100,000 X 10 X 1% X .10 euro (AD1) + 100,000 X 10 X 3% X .25 (AD2) euro =
8500 euro.
Page 56
PhotoMap Business Plan
Start up Costs: It’s include:
4 Dell laptops
Broadband Connection
GPS embedded camera phone
Firewall
Dell Server
Printer
Total
2997 euro
250 euro
500 euro
250 euro
700 euro
120 euro
4817 euro
Rent: We rent an office in Dublin City Centre. The monthly rental is 1400 per
month for first two years and the 3rd year’s rental is 1200 per month.
PRSI (Pay Related Social Insurance): If you earn more than 440 euro per week
and pay a Class A1 contribution, you will pay 2% on the first 127 euro of your
earnings and 6% on anything over that amount up to a maximum of 46,600 euro.
You will pay 2% on any earnings above 46,600 euro. Each of our members has to
pay 114.8 euro per month because of our salary.
Broadband: 45 euro per month.
Wages: 1,500 euro per person per month lasting for 3 years.
Advertising: 200 euro per month in first year; 500 euro per month in second year;
800 euro per month in third year.
VAT: 21% for VAT payable.
Online Server: 100G online server space for 10 euro per month in China. We will
rent 100 servers in first year, 200 in second year, 300 in third year.
Pension: 10% of our wages.
Supply charge: Heat and light fees will approximately cost us 100 euro per
month.
Page 57
PhotoMap Business Plan
Appendix III—Management Profile
PhotoMap Management Team
Quan Zhou
Qualifications
CEO
M.Sc in Electronic Commerce
[technical], DCU
B.Sc in Computer Science, HDU
Xiangjie Gao
Marketing
Director
Qualifications
M.Sc in Electronic Commerce
[business], DCU
B.Econ in International
Economics and Trade
Jie Shi
Financial
Director
Qualifications
M.Sc in Electronic Commerce
[business], DCU
B.Sc in Computing Science in
Griffith College Dublin
Jiayuan Li
Technical
Director
Qualifications
M.Sc in Electronic Commerce
[technical], DCU
B.Sc in Computing Science in
Griffith College Dublin
CCNA certification
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Appendix IV Digital Camera and Camera Phone Sales Overview
This year, 20.5 million digital cameras are expected to be sold, 82 percent of the
total camera market, and increase from 73 percent in 2004. Digital camera sales
are expected to grow until the end of 2006 or 2007 and then the sales slow
considerably (see below)
In 2004, more than 55 percent of digital cameras were four megapixels or more
compared to 30 percent in 2003 (see below).
The trend of phones with embedded cameras — camera-phones (see below),
Page 59
PhotoMap Business Plan
http://www.mobileimagingreport.com/Mobile_Imaging.htm
Top 20 countries with the highest number of Internet DSL broadband subscribers
Page 60
PhotoMap Business Plan
Appendix V Questionnaire and Result
1) Are you Male or Female?
Percentage
Responses
Male
67.0
134
Female
33.0
66
Total responses:
200
2) Please indicate the age group to which you belong?
Percentage
Responses
<15
0.0
0
15-20
1.5
3
21-25
44.5
89
26-30
44.0
88
31-35
6.5
13
36-40
3.5
7
41-45
0.0
0
46-50
0.0
0
>50
0.0
0
Total responses:
200
3) Please indicate your occupation.
Percentage
Responses
Student
44.5
89
Professional
43.0
86
Other
12.5
25
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Total responses:
200
4) Do you have a mobile phone with an embedded camera?
Percentage
Responses
Yes
72.0
144
No
28.0
56
Total responses:
200
5) Do you share your photos with your friends, relatives, or colleagues?
Percentage
Responses
Yes
88.0
156
No
22.0
44
Total responses:
200
6) If the above answer (Q 5) is yes, what tools would you like to choice for
sharing your photos?
Percentage
Responses
By physical pictures
12.2
32
By e-mail
29.3
42
By blog
31.7
49
By instant messenger (ICQ,MSN,etc)
26.8
33
Other
0.0
0
7) How often do you use your mobile phone’s camera?
