Charles Perkins Freedom Rides

Perkins was born in Alice Springs in 1936. His early education was at school in Adelaide. A skilled soccer player, Perkins played professional soccer in England from 1957 to 1960. Having turned down an offer to try out for Manchester United, he returned to Australia to coach a local Adelaide team. Here he became vice president of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines. Perkins moved to Sydney in 1962 and in 1963 became captain and coach of the Pan Hellenic Club. to redress it. The tour was also a response to the criticism that Australians were quick to champion the work of Martin Luther King and the United States civil rights movement but slow to do anything to redress racism in Australia. In the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans led a program of protest and civil disobedience against racist policies that denied people their civil rights. In Australia, the activists of the Freedom Ride were concerned with: †¢ Aborigines’ appalling living and health conditions †¢ Aborigines being forced to live on reserves outside country towns †¢ local authorities denying Aborigines access to facilities like hotels, clubs and swimming pools †¢ the fact that Aborigines were not counted as citizens in their own land. The ? rst step in each town was to survey both indigenous and non-indigenous people to ? nd out about the living, education and health conditions of local Aborigines. If there was an issue of blatant discrimination, the Freedom Riders took action to publicise and hopefully overturn it. Perkins admired the efforts of the US civil rights activist Martin Luther King, and he encouraged SAFA members to read King’s ‘letter from Birmingham Gaol’. Source 10. 1. 1 Source 10. 1. 2 A young Charles Perkins receives a trophy as captain–coach of Adelaide Croatia football club, 1961. In 1963 he also began studies at Sydney University, where he was a founding member of Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA), later becoming president. On 12 February 1965, he and fellow student Jim Spigelman led about 28 others on a 14-day, 3200-kilometre bus tour of rural New South Wales that became known as the Freedom Ride. THE 1965 FREEDOM RIDE The tour targeted towns like Walgett, Moree and Kempsey, which had the reputation of being racist towards their Aboriginal inhabitants, and included some like Lismore that were supposed to have better records. The aim was to raise awareness of discrimination against Aboriginal people and to try Photograph showing the Freedom Riders with the bus that took them on their month-long campaign 44 RETROactive 2 CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP FOCUS Perkins was particularly interested in King’s emphasis on ‘non-violent direct action’ and establishing ‘creative tension’ by dramatically highlighting examples of discrimination so that people could not continue to ignore them. Whereas the 1961 Freedom Rides in the United States had speci? cally focused on the desegregation of interstate transport, in Australia the focus was on the desegregation of leisure facilities in country towns and information-gathering on race relations in rural New South Wales. The ? st two stops were at Wellington and Gullargambone, where the Aboriginal people surveyed spoke of their need for housing and access to fresh water on the reserves. Racial discrimination was a major problem and not one that th e local indigenous people felt they could work with SAFA to ? ght. The bus moved on to Walgett. who had been murdered on a country road while campaigning in Alabama. They saw four or ? ve cars surrounding them and were relieved to ? nd that these were driven by local Aborigines who had come out to offer protection. The other trucks and cars disappeared. A journalist itnessed the incident and it became headline news in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Mirror and the Australian. Mirror reporter Gerald Stone and his editor Zell Rabin highlighted the parallels between the racist attitudes and behaviour they observed from their work as journalists in the United States and the racist attitudes and behaviour in New South Wales. Moree The bus moved on to Moree and a new issue of discrimination — a 1955 council by-law prohibiting Aborigines and those with ‘a mixture of Aboriginal Walgett blood’ from using (except during school hours) the local artesian baths and swimming pool. Other In Walgett, the local RSL club refused entry to examples of racism in the town included the refusal Aborigines, including Aboriginal ex-servicemen who to allow Aboriginal patients to share hospital facilhad participated in World Wars I and II. They were ities with white patients and the insistence that occasionally allowed entry on Anzac Day. Perkins they be buried in a part of the local cemetery that led the Freedom Riders in forming a picket line was separate from the section for white people. outside the club (see source 10. 1. 3). They held up SAFA’s protest began with a demonstration outposters proclaiming ‘Aborigines also fought’, ‘Bullets side the council building. They then got families’ did not discriminate’ and ‘Good enough for Tobruk, permission to take eight children and try to gain why not Walgett RSL? ’ Perkins addressed the crowd entry to the pool. Charles Perkins got more children of onlookers to try and convince the RSL committee from the reserve. The manager refused to sell them members to change their policy. Members of the entry coupons, saying ‘darkies not allowed in’. A local Aboriginal community joined in. arge crowd gathered and after an hour the manThe Anglican minister evicted the students from ager, four police and the local mayor came up with their lodgings in the church hall because of people’s another answer: Aboriginal children were allowed hostility to their actions. A line of cars and trucks in as long as they were ‘clean’. The children went followed the bus out of Walgett. One of the trucks forced the bus off the road. The scene reminded the swimming and the Freedom Riders left Moree students of the three American student activists thinking that the ban had been overturned. The mayor and the pool anager re-imposed the ban. Three days later, about six children from the Source 10. 1. 