Basically, we're asking here for you to reflect on your own experience with e-business—shopping, banking, information seeking, etc. What kinds of websites have you had experience with? What sorts of t

Basically, we're asking here for you to reflect on your own experience with e-business—shopping, banking, information seeking, etc. What kinds of websites have you had experience with? What sorts of transactions have you had? With what sorts of results? How about your friends and family? Any real successes or problems? What is your current opinion of online economic activity? Do you see it changing in the near or long term future? What might have to happen to cause you to change your opinion?

In some cases, you might want to go online and do a little research about the companies you're talking about and some of the kinds of technology involved in your transactions. This might help you be more effective in your critique of certain experiences; the more you know, the better you are able to evaluate what actually happened.

Obviously, we are not calling for you here to violate confidentiality or to disclose any facts or experiences that you don't feel comfortable sharing (even though we can promise you no information goes any farther than your instructor.) But we do want to be as analytical as you can based on what you know from your own experience or that of those you know. Everyone's got stories here; think about them analytically and then give us the benefit of your experience.

So—think about these things, and then prepare a short (2–3 page) paper summarizing your experiences as described above and your evaluation of them.

The following items will be assessed in particular:

·        The degree to which you have carried out the assignment completely, or clarified why you could not and investigated alternatives

·        Your ability to describe your experiences clearly and draw conclusions from them, not just narrate events

·        Your ability to focus on the overall purposes of the assignment, not just its specific steps

·        Your use of some in-text references to what you have read; please cite all sources properly.