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Percentage
Responses
Daily
19.0
38
Weekly
12.5
25
Monthly
19.5
39
Never use it
18.5
37
Not sure
30.5
61
Total responses:
200
8) Have you heard GPS(Global Position System) before?
Percentage
Responses
yes
81.5
163
no
18.5
37
Total responses:
200
9) Have you heard any following device with embedded GPS before?
Percentage
Responses
Camera
11.8
29
Mobile phone
35.4
87
PDA
50.8
125
Other
2.0
5
10) Are you interested in any of above GPS embedded device? (5 means
strongly interest and 1 means no interest)
Percentage
Responses
5
18.0
36
4
22.5
45
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PhotoMap Business Plan
3
38.5
77
2
10.5
21
1
10.5
21
Total responses:
200
11) Are you familiar with Internet? (5 means very familiar and 1 means not
familiar)
Percentage
Responses
5
57.5
115
4
30.0
60
3
12.0
24
2
0.0
0
1
0.5
1
Total responses:
200
12) Have you used any online photo management system(i.e. bebo,flickr)?
Percentage
Responses
yes
58.5
117
no
41.5
83
Total responses:
200
13) If the above answer is no, why don’t you use this kind of system?
Please briefly indicate your reason
(all results shown)
- no interest
- simply will be not enough spread time
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PhotoMap Business Plan
- I'm lazy
- i don't know it
- never heard of it
- don't have many photos
- no time
- I don’t no
- I haven't heard about them.
- the speed of internet is too slow .
- never heard before
- no needs
- never think it before
- other
14) What’s your opinion about existing online photo management systems?
Please briefly indicate your opinion
(all results shown)
- They can be very slow to upload photos sometimes.
- convenient
- no comment
- Not necessarily
- have no idea
- MSN Space is a really poor system to manage the photoes. I hope I can find another better one.
- diffcult to use
- not interested
- no idea
- easy to share photo and search other interesting pictures
- a little bit complex and speed is too low.
- It's useless.
- They are easy to use,but cost me a lot of time.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
- convenience and safety
- use easy;to pass round for perusal extensively
- very useful
- cheap
- not sure about it
- other
15) Do you like traveling?
Percentage
Responses
yes
100.0
200
no
0.0
0
Total responses:
200
16) If the above answer is yes, how often do you usually take your traveling?
Percentage
Responses
Less than once a year
22.0
44
Once a year
36.5
73
Twice a year
23.0
46
More than twice a year
18.5
37
Total responses:
200
17) How would you find your traveling information? These information include
your accommodation, route of traveling, basic information about your
destination etc.
Percentage
Responses
From travel agency
19.5
39
From travel website
42.5
85
29.5
59
Hearing
from
your
friends,
relatives
or
Page 66
PhotoMap Business Plan
colleagues
Other
8.5
17
18) If you get travel information from a website, which format of the above
information would you like to have?
Percentage
Responses
text
41.0
82
picture
47.5
95
video
11.5
23
Other
0.0
0
19) Are you willing to see traveling information (hotel, restaurant, etc) on online
photo management system?
(5 means very interest and 1 means not at all)
Percentage
Responses
5
36.5
73
4
20.0
40
3
27.5
55
2
12.5
25
1
3.5
7
Total responses:
200
20) Any other ideas, opinions about this survey?
(all results shown)
- no
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PhotoMap Business Plan
- I'd like to know your result if it's possible. Thanks!
- Nothing.
- I'm eager to travel, carrying my DC :)
- no
- no ideas
- other
Appendix VI Digital Camera and Camera Phone Sales Overview
This year, 20.5 million digital cameras are expected to be sold, 82 percent of the
total camera market, and increase from 73 percent in 2004. Digital camera sales
are expected to grow until the end of 2006 or 2007 and then the sales slow
considerably (see below)
In 2004, more than 55 percent of digital cameras were four megapixels or more
compared to 30 percent in 2003 (see below).