3 Moree Reserve joined the Freedom Riders in another attempt to break the ban. They tried without success for over three hours. A crowd of about 500 angry locals, including a group from the pub across the road, shouted abuse, spat at them and threw tomatoes and rotten eggs at them and the bus. Perkins later said he feared for his life during this incident. The confrontation received huge press coverage and also television coverage from a BBC crew and a team from Channel Seven’s investigative program Seven Days. Many journalists made comparisons between the racist attitudes shown in Moree and those evident towards African Americans in A photograph of the picket line formed by the Freedom Riders outside the United States. Walgett RSL club in 1965 245 CHAPTER 10: PEOPLE POWER Finally, the police escorted the Freedom Riders out of Moree. The bus continued on to Lismore, Bowraville and Kempsey before returning to Sydney. Source 10. 1. 4 An extract from Gerald Stone’s newspaper account of the Freedom Riders’ experiences in Moree MOREE, Saturday. Mob violence exploded here today as student freedom riders were attacked by a crowd crazed with race hate. White women spat on girl students and screamed ? lthy words as the students tried to win Aboriginal children admission to the town baths. Several people were arrested and the town’s mayor, Alderman William Lloyd, pitched into the battle, grabbing students by the scruff of their necks and hurling them out of the way. Throughout the ? ghting a barrage of eggs and rotten fruit rained on the students. Mr Jim Spigelman, a 19-year-old student from Maroubra, was smacked to the ground while the 500-strong crowd roared its approval. Sunday Mirror, 21 February 1965. Lyall Munro, one of the Aboriginal children who swam in the Moree pool as part of the Freedom Ride protest, was later inspired by these events to become an activist himself. In March 2004, he was a spokesperson for the Aboriginal community at Redfern following the death of teenager T. J. Hickey. He spoke out against the overpolicing and police mistreatment of Aboriginal youth in the Redfern area. Source 10. 1. 6 Source 10. 1. 5 A photograph showing Charles Perkins being led away from the Moree pool in February 1965 after locals confronted the student demonstrators and violence broke out ONGOING EFFORTS The Freedom Riders had an impact on the local Aboriginal communities they met during the trip, and they did not want to abandon them when they returned to Sydney. In August 1965, SAFA campaigned with the Walgett branch of the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) to end segregation at the Luxury Theatre and the Oasis Hotel. The APA continued and eventually won a long struggle to achieve this. Students kept up the visits to country towns, going to Bega, Dareton, Bowraville and Coonamble, where they publicised many instances of racism and pressured communities and authorities to change their ways. Photograph of Charles Perkins and local children in the Moree pool, 1965. Perkins’s simple act of swimming in the pool was a stand against racial discrimination. 246 RETROactive 2 CIVICS AND CITIZENSHIP FOCUS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHARLES PERKINS AND THE FREEDOM RIDE The Freedom Ride occurred at a time when Australians were beginning to see the injustice of obvious examples of racism like those evident in the segregation of facilities in many country towns. It generated discussion and debate throughout Australia about the plight of indigenous communities, and media coverage stimulated national and international pressure for reform. Through the Freedom Ride, Charles Perkins became a national ? gure and a role model for Aboriginal people throughout Australia. His Freedom Ride showed Aboriginal Australians that non-violent action could result in change. His organisation of protests and public debate demonstrated both his leadership skills and his willingness to take action to demand change — characteristics that continued throughout his life. The Freedom Ride became part of the campaign movement that resulted in the 1967 referendum (see page 190) giving citizenship to Aboriginal people — a result supported by 89 per cent of voters. The two events and Australia’s economic prosperity at the time stimulated expectations that governments would intervene to address problems of inequality. This process began in 1972 when the Whitlam government took of? ce (see page 272). In the late 1960s, student activism focused more on protest against Australia’s involvement in war in Vietnam. Charles Perkins continued throughout his life to campaign for Aboriginal rights. He protested against the reluctance of authorities to allow self-determination for Aboriginal Australians and against government failure to effectively address the inequalities in Aboriginal Australians’ access to education, health, housing, employment and the law. Charles Perkins died of kidney failure on 18 October 2000. He was granted a state funeral — an honour usually given only to those who have held signi? ant government of? ce. ABC television broadcast the funeral, and traf? c in George Street Sydney came to a temporary standstill as a crowd gathered outside Sydney Town Hall to watch on a large screen the funeral service taking place inside. Check your understanding 1. Write a paragraph of 10 to 15 lines to summarise the Freedom Ride. Use the ‘W’ questions (what, when, where, who, how and why) to guide the selection of your information. 2. What impact did the Freedom Ride have on different groups at the time? 3. What were the results of the Freedom Ride? Using sources 1. In what ways do source 10. 1. 1 and the description of his early sporting career indicate that Charles Perkins might have had special qualities? 2. Use source 10. 1. 2 to describe the participants in the Freedom Ride. 3. What message were the protesters in source 10. 1. 3 trying to convey through their placards outside Walgett RSL Club? 4. What does source 10. 1. 4 indicate about how people in Moree responded to SAFA’s campaign? 5. What captions could you create for source 10. 1. 5 to express: (a) its signi? cance to Charles Perkins (b) the attitudes of the pool’s manager? . What stage of the Freedom Ride protest at Moree does the photo in source 10. 1. 6 seem to be showing? What aspect of the protest does the photo not reveal? 7. Describe the scene in source 10. 1. 7, commenting on the diversity of faces among the mourners, the signi? cance of the occasion and what it indicates about public feeling and respect for Charles Perkins’s life and achievements. Researching and communicating 1. Use the Internet to review some of the obituaries written at the time of Charles Perkins’s death. Select from them what seem to be the most signi? ant features of his life and work. Use these as the basis of a brief biography of Perkins suitable for publication in a dictionary of biography. 2. What would you have done? Imagine yourself in 1965 as either a Sydney University student or a resident of one of the country towns that the Freedom bus visited. How would you have responded to SAFA and the Freedom Ride? Give reasons for your answer.

