Developing e Commerce Systems or Playing the Field

Developing e-Commerce Systems

Author: Jim Carter

This book focuses on those concepts that are at the core of developing effective e-Commerce systems and is a starting point for the study of how effective e-Commerce systems are developed. Readers are provided a foundation for further investigation into particular issues as well as for actually developing successful e-Commerce in the real world. Provides computer scientists with guidance in identifying and dealing with e-Commerce related issues within a set of software engineering processes and provides business professionals with an understanding of how software engineering processes are applied to developing e-Commerce systems and their role in this development. It does not require any particular programming skills skills or other systems development skills as a prerequisite. Takes a complete life-cycle approach and uses a combination of user, business, and computing viewpoints to identify the range of commerce and computing issues that need to be resolved together to ensure a successful result. Discusses the computing processes required for the development of e-Commerce systems. Integration of applicable international standards equips readers with guidance from recognized international sources in the fields of e-Commerce, software engineering, user-centered design, ergonomics, multimedia design, accessibility, and privacy. A corresponding website provides comments on and links to numerous e-Commerce sites which illustrate the concepts being discussed. For managers, marketing professionals, and other professionals in organizations considering and/or developing e-Commerce systems; for developers of e-Commerce systems; and for computer consultants.

New interesting book: Alternative Treatment for Cancer or Principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Playing the Field: Why Sports Teams Move and Cities Fight to Keep Them

Author: Charles C Euchner

Can a sports franchise "blackmail" a city into getting what it wants -- a new stadium, say, or favorable leasing terms -- by threatening to relocate? In 1982, the owners of the Chicago White Sox pledged to keep the team in Chicago if the city approved a $5-million tax-exempt bond to finance construction of luxury suites at Comiskey Park. The city council approved it. A few years later, when Comiskey Park was in need of renovation, the owners threatened to move the team to Florida unless a new stadium was built. A site was chosen near the old stadium, property condemned, residents evicted, and a new stadium built. "We had to make threats," the owners said. "If we didn't have the threat of moving, we wouldn't have gotten the deal."

"Sports is not a dominant industry in any city," writes Charles Euchner, "yet it receives the kind of attention one might expect to be lavished on major producers and employers." In Playing the Field, Euchner looks at why sports attracts this kind of attention and what that says about the urban political process. Examining the relationships between Los Angeles and the Raiders, Baltimore and the Colts and the Orioles, and Chicago and the White Sox, Euchner argues that, in the absence of public standards for equitable arbitration between cities and teams, the sports industry has the ability to steer negotiations in a way that leaves cities vulnerable.

According to Euchner, this greater leverage of sports franchises is due, at least in part, to their overall economic insignificance. Since the demands of a franchise do not directly affect many interest groups, opponents of stadium projects have difficulty developing coalitions to oppose them. Theresult is that civic leaders tend to succumb to the blackmail tactics of professional sports, rather than developing and supporting sound economic policies.

Booknews

Studies why sports attract a disproportionate amount of attention from cities, and what that says about the urban political process. Discusses why opponents of stadium projects have difficulty developing coalitions to oppose them and how, as a result, civic leaders succumb to the blackmail tactics of professional sports rather than developing and supporting sound economic policies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

	Preface
	Acknowledgments
1	Sports Politics: Teams, Local Identity, and Urban Development	3
2	Sports as an Industry	23
3	Local Political Economy and Sports	53
4	Los Angeles: Raided and Raider	70
5	Baltimore: City of Defensive Renaissance	103
6	Chicago: Whither the White Sox?	133
7	Sports and the Dependent City	161
	Notes	185
	Index	207