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PhotoMap Business Plan
The trend of phones with embedded cameras — camera-phones (see below),
Page 69
PhotoMap Business Plan
http://www.mobileimagingreport.com/Mobile_Imaging.htm
Appendix VII Digital Printing Overview
The number of photos printed in 2004 is expected to have been 27.4 billion, a
decrease from last year of 28.7 billion. Sixty-one percent -- 3.1 billion -- prints
were made at home compared to 76 percent (2.3 billion) in 2003 (see below).
Although billions of photos are printed, the majority are not and it is significant
opportunities for increasing revenues by convincing consumers to print more
photos (see below).
Page 70
PhotoMap Business Plan
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Appendix VIII TOP 20 COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST NUMBER
OF INTERNET USERS
TOP 20 COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST NUMBER OF INTERNET USERS
Population
( 2006 Est. )
Internet
Penetratio
n
Source and
Date
of
Latest
Data
%
User
s
of
Worl
d
#
Country or
Region
Internet
Users,
Latest Data
1
United
States
205,326,680
299,093,237
68.6 %
Nielsen//NR
Jan/06
20.1
%
2
China
111,000,000
1,306,724,06
7
8.5 %
CNNIC
Dec/05
10.9
%
3
Japan
86,300,000
128,389,000
67.2 %
eTForecasts
Dec/05
8.4
%
4
India
50,600,000
1,112,225,81
2
4.5 %
C.I.Almana
c Mar/05
5.0
%
5
Germany
48,721,997
82,515,988
59.0 %
Nielsen//NR
Jan/06
4.8
%
6
United
Kingdom
37,800,000
60,139,274
62.9 %
ITU Oct/05
3.7
%
7
Korea
(South)
33,900,000
50,633,265
67.0 %
eTForecast
Dec/05
3.3
%
8
Italy
28,870,000
59,115,261
48.8 %
ITU
Sept./05
2.8
%
9
France
26,214,173
61,004,840
43.0 %
Nielsen//NR
Jan/06
2.6
%
10
Brazil
25,900,000
184,284,898
14.1 %
eTForcasts
Dec/05
2.5
%
11
Russia
23,700,000
143,682,757
16.5 %
eTForcasts
Dec/05
2.3
%
12
Canada
21,900,000
32,251,238
67.9 %
eTForcasts
Dec/05
2.2
%
13
Indonesia
18,000,000
221,900,701
8.1 %
eTForcasts
Dec/05
1.8
%
14
Spain
17,142,198
44,351,186
38.7 %
Nielsen//NR
1.7
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Jan/06
%
15
Mexico
16,995,400
105,149,952
16.2 %
AMIPCI
Nov/05
1.7
%
16
Australia
14,189,557
20,750,052
68.4 %
Nielsen//NR
Jan/06
1.4
%
17
Taiwan
13,800,000
22,896,488
60.3 %
C.I.Almana
c Mar/05
1.4
%
18
Netherland
s
10,806,328
16,386,216
65.9 %
Nielsen//NR
June/04
1.1
%
19
Poland
10,600,000
38,115,814
27.8 %
C.I.Almana
c Mar./05
1.0
%
20
Turkey
10,220,000
74,709,412
13.7 %
ITU
Sept./05
1.0
%
TOP 20 Countries
811,986,333
4,064,319,45
8
20.0 %
IWS
Mar.31/06
79.4
%
Rest of the World
210,876,974
2,435,377,60
2
8.7 %
IWS
Mar.31/06
20.6
%
1,022,863,30
7
6,499,697,06
0
15.7 %
IWS
Dec.31/05
100.