Reporting a Deal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Reporting a Deal - Essay Example In this case, the sentiments of the judge clearly puts the decision of the court on the line and shall leave a question mark in my mind pertaining to the validity and fairness of the possible punishment meted out. So I will have to go to the defense panel and report what I overheard so that they can take the proper moves in order to get a mistrial declared so that a new, impartial judge be assigned to the case. I should do this with the clear understanding that I must be able to stand up and testify to what I overheard in an impartial inquiry of the judges actions. This is because the defense team will be able to bring formal charges forward against the judge in question and my testimony will be vital in that case. Accusing a judge of violating the Code of Judicial Conduct is not a light matter. It entails putting my own career as a police officer on the line therefore I must be absolutely sure that I did not make a mistake nor misconstrue what I overheard. In the end, it is my conviction in my belief and my accurate understanding of the situation that I witnessed which can spell the difference between a fair penalty being applied to the accused or landing an innocent man in

The Environmental Impact Assessment Process Essay

The Environmental Impact Assessment Process - Essay Example EIA has the potential of cutting down on costs involved in an unanticipated environmental impact (PADC, 2007, pg.7). The costs involved in facilitating the changes that have to be made upon completion of the project, due to environmental effects, will be more than the costs involved in trying to avoid the harmful ramifications (EIA, 2015). The processes involved in coming up with an EIA report may not necessarily translate to a delay in the planning of the project. However, experience has shown that delays experienced in the planning of projects can be significantly reduced with an effective EIA that will lead to saving time and costs. The exact period of coming up with an EIA may range from anywhere between three months to two years. The time depends on factors such as the nature of the project, its location and availability of research data. It is highly recommended that the process of EIA be integrated with other project planning activities so that it can be carried out at the same time with the rest of the project. The integration will enable saving of time, thus avoiding delays as a result of the EIA planning. The EIA process raises environmental issues that have to be put into consideration when carrying out the planning of any project. The EIA has the potential of necessitating the redesigning or delaying of a project. It can also offer suggestions that can be made on the project once it has been found out that the project can cause significant impacts on the environment. An effective EIA will have the effect of cutting down on costs and delays that otherwise would have affected the planning of the project. Therefore, EIA makes a significant difference to projects and decision-making once it has been approved. 2. Critically review the role of consultation and public participation (CPP) in the EIA process. Indicate the benefits and difficulties associated with undertaking CPP at various stages and in involving various types of stakeholders, and discuss the main methods of achieving effective CPP. Use examples as appropriate in your answer.

Smoking Essay -- Tobacco Cigarettes Essays

Smoking In the year 1973, 11 years prior to my birth, my grandfather made one of the most important decisions in his life. In the cold wind of March, my grandfather stood outside of Coon Rapids Bayard High School and smoked his last cigarette. That fall my mom and her sister Eileen had made a deal with my Grandpa that if their team made it to the Iowa Girl’s State Basketball Tournament he would give up his addiction to nicotine. This addiction to nicotine had haunted him since his days as an American soldier in World War II. My mom’s team, Elk Horn-Kimbalton, was up by 19 points at halftime, and it was quite evident they would reach the destination they had worked so hard for. Next to the â€Å"victory bell† my Grandpa decided to make this one special night for his immediate family as his daughters would see two of their dreams come true right before there eyes: Their dad to quit smoking and for their basketball team to play at the state tournament in Des Moines. My grandfather has been one of the most influential people in my life. Both my Grandma and him raised me for the majority of my childhood. He taught me the foundations of hard work, discipline, and dedication. The support he has given us grandchildren has been outstanding. Together they have never missed the biggest sporting events or tribulations that us grandkids have encountered in our short lives. He is in great health, but could he be in even better health if he had continued his addiction to nicotine? According to Peter Brimelow, in his article â€Å"Thank You for Smoking†¦?† he believes that you can receive many benefits from smoking, including the avoidance of many diseases that haunt our nation today. Could my Grandpa have continued to receive benefits... ... without end. Smoking now and never will be valuable to an individual’s health. The bottom line is that the drug nicotine can be very harmful to one’s health. This has been a wide range fact for quite some time. The health risks of smoking are displayed through advertisement’s daily. Despite scientific value related to smoking, the risks and dangers are too strong to make a valid argument in favor of smoking. Works Cited Brimelow, Peter. â€Å"Thank You for Smoking†¦.?† The Genre of Argument. Ed. Irene L.Clark. Boston: Thomson-Heinle, 1998. 141-142. American Lung Association. 2003. Fact Sheet: Smoking. 17 Mar. 2004 . Carroll, Bill. Smokers Health and Stop Smoking Information Center. Just How Dangerous is Smoking? 2000. 17 Mar. 2004 .

Ebay Market Share

How to dominate the online auction market Jeffrey Phillips †¢ Brian Somok †¢ Xiaoke Zheng Executive Summary Background eBay Inc history: September 1995: funded as a sole proprietorship. May 1996: incorporated in California. April 1998: reincorporated in Delaware. September 1998: completion of initial public offering October 2002: acquired PayPal Product Online Auction: Every day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, millions of people from all over the world go shopping at online auctions. This is not an exaggeration – eBay, with a 76% share of the auction site market, reports 42. million users and a growth factor of 100% per Year Porter’s Five Forces Analysis Rivalry Rivalry is very intense. Yahoo had to give up Japan and Australia online auction sites in 2003 because of low margin in this market even if Yahoo made great investment in these two sites beforehand. Number of firms Online auction firms: www. eBay. com, www. overstock. com, www. ubid. c om, www. yahoo. com, www. amazon. com, www. CQout. com, www. bidville. com, etc. The large number of firms in this market reflects the intense competition among those sites. Margin profit is decreased to a relatively low level. Bay could still survive because of its scale of economy and good reputation. However, eBay’s growth in 2004 was much smaller than in 2003. Shareholders put much pressure on eBay, and eBay had to readjust its pricing on varied services on the short run in order to satisfy people’s short term expectation. However, he is risking his long term revenue and reputation. Fixed costs Essentially, fixed costs on online auction market are rather low: purchasing programming technology patents, web, administration, credit, accounting, staff, and daily operations. Product differentiation Differentiation depends on how the transaction is performed. There is not too much difference among different online auction companies in web processing efficiency and shipping efficiency, but