www.breadwaycafe.com

This website is developed by group miracle workers for a digital marketing group assignment.
www.breadwaycafe.com
  The Breadway was opened in February 2013. In a short span of time we have served thousands of fast food lovers with novel of delicious, nutritious and fresh foods. It's open to you from 10 AM to 8 PM in all seven days of the week. Breadway is an easily reachable place and parking space available. Breadway Burgers, Submarines and Double layer sandwiches are very special .here you can enjoy authentic Indian Biriyani and fresh fruit juices as well.

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HACKERS EVERYWHERE

Guys today I thought to post some different but much crucial thing in my blog. Here I would like to give you some guidelines to protect from hacking threats and other internet related security threats.  Because now actually we spend half of  our life time with internet so it’s better to have some knowledge on Hacking and other security issues that we have to face within our routine internet life. The content that I shared here, I got through practicing as a little punk but not as a great hacker or a victim of a hacker.

Before learning the strategies to avoid from hacking you should have at least basic understanding on hacking methods. So here I would like to give you the basic understanding on hacking methods which are widely use to hack social network profiles and emails.( Can you guys remember we learnt some of these things in our 1st year 2nd semester? There were few interesting areas like Vandalism, Phishing, Internet profiling, etc.)

Phishing

Phishing is the most widely using method to hack email accounts and social profiles. It’s an easy method to implement so the numbers of phishing victims are damn high. If you want hack some ones account using phishing method you have to follow few steps. First you should save the clone page of the email account index or social network page index. Here I take Facebook as an example. So the first thing you should do is log on to fb and save the index page as html file. Secondly you have to do some alteration to this saved web index’s html script in order to save the victim’s password and user name on your hosting account (if you want to find that alteration Google it or you can find already altered indexes for the phishing purpose) thirdly crate a hosting account you can create a free hosting account (E.g-100mb.com, 000.com). Then upload your EDITED FB INDEX file to this hosting website, and finally you can send this fake index link to your victim’s email or fb inbox by fabricating a cunning story in order to make them log in through that fake link. (But the browser address bar will indicate the original URL) so if that person has little bit knowledge on these thing you will be never able to hack that account.

Guidelines for avoid from Phishing

•          Don’t click on the suspicious links that come through anonymous mails or direct messages
•          Always look at the address bar on your web browser and make sure that you are log in to the original web page. (fake hostings are easily identifiable)
•          Set shttp  settings for your web browser and profiles
•          Install a proper internet security software

    Key loggers

    Key loggers are in two forms as internal key loggers and remote key loggers. Both the key loggers record your all key strokes (what you type on your computer) but you may never see those key loggers are running. Those are hidden applications. ACTUAL SPY is a good example for an internal key logger. If you want to take some ones details you can simply install this to your computer and hide then allow someone to log in internet via your computer. Remote key loggers are installed secretly in your computer without your consent. But your all keystrokes are recorded in some remote location (hacker’s computer) via Internet.

Guidelines for avoid from Key loggers

•          Don’t use suspicious computers to browse internet
•          If you’re log in from internet café check the task manager and see in applications and process. Check whether any suspicious program is running.
•             Guys be careful if you log in to the internet by using your office computer there can be monitoring systems to record your all browsing activities I am sure the prestigious organization that you work will not do these things but if you network administrator want it he can easily hack you with his office network privileges.
•          Use personal devices to browse the internet much as possible.
•          Install a proper internet security system and update it.

     Spy ware

     Spy wares are harmful programs that secretly installed in your computer and work as a spy. All the activities that you do with your computer will be recorded in some other location through the spy ware. These programs are automatically come with some programs and landing on your hard disk without your approval.

Guidelines for avoid from spy ware

•              Don’t install suspicious softwares to your computer
•          Install and update an internet security program to block spyware and other malicious programs.

Other major guidelines for avoid from hacking threats

•  Be careful when using FIREFOX browser because if you tick the remember the password tab the     password and user name can be easily obtain through security options of the browser.
• Always remember to sign out your log ins (especially when you log in through lab , internet café or  a someone’s computer)
•  Use proper security questions to secure your social network profiles and email accounts.
•  Don’t use simple passwords, always make password with a mix of letters and numbers.
•  Don’t save your security details like passwords and usernames inside your mobile phone.