0%
Total
Users
World
-
NOTES: (1) World Internet User Statistics were updated as of March 31,
2006. (2) Data for users in individual countries and regions may be found by
clicking each country name. (3) Population numbers are based on data
contained in the world-gazetteer page. (4) The most recent user information
comes from data published by Nielsen//NetRatings, ITU, and other
trustworthy research sources. (6) Data from this site may be cited, giving due
credit and establishing an active link back to InternetWorldStats.com. (6) For
definitions and navigation help, see the Site Surfing Guide. ©Copyright
2001-2006, Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Appendix IX TOP 20 COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST
NUMBER OF INTERNET DSL BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS 2004 Q4
TOP 20 COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF
INTERNET DSL BROADBAND SUBSCRIBERS - 2004 Q4
Internet
Users
Latest Data
Population
( 2005 Est. )
Source and
Date
of
Usage
Data
#
Country or
Region
DSL
Broadband
Subscribers
1
United
States
33,900,000
199,861,345
293,271,500
Nielsen//NR
Feb./05
2
China
25,800,000
94,000,000
1,288,307,100
CNNIC
June/04
3
Japan
12,739,564
66,586,234
127,853,600
Nielsen//NR
Nov./04
4
Korea,
(South)
11,900,000
30,670,000
49,131,700
KRNIC
June/04
5
Germany
5,950,000
46,455,814
82,633,200
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
6
France
5,253,000
24,803,250
60,011,200
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
7
Italy
3,680,000
28,610,000
57,987,100
C.I.Almana
c - Dec/03
8
United
Kingdom
3,335,000
34,874,469
59,595,900
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
9
Taiwan
2,900,000
11,602,523
22,689,300
Nielsen//NR
June/01
10
Canada
2,568,351
20,450,000
31,846,900
C.I.Almana
c - Dec/03
11
Spain
2,227,805
14,095,951
41,895,600
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
12
Brazil
1,633,700
18,660,650
179,383,500
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
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PhotoMap Business Plan
13
Netherlands
1,552,000
10,806,328
16,254,900
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
14
Belgium
983,000
3,769,123
10,402,200
Nielsen//NR
Apr./02
15
Australia
910,000
13,410,833
20,275,700
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
16
Hong Kong
774,000
4,878,713
6,727,900
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
17
Sweden
751,000
6,722,564
9,010,700
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
18
Switzerland
717,000
4,585,364
7,433,000
Nielsen//NR
Oct./04
19
Israel
600,000
2,000,000
6,867,200
ITU
Apr./02
20
Denmark
594,000
3,375,850
5,397,600
Nielsen//NR
June/02
DSL - TOP 20
Countries
80,179,987
640,219,011
2,676,975,800
IWS
Jan.20/05
Rest of the World
5,120,013
179,712,581
3,713,171,687
IWS
Jan.20/05
Total World - DSL
Users
85,300,000
819,931,592
6,390,147,487
IWS
Jan.20/05
NOTES: (1) Countries DSL subscriber data are from DSLForum and Point
Topic Survey. (2) Table data corresponds to March 31, 2005. (3) Demographic
( population ) numbers are based on the data contained in world-gazetteer.com.
(4) The most recent usage information comes from data published by
Nielsen//NetRatings , ITU and other research sources, for definitions please read
the surfing guide. (5) Data from this site may be cited, giving due credit to
sources and establishing an active link back to InternetWorldStats.com.
Broadband includes a technology called ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber
Line) and requires an external modem that is plugged into the USB or Ethernet
expansion slot on your computer. Choosing a broadband supplier (cable) may
require the installation of a new telephone line at your premises to deliver the
broadband service. Even though the Internet connection is always on and you
may be working on the Web, you can still make and receive telephone calls
using a broadband telephone line.
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PhotoMap Business Plan
Appendix X GPS Embedded Mobile Phone and Camera
z
Navman iCN 750 GPS Camera
The Navman iCN 750 digital camera contains a GPS unit and display, so that
users can "geostamp" their pictures, or perform traditional functions like receiving
directions to a destination.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000FBDJCK/202-9503623-3408662?v=gl
ance&n=560798
z
Dual-mode GPS/Bluetooth phone runs Linux
A Swiss company has published a datasheet for a dual-mode
Linux smartphone that also integrates a GPS (global
positioning system) receiver, WiFi, and Bluetooth. ImCoSys
says its smartphone, a quad-band GSM design with a
PDA-like form-factor, will be showcased next month at
CeBIT in Hannover, Germany.
Source:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4475809720.html
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