eBay is more convenient than others, due to their lengthy expertise in the market. eBay differentiated itself by integrating PayPal payment system, which is famous for its security, cheap rate and network utility. eBay offers a cheap transaction fee rate, as well. It has greatest number of users by far, which offers excellent network utility. Amazon used to be a substitute product provider. However, since 1999 Amazon added auction module in its business. eBay likewise encroached on Amazon’s niche by adopting fixed price functions like â€Å"buy it now† button and purchasing www. half. com. eBay and Amazon have been less different and therefore rivalry has increased a little. However, there is still an obvious gap between them in terms of business model and software development. Amazon built its reputation with high-end users. It has a friendly and succinct transaction interface, which offers superior product mix. Amazon is utilizing Porter’s value strategy and has not changed this for years. On the other hand, eBay is a large community of small buyers and sellers who deal with single-item transactions at negotiable prices. It has a created cost advantage by scale of economy. Most goods traded on eBay are secondhand, and eBay’s inventory changes more rapidly than Amazon’s. eBay is actually taking Porter’s cost strategy. Different business models result in different financial performance. eBay generated $441 million profits in 2003 on $2. 17 billion revenue compared with Amazon's much smaller $35 million profit on far more revenue — $5. 3 billion. eBay has a more liquid and efficient financial structure. Besides, these two companies are both valued by their own network/community. Most customers don’t switch between auction and fixed price retail very often partly because they are rooted in the community culture of either network. They don’t have incentives to change their current method of transaction if it is satisfactory. Different business models and different networks are enough to place these two companies in different niches without too much rivalry. Barriers of New Entrants New entrants seize every opportunity to expand their market share. eBay still has a dominant market share of online auction. His reputation is a sweeping force in maintaining his good performance. However, eBay has to be cautious in every marketing decision. His mistakes will be taken advantage by these new comers. For example, www. bidville. com , an online auction site, recently experienced a dramatic increase in new member registration after eBay announced they would raise their listing fees for sellers. eBay took a prompt response by resuming the listing fee back to the original level. eBay didn’t win anything in this price adjustment and readjustment, but eroded his reputation. Essentially in this online auction market, whoever has the most name recognition, wins the game. Right now, Bidville’s disadvantage in name recognition puts Bidville out as a possible alternative to eBay’s market space temporarily. eBay should think about more to maintain his name recognition on the long run. Patents eBay does not hold any key patented technology. A new entrant could easily emulate eBay’s interface. High cost of entry eBay’s most effective barriers are its large network and credible reputation. It is rather difficult for a new entrant to build a new network starting with no users. We can verify this by how new air ticketing companies grow. ) The only way to start a network from a reasonable size is to derive an online auction market from an existing online website company which already has a network, just as Yahoo and Amazon did. A new entrant must also demonstrate creditability and capability to customers and payment providers (credit car d, PayPal, eWallet, etc. ). New entrants must prove their guarantees of efficient and safe transactions, to both buyers and sellers. Why would buyers and sellers bother to switch from a sound existing online auction site to a new one? Incentives to switch include discounts, coupons, accumulative reimbursement like frequent miles, complements from other services an entrant or their cooperating company offers, and higher-quality service in terms of timely and elegant shipping. All of these are trivial but not necessarily effective sales methods. Effectiveness depends on a comprehensive sales strategy which is based on keen insight of business dynamics and human group dynamics. It is hard for a new entrant to find an experienced strategist, and even if it does, there is still no guarantee to gain market share. This market is basically first-mover dominant. Furthermore, it is unlikely for payment companies like credit card companies or other electronic payment providers to support a new entrant, because profitability is unclear. The revenue for successful new entrants will be low at the beginning and stable on the long run. However, expenses will be extremely high at the beginning. A new company rarely survives within a short term unless it has a very generous percentage of leverage or a large amount of venture capital, and leverage is only available for public companies. Therefore, a new entrant can likely only be an existing company that operates in other markets. It should either be sufficiently self-funded or have a very strong, persuasive income statement and business plan to prove liquidity and gain leverage. Since the internet bubble, venture capitalists are very cautious in investing in IT companies, especially Business-to-Customers or Business-to-Business ecommerce companies. (Check the performance of eBay during and after internet bubbles. ) Essentially, the scale of economy is very obvious in the online auction market. The value of an online network is proportional to the number of users squared. The scale of economy will naturally lead to a monopoly. A new entrant should either license a fraud prevention system or employ a third-party payment platform company that already integrates fraud prevention system in its service. Brand loyalty First of all, eBay has been operating in this market since the beginning of e-commerce. A lot of e-commerce companies have failed since the internet bubble. eBay has successfully survived because of the convenience and simplicity of its service. It has gained popularity and built loyalty among customers. It has a secure identity system, and every user has a record of past transactions. eBay has a sound rating system for every buyer and seller to establish credibility amongst the users. eBay’s user accounts work like passports of their personal credit and reliability. Most customers of eBay are long-term users; therefore, they will not attempt fraud in their transactions. If they do, their rating suffers. All customers tend to trust each other because transactions are transparent to the 3rd party supervisor, eBay. eBay has successfully turned their online auction site into a community which has a cohesive culture. Photos of items to be sold greatly enhance the community value and establish amiability and trust between sellers and buyers. (eBay’s success has influenced Amazon to adopt a similar policy in its online transactions recently. ) New entrants are competing against a community as well as a company. It is rather difficult to build a new culture and a new community. There might be some other specialized auction niches available, but eBay offers nearly any product available. For example, eBay has online auctions for cars. However, since cars are large purchases, people tend to be cautious in purchasing them. They must inspect the cars in person, and the buyers and sellers tend to haggle in person. Online auctions don’t seem conducive to the secondhand car market. As one would expect, eBay doesn’t have much revenue from car transactions, and any other online car auction websites are not likely to generate high revenues. Such specialized auction markets have uncertain viability. In the example of a car transaction, there are two types of