I think above explanations are good enough to being avoid from hacking. So now hacking is an Illegal thing even in Sri Lanka. Some laws have been imposed very recently. But hackers are still there so be careful. My personal advice is don’t hack others. And don’t be a victim as well. After being hacked your entire life will be adversely affected. Finally one of Sri Lankan celebrities after being hacked behave like this lol

         after being hacked the best thing to do is not threatening the hacker inform it to relevant authorities .
       

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Are Sri Lankan Brands making the Maximum Use of Display Banner Ads ?

Are Sri Lankan Brands making the Maximum Use of Display Banner Ads as a Brand Communications Tool?

Simple answer is yes very few Sri Lankan brands are using display banner ads as a brand communication tool. But there is a doubt, are they making the maximum use of display banner ads. I saw most of the FMCG brands marketed within Sri Lanka use this banner advertising ( as an example when the close up toothpaste introduced to the Sri Lankan market those ads were appeared on website like gsmarena and cricinfo) as well as the local high traffic rated websites like Elakiri.com , Gossiplanka also published those close up ad banners. 

 Many brands in Sri Lanka target international (which Lankans are visiting often) website than the local websites. But very few companies in Sri Lanka use banner ads properly. Some of them are appear on seasonal basis. However telecommunication companies in Sri Lanka (actually we can’t consider those brands as Sri Lankan brands because those are multinational or foreign companies) involve in aggressive display banner advertising (especially Etisalt). They have been properly observed the websites that has high visitor base from Sri Lanka. Ikman.lk is the most popular Sri Lankan successfully maintaining the Google display banner ads. They target the locally high ranked websites like Gossiplanka and Music.lk as well as their banner ads are available on GSM arena like international websites. When someone looking for a phone he/She may obviously visit this GSM arena website. Ikman.lk feed Google display network with relevant settings (Target audience, Preferences of them , etc ) properly. So the potential is so high for a one who looks for a mobile phone locally, visit the Ikman.lk through the banner ad appear on GSM arena.

Unfortunately most of other Sri Lankan brands are practicing very elementary level of display banner advertising. Other some prestigious Sri Lankan brands use display banner web ads within their own websites but they are not linked to Google display network. Another big mistake that Sri Lankan brands are making is always fight to get a space above the fold. Only ad i saw during my observation below the fold in a Sri Lankan website is this lets go green ad.

 Upcoming website brands in Sri Lanka  use very indecent and cheap methods in their display banner ads. of a website so we can see some ad banners appearing as clusters which increase the ambiguity of web visitor.due to these errors we cannot conclude that Sri Lankan brands are getting maximum use of display banner ads. 

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YouTube interactive advertising campaigns

Hi everyone after a little break I’m writing this blog post. Here we are allowed to discuss any topic related to the digital marketing. So I chose this topic Because YouTube also a very powerful media to reach the modern target audience.

As we all know you tube is the world’s number 1 ranked video search engine. YouTube holds   3^rd place in Global traffic rankings according to the Alexa overall web rankings. So you can imagine the power of YouTube. YouTube can be used as a worldwide promotional tool. You can create your own channel on YouTube then you may able to broadcast your own brand videos (Advertisements and other visual material) all over the world without any fee. In this era most of the people have no sufficient time to watch TVs or following any other traditional media. That’s why advertising on YouTube is really valuable for a brand. It’s beneficial as advertising on Google and Facebook. But here I’m not going to discuss advertising on YouTube instead of that I put some narrow path to my discussion by limiting my discussion to INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING CAMPAGINS ON YOUTUBE.

 What is interactive advertising?

 Interactive advertising is Use online or offline interactive media to communicate with consumers and to promote products, brands, services, and public service announcements, corporate or political groups (Wikipedia) so YouTube is an ideal place to practice this interactive advertising based on the web 2.0 platform.