creditability involved. One is buyers’ trust of eBay: Will eBay protect the buyers’ privacy? The other is buyers’ trust of sellers: Will sellers defraud the buyers or exaggerate the quality of their cars? Shipping is also a major cost in this transaction. Most buyers obviously favor in-person transactions. There is little market space for online auction providers. In fact, there are free online bulletin boards that provide used car sale information. They make it difficult for paid online car auctions to exist at all. Mostly, the viability of such specialized auction markets is doubtful. Therefore, there is limited chance for new entrants. Substitute Products The most important merit of fixed-price online retail is that a buyer does not have to wait for an auction to end. It is appealing to shoppers who prefer straightforward sales. They value their time more than the small price change. It is basically a tradeoff between time and price. Since online auction and fixed online retail target people with different personalities, these two products essentially don’t conflict with each other. eBay expanded its market by adding fixed-price features to its online transactions, such as â€Å"Buy It Now†. Half. com is a fixed price online retail web site which is owned by eBay. This shows that eBay is flexible in its business model. On the other hand, Amazon, a traditional online fixed-price retail web site, launched its auction feature in 1999. Here, fixed-price retail acts somewhat like a complement. However, it is a complement only when a company is involved in both types of sales. It is especially beneficial for the company’s network utility. eBay expanded its community (network) by adding fixed price retail feature, as Amazon did by adding auctions. Both of them successfully combined these two functions together, which merged these two markets into one, and gave customers greater convenience by allowing them to decide which way to purchase goods impromptu. However, there is less differentiation between eBay and Amazon. Traditional retail is more prevalent when the buyer must check the product in person or shipping is difficult or expensive. eBay has had to build a strong creditability by making sure all the descriptions of online items to be sold are precise, complete and correct. Without this reliability, customers would switch to traditional retail stores. For those goods which are hard to price without observation, eBay cannot supplant traditional retail. This is particularly true for specialized items such as cars, jewelries, and plastic surgeries, all of which have too many details to be taken care of online. Online transactions seem impossible for these goods. The switching cost from online auction to traditional retail or fixed-price online is essentially high. For fixed-price online, sellers have to pay the storage fee for Amazon’s storage plant. For traditional retail, sellers have to pay for the storage fee and shelf rental fee. These extra fees, which are switching costs, are enough to discourage single item sellers, who are main customer category of eBay, to switch. Buyer Power Customer’s price sensitivity Online auctions don’t charge sellers for storage of their goods. Fixed-price sites might charge sellers for storage. Traditional retailers incur overhead costs. Sellers have incentives to sell via online auction. On the other hand, online auctions mainly deal with unpackaged new products or secondhand products. Most buyers of such products are familiar with eBay, so sellers are more prone to sell via online auction. Buyer bargaining power is weakened. Customer’s negotiating power As I analyzed above, eBay is a large network of small buyers and sellers who mainly deal with single-item sales. A seller generally sells one item to one buyer on eBay, so eBay has high prices and high margins when providing services for many buyers and sellers. Online auction site, recently experienced a dramatic increase in new member registration after eBay announced they would raise their listing fees for sellers. eBay took a prompt response by resuming the listing fee back to the original level. eBay didn’t win anything in this price adjustment and readjustment, but eroded his reputation. Essentially in this online auction market, whoever has the most name recognition, wins the game. Right now, Bidville’s disadvantage in name recognition puts Bidville out as a possible alternative to eBay’s market space temporarily. Bay should think about more to maintain his name recognition on the long run. Patents eBay does not hold any key patented technology. A new entrant could easily emulate eBay’s interface. Buyer Power Customer’s price sensitivity Online auctions don’t charge sellers for storage of their goods. Fixed-price sites might charge sellers for storage. Traditional retailers incur overhead cost s. Sellers have incentives to sell via online auction. On the other hand, online auctions mainly deal with unpackaged new products or secondhand products. Most buyers of such products are familiar with eBay, so sellers re more prone to sell via online auction. Buyer bargaining power is weakened. Customer’s negotiating power As I analyzed above, eBay is a large network of small buyers and sellers who mainly deal with single-item sales. A seller generally sells one item to one buyer on eBay, so eBay has high prices and high margins when providing services for many buyers and sellers. Supplier Power Suppliers to eBay offer technology patent, legal support for intellectual property, and fraud prevention systems. eBay has great pressure to prevent fraud, since its reputation is at stake. Buyers and sellers care about very much about their security. Online auction fraud in 2004 made up 16% of all consumer complaints last year, and 48% in the subset of internet-related complaints, topping the list. eBay has 0. 01% fraud rate of all transactions, but these isolated incidents receive wide media coverage, which discourages many potential customers. eBay is still improving its fraud prevention system. The fraud prevention system is launched by Microsoft Inc. and Visa International Inc. As this system is necessary to eBay, it has little leverage to negotiate a better price. Many online retail systems need fraud prevention system, but there is only one supplier in the market. It has great bargaining power. Complements PayPal, as an online payment solution, is a good complement of eBay’s online auction business. PayPal is a neutral intermediary based on the financial infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards, supported by a proprietary fraud prevention system. Transactions on PayPal are of low risk to both sellers and buyers. PayPal accepts money from the buyer in one of the three ways. Charging the buyer’s credit card Debiting the buyer’s checking account Charging from the buyer’s PayPal account. The buyer can always send check to his/her PayPal account. Then PayPal will email the seller about the payment made by the buyer. The seller will receive money in one of the three ways. The seller might have his own PayPal account. The payment will directly transfer to his/her account. The seller might receive a check from PayPal. PayPal directly deposits the payment into the seller’s checking account. Buyers care about security. Buyers’ credit card numbers are only shown to PayPal. That is safer than online payment directly by credit card. Buyers also care about the cost. For transactions between PayPal customers, there's no transaction fee. PayPal makes money on the float – when customers’ money sits in their account, PayPal is collecting interest on it. Customers generally don’t care about the interest that PayPal collects on their deposits. Customers also care about ease of use. PayPal is one of the simplest services for online transactions. All a buyer has to do is to provide his/her name, e-mail address, credit card information, and billing address. For business accounts on PayPal, merchants are charged a 2. 2% discount rate + 30 cents on the transaction. It is better than the rate charged by merchant banks for accepting credit cards, in most cases. eBay Micro Strategies Increase brand recognition Expand the auction market by introducing PayPal to more online auction markets Credit card companies charge more for Internet-enabled merchant accounts (the accounts the merchants need to accept credit card payments on the Internet), because of the high cost to main security. Therefore, credit cards become too expensive for smaller purchases. PayPal might negotiate with credit card companies for smaller fees for their subscribers. They can cooperate to share the market in the following way: Merchant accounts on PayPal will be charged less by credit companies than those on other online payment platforms. Therefore it can increase the number of small purchases on eBay auction. Nowadays, credit cards are the primary means of purchasing air tickets and recording frequent flier miles. eBay should enter the air ticketing markets. It definitely can offer the same service with PayPal. PayPal should cooperate with more airlines and online ticketing websites. If they can integrate PayPal into ticket sales websites, eBay will have a huge potential market in air ticketing and also increase its network utility. eBay should acquire a greater online auction market share by educating online customers that PayPal is the online currency. Yahoo’s wallet failed in the online marketplace. It was not easy to establish their own online payment platform, partly because the online payment concept goes against Yahoo’s traditional business model. PayPal should make use of its competitive advantage and offer Yahoo and other websites its specialized solutions. Perfect its proprietary fraud prevention system, which is essential to its success. eBay should let its customers, cooperative online transaction sites, online airline ticketing sites, and credit card companies all feel that transactions through eBay will lower their costs and be more valuable. Bay should cooperate with shipping companies, and make its online transactions more lucrative eBay should work with Phish Report Network and other anti-phishing organizations more efficiently in order to prevent fake online auction sites taking its market share and damaging the whole market’s reputation eBay should work with software developers to improve the s ecurity, efficiency, and adaptability of its database. eBay should convince customers that there is no intentional bidding up behavior involved in its online auction practice Develop real name feature for customers. Put some restrictions on new sellers in expensive merchandise transaction or large volume sale until they have a good track record. Expand to international market, decrease national boundary barriers in terms of payment (credit card/PayPal) and shipping. Cooperate with local equivalent companies or localize by itself. Mediate between buyers and seller at Security Center. Respect both sides’ privacy. Solve conflicts in conservative way. Don’t take risk of eBay’s reputation. eBay Today eBay is the world’s foremost online marketplace. Through reliable customer service, efficient information exchange, and by utilizing the latest technology, eBay has created an auction-based market community of an efficiency unheard of prior to the internet revolution. Competitive Advantage eBay has used its first-mover advantage to establish itself as the most reliable and, more importantly, largest auction house on or off the internet. In 2003 alone, more than 30 million people exchanged over $20 billion. Due to the size and diversity of its user base, eBay is able to offer a wider selection of merchandise than any online retailer. This is made feasible by the virtual nature of eBay’s market: sellers can market obscure items to a global market as easily as and more cheaply than they could put an ad in their local paper. Famous for matching buyers and sellers across the world with the most extreme items, eBay has developed incalculable value in its brand name. eBay has become a household word synonymous with an eclectic online marketplace. eBay comes to the mind of any buyer looking for that rare or rarely-cheap item; any seller hoping to get rid of practically anything knows a buyer is lurking somewhere on eBay. The site has become an easily identifiable rallying point akin to a popular dance club on a global scale: everyone who’s anyone is there—and everyone else too. eBay’s Macro Strategy eBay seeks to maintain a high level of consumer patronage by capitalizing on its unique positioning as an internet marketplace. Globalization. Since eBay is a virtual marketplace, eBay can establish language localized sites in other countries that have access eBay’s full auction database. Since the seller handles the shipping details, each seller may determine the extent to which they enter the global market. Bay has already expanded into 150 countries around the world. International transactions require little additional bookkeeping cost while their benefit to the consumer is enormous: every buyer and seller has access to the largest market possible. Communication By allowing buyers and sellers to meet and communicate online, eBay is able to minimize the costs of remote market research and individual exchanges of information across states and borders. This interplay is essential to mutually amicable transactions on which eBay is based. To encourage fair transactions eBay provides an efficient feedback system to allow buyers and sellers to benefit from collective experience, giving customers a strong social incentive to honor each transaction. Integration Through its acquisition of PayPal eBay gained not only market share, but also vertical integration key to its long-term success. By embracing the payment method most commonly used on its site rather than forcing an unpopular one on its user base, eBay has not only retained the existing PayPal user base but expanded to those consumers previously unsure of which method to use. In 2003 there were 40 million PayPal accounts—almost twice as many as the previous year—and these customers transferred $12 billion across 38 countries. Diversification In addition to normal auction bidding, eBay now offers a Buy-it-Now option. Sellers set fixed maximum prices at which the auction will close before it begins. This attracts auction-wary consumers from other e-commerce sites outside of the strict auction market and effectively competes with amazon. com and froogle. com for fixed-price transactions. By allowing independent sellers to maintain storefronts online, eBay seeks to extend its position to include an even wider range of transactions, thus not only broadening its appeal but securing ties to more conservative consumer bases. The Future of eBay Industry Trends What originally began as a small industry of auctions for collectibles has mushroomed into a behemoth encompassing individual sellers, small businesses, and large retailers. The e-commerce industry is constantly growing, and many businesses rely on the reputation of eBay or one of their competitors to sell their products. As the market grows, a wider demographic range of consumers will be purchasing an increasing number of products online. For example, teenagers are the target consumers of very recent products such as cell phone ring tones and games, many of which are available exclusively online. As such varied consumer groups are emerging in the online market, there is more room for differentiation; perhaps some niches are being created. Therefore, the barriers to entry will decrease as the market expands. Competitive Trends eBay has a solid foothold as the canonical online auction site. They have a niche as an enormous community with an extremely high success rate of matching buyers and sellers. eBay is distinguished by its availability of single, used, and/or rare items, and for its floating prices. They are adequately differentiated from their competitors, and they possess roughly 70% of the online auction market share. However, due to the relatively low switching costs and entry barriers inherent in a web market, eBay must continue to be rather defensive of their position, against current competition and potential new entrants. Current Competitors Amazon and Yahoo Auctions are the main competitors of eBay. Ubid. com has 14% of the market share, but they have a different niche than eBay by appealing to business-to-consumer transaction. Amazon may pose a threat to eBay’s utter dominance; they are consistently bringing retailers into e-commerce. However, this comes with a great burden. Whereas eBay has virtually no overhead, Amazon needs to store and move vast quantities of inventory. Currently, Amazon’s revenues are considerably greater than eBay’s (about twice as much), but their costs are so high that eBay’s annual profits are roughly ten times Amazon’s. Alternatively, Amazon might choose to expand its auction operations, trying to nudge eBay from its niche. Amazon would have to establish a network, a community, on the scale of eBay’s in order to challenge them directly. Although this could be time consuming and costly to implement, focusing on transactions in which they are merely the broker and bear no cost could greatly increase their long-term profits. Yahoo poses little threat to eBay. While they theoretically have potential for growth similar to Amazon, they lack Amazon’s reputation. They also lack the cost-free transactions in which eBay luxuriates. New Entrants Online auctioning doesn’t have high costs of entry, especially the way eBay operates: All a new entrant needs is merchant software; there is no need for warehouses or expensive machinery. However, many companies have tried to enter this lucrative market and have failed. New entry is difficult because eBay has an enormous community, which gives tremendous network value to both buyers and sellers. Any entrant would have to build up a network from scratch. Conceivably, if a new company entered a niche market, e. g. uctions of teenage clothing and cell phone accessories, they could survive, but such a market would likely be too small to gain any measurable market share. Alternately, a website that already has a large community would be able to enter more easily. For example, Craig’s List has a network of millions of users, who rely on it for matching them up with people who can fulfill their sp ecific needs. It would be simple enough to add an auction section to the site, and take advantage of this existing network to compete with eBay. Froogle, a new service from Google, may forever change the way online shopping is done. While it currently is a beta version, it looks to be a promising engine for online shoppers to quickly search nearly all online stores for the products they desire. While Froogle isn’t an entrant to the online auction market (yet), it is certainly the beginning of a powerful new substitute service. Froogle may be very dangerous to eBay for many reasons. Google already has a huge network of search-users and advertisers. If vendors (especially specialized vendors, as many on eBay are) can set up their own online stores and be found for free on Froogle, they have less of a reason to pay eBay for its high access. Bay certainly still has a lot going for it, (security and reputation) but may soon find its network challenged by Froogle users. eBay’s Response eBay recently started Business. eBay, a new business-to-business online auction that spans all sectors, from mining to farming. eBay is aware that they may need to accommodate larger retailers in order to grow, and to chal lenge Amazon’s growth in this direction. If Amazon decides to challenge eBay’s community appeal, then eBay must block this attempt any way they can. A simple method would be to start a price war. Bay’s costs are so negligible compared to Amazon’s that Amazon could not possibly survive a price war. EBay could almost give away auctions to sellers, whereas this sort of competition would bankrupt Amazon. If a new entrant emerges, eBay’s best bet is to rely on the value of their community. Even a company trying to enter into a niche market would have a difficult time building a network large enough to attract eBay customers. In the rare case of an established community site entering into online auctioning, eBay should engage in a price war if they believe this site’s community is comparable to theirs. Bay is famous for their extreme efficiency, and any entrant would likely be somewhat inefficient due to their inexperience. eBay’s best resp onse to Froogle is to assert their security and reputation to their users: If you buy from eBay, you know you will have a safe and fraud-free transaction, especially if you pay with PayPal. On the other hand, if someone buys from an online shop found on Froogle, he has no idea how reliable the vendor is, or if his credit card information will be safe. If buyers are reluctant to engage in potentially insecure transactions outside of eBay, buyers and sellers alike will continue to complete their transactions through eBay. Summary eBay virtually monopolizes the online auction market, due to their large network value, extremely low costs, reputation for security, and efficient operations. When confronted with competition, eBay either relies on its community niche, or buys out the competition (i. e. Half. com and PayPal). They have created a market where entry is very difficult, and competitors are relatively powerless, particularly given the threat of a price war. These advantages should ensure eBay’s continued domination of online auctions in the future. However, they should court larger retailers, as Amazon has, to expedite their growth. eBay is likely to stay the leading online auctioneer for quite some time, as long as they remain adaptable to the ever-dynamic online market. eBay has proven to be a successful chameleon in the past, making lucrative acquisitions and modifying its business model, depending on the state of the online market. As long as eBay continues to aggressively maintain its community and reputation of security, it will dominate the online auction market. References 1. Crockett, Roger O. â€Å"No Plastic? No Problem. † BusinessWeek | online. . October 23, 2000. 2. â€Å"eBay 2003 Annual Report. † . 3. Hof, Rob. â€Å"Meet eBay’s Auctioneer-in-Chief. † BusinessWeek online. . May 29, 2003. 4. Hof, Robert D. â€Å"The eBay Economy. † BusinessWeek | online. . August 25, 2005. 5. Lewis, Marilyn. â€Å"eBay and Amazon. † webservicespipeline. . December 22, 2004. 6. Perez, Juan Carlos. â€Å"Online auction providers grapple with fraud. † Computerworld. . Februrary 17, 2005. 7. Roberts, Paul. â€Å"Microsoft, eBay, Visa form Phish Report Network. † Computerworld. . February 14, 2005

Geology of the Appalachian Plateau

Stretching from Alabama to New York, the Appalachian Plateau physiographic region makes up the northwestern portion of the Appalachian Mountains. It is divided into several sections, including the Allegheny Plateau, Cumberland Plateau, Catskill Mountains and Pocono Mountains. The Allegheny Mountains and Cumberland Mountains serve as a boundary between the Appalachian Plateau and Valley and Ridge physiographic region. Although the region is characterized by areas of high topographic relief (it reaches elevations upwards of 4,000 feet), it is technically not a mountain chain. Instead, it is a deeply dissected sedimentary plateau, carved into its present-day topography by millions of years of erosion. Geologic Background The sedimentary rocks of the Appalachian Plateau share a close geologic story to those of the neighboring Valley and Ridge to the east. Rocks in both regions were deposited in a shallow, marine environment hundreds of million of years ago. Sandstones, limestones and shales formed in horizontal layers, often with distinct boundaries between them. As these sedimentary rocks formed, the African and North American cratons were moving towards each other on a collision course. Volcanic islands and terranes between them sutured onto what is now eastern North America. Africa eventually collided with North America, forming the supercontinent Pangea around 300 million years ago. This massive continent-on-continent collision formed Himalayan-scale mountains while uplifting and pushing the existing sedimentary rock far inland. While the collision uplifted both the Valley and Ridge and Appalachian Plateau, the former took the brunt of the force and therefore experienced the most deformation. The folding and faulting that affected the Valley and Ridge died out underneath the Appalachian Plateau. The Appalachian Plateau has not experienced a major orogenic event in the past 200 million years, so one might assume that the sedimentary rock of the region should have long since eroded down into a flat plain. In actuality, the Appalachian Plateau is home to steep mountains (or rather, dissected plateaus) with relatively high elevations, mass wasting events and deep river gorges, which are all characteristics of an active tectonic area. This is due to a more recent uplift, or rather a rejuvenation, from epeirogenic forces during the Miocene. This means that the Appalachians didnt rise again from a mountain building event, or orogeny, but rather through activity in the mantle or isostatic rebound. As the land rose, streams increased in gradient and velocity and quickly cut through the horizontally-layered sedimentary bedrock, shaping the cliffs, canyons, and gorges that are seen today. Because the rock layers were still horizontally layered on top of each other, and not folded and deformed like in the Valley and Ridge, the streams followed a somewhat random course, resulting in a dendritic stream pattern. Limestones in the Appalachian Plateau often contain different marine fossils, remnants of a time when seas covered the area. Fern fossils may be found in the sandstones and shales. Coal Production During the Carboniferous period, the environment was swampy and hot. The remains of trees and other plants, like ferns and cycads, were preserved as they died and fell into the standing water of the swamp, which lacked the oxygen needed for decomposition. This plant debris accumulated slowly - fifty feet of accumulated plant debris can take thousands of years to form and produce only 5 feet of actual coal - but consistently for millions of years. As with any coal-producing setting, the rates of accumulation were greater than the rates of decomposition. The plant debris continued to stack on top of each other until the bottom layers turned to peat. River deltas carried sediment eroded from the Appalachian Mountains, which had recently uplifted to great heights. This deltaic sediment covered the shallow seas and buried, compacted and heated the peat until it turned into coal. Mountaintop removal, where coal miners literally blow away the top of a mountain to get to the coal underneath, has been practiced in the Appalachian Plateau since the 1970s. First, miles of land are cleared of all vegetation and topsoil. Then, holes are drilled into the mountain and packed with powerful explosives, which when detonated can remove up to 800 feet of the mountains elevation. Heavy machinery digs away the coal and dump the overburden (extra rock and soil) into valleys. Mountaintop removal is catastrophic to the native land and harmful to nearby human populations. A few of its negative consequences include: Complete destruction of wildlife habitats and ecosystemsToxic dust from explosions causing health problems in nearby human populationsAcid mine drainage polluting streams and groundwater, destroying aquatic habitats and ruining drinking waterFailure of tailings dams, flooding large areas of land While federal law requires coal companies to reclaim all land destroyed by mountaintop removal, it is impossible to restore a landscape formed by hundreds of millions of years of unique natural processes. Places to See Cloudland Canyon, Georgia - Located in the extreme northwest corner of Georgia, Cloudland Canyon is an approximately 1,000 foot deep gorge carved out by Sitton Gulch Creek. Hocking Hills, Ohio - This area of high topographic relief, featuring caves, gorges and waterfalls, can be found about an hour southeast of Columbus. The melting of glaciers, which stopped just north of the park, carved away the Blackhand sandstone into the landscape seen today. Kaaterskill Falls, New York - Ignoring a ledge that separates the falls into an upper and lower section, Kaaterskill Falls is the highest waterfall in New York (at 260 feet high). The falls were formed from streams that developed as Pleistocene glaciers retreated from the area. Walls of Jericho, Alabama and Tennessee - This karst formation sits at the Alabama-Tennessee border, one hour northeast of Huntsville and an hour and a half southwest of Chattanooga. The Walls form a large, bowl-shaped amphitheater of limestone rock.

Converting an Access 2010 Database to SQL Server

In time, most databases grow in size and complexity. If  your Access 2010 database is growing too large or unwieldy, you may need to allow more robust multiuser access to the database. Converting your Access database to Microsoft SQL Server database might be the solution you need. Fortunately, Microsoft provides an Upsizing Wizard in Access 2010 that makes it easy to convert your database. This tutorial  walks through the process of converting your database. Its important to note that if youre looking for a SQL Server tool that offers a similar migration path, you need to look at the SQL Server Migration Assistant.   What You Need Microsoft Access 2010Microsoft SQL ServerRelational DatabaseSQL Server administrative account  with permission to create a database Preparations for Upsizing an Access Database Before you begin the tutorial to convert your database to a SQL Server database, you need to do a few things: Back up the databaseMake sure you have plenty of disk  space on the device that will contain the upsized databaseAssign yourself permissions on the SQL Server databaseAdd a unique index  to each Access table that doesnt have one before you upsize it Converting an Access 2010 Database to SQL Server Open the database in Microsoft Access.Choose the Database Tools tab in the Ribbon.Click the SQL Server button located in the Move Data section. This opens the Upsizing Wizard.Select whether you want to import the data into an existing database or create a new database for the data. For this tutorial, assume that youre trying to create a new SQL Server database using the data in your Access database. Click Next to continue.Provide the connection information for the SQL Server installation. Youll need to provide the name of the server, credentials for an administrator with permission to create a database and the name of the database you want to connect. Click Next after providing this information.Use the arrow buttons to move the tables you want to transfer to the list labeled Export to SQL Server. Click the Next button to continue.Review the default attributes that will be transferred and make any changes desired. You have the option to preserve settings for table indexes, validation rules, and relationships, among other settings. When done, click the Next button to continue.Decide how you want to handle your Access application. You may choose to create a new Access client/server application that accesses the SQL Server database, modify your existing application to reference the data stored on SQL Server, or copy the data without making any changes to your Access database.Click Finish and wait for the upsizing process to complete. When you are finished, review the upsizing report for important information about the database migration. Tips This tutorial was written for Access 2010 users. The Upsizing Wizard first appeared in Access 97 but the specific process for using it varies in other versions.