YouTube interactive campaigns are highly succeeded within previous few years. Those campaigns are much more effective than the traditional media campaign because of high user involvement. Most of these interactive advertising videos were VIRAL VIDEOS. People share those video links over the internet and played again and again. Here I would like to discuss one of most successful interactive campaigns   on YouTube. “  tippexperience” this advertising campaign was basically focused on promoting Tippex brand. These videos were viral videos. Each video of this campaign got over million hits on YouTube. Especially of the campaign is    offering the viewers to choose what ending they want to see by changing the title of the video directly on YouTube. There were more than 50 different endings. The initial video co of this ad series called “hunter shoots a bear” got more than 20 mill Following I posted the official tippex experience channel so you can enjoy those videos.http://www.youtube.com/user/tippexperience?feature=watch

Top 20 Interactive campaigns on YouTube - http://productionparty.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/interactiv/

Further information on hunter shoots bear campaign -http://www.skeletonproductions.com/blog/video-marketing-tips/what-can-you-learn-from-tipp-exs-hunter-the-bear-viral-video/

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Twitter as a customer service tool

Twitter, Twit ups, Hash tags, Re twits, @ mentions were not much familiar stuff for me until last week. However when I sign up with twitter one year back I had no idea about how twitter beneficial for marketing. I thought twitter is just only a personal social network and it can be only used for personalized things. Twitter is an ideal tool for micro blogging (posting very short updates, comments or thoughts). Now twitter is reachable through mobile devices as well (twitter apps are available on android, apple, windows mobile devices) so the coverage and population of the twitter users increasing drastically day by day.

Before write this blog post I read few articles on the internet that emphasizing the role of twitter in social media marketing. Before moving on to the main topic (Twitter as a customer service tool) I would like to summarize you some important facts that I grab from those articles.

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• You can use twits to inform your customers about your promotions and other business activities within few seconds and you will be able to monitor customer’s twits that mentioned about your brand. (Twitter is one of most effective ways to keep in touch with customers.)
•   It’s easy to develop trending campaigns with Twitter Marketers can integrate their advertising campaigns with National and International trends ( E.g. : #IPL , #Olympics ) 
•   Twitter is easily manageable on line advertising platform, its accessible through all type of computer and smart phone devices. so marketers can easily manage it in order to get the customer attraction towards their brand 24/7
•   Twitter can be used to promote blog articles, webinars and interesting news about your business and marketing activities to a wider audience. As well as for the SEO of your website.
•    Twitter provides you an opportunity to spying on completion. You can use twitter search to get an idea about your position in social media marketing and your competitor’s activities. Also the customers’ opinions on your brand and competitors brands.

§   

• Twitter can be used as a customer service tool

  Once you connected customer as a follower of your brand you can get the customer feedback, this feedback can be used to improve your customer service and the product in the future.

In customer services one of the most important things is answering the customers’ complaints very quickly. Most popular idea on customer complains management is if you are not responding for the customer’s complaints from the other end it will spoil your brand loyalty. It’s doubtful that providing good response to the customer with 140 characters however if you can manage this space on twitter to provide great response to the customer in a satisfactory manner you can easily obtained the reputation and brand loyalty.

There are several ways of providing customer services through the twitter. Solving their problems and complaints, addressing customer concerns, etc. twitter is a real time this platform allows you to identify the real time problems of customers by referring their twits. As well as a twitter as a real-time tool twitter adds value to customer service by delivering satisfaction, recognition customer problems , listening , accessibility, support, etc. 

most customers are preferred quality customer service if you provide excellent service with the help of twitter customers will not rally worry about the price they paid. Finally would like to give you an example that specific airways company used twitter as a customer service tool before customer complaint or dissatisfaction occurs.   

For example, a Twitter user was standing on the airport and waiting for his airplane to take his to a country .He tweeted, “Waiting for a plane to take me to UK.”  The airways company picked up on this tweet and tweeted him a message “No delays expected with your plane, we will get you to your destination on time.”  Then, “Good luck with your journey you will be fine.” This example clearly shows that how to provide excellent service via twitter to the customer in a way that he get suppressed. If you want further understanding on how top brands in the world practice twitter as a customer tool refer this webpage 

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Social Media Marketing

Hi everyone if you can remember the websites that we saw before the year 2004(web1.0) was not much interactive therefore there was no any social media marketing system existed during that era. But after 2003 with the development of web 2.0 technology social media marketing came in to the limelight. Basically social media marketing build upon the two way interaction between content builders and content users of World Wide Web. Now social media marketing plays a vital role out of all other online promotional activities of an organization.

Social media marketing define as “the marketing effort of securing a place for your brand, in the online conversations taking place on social media web, and hence increasing the ‘likability’ of your brand.”

Here the fact that we should remember well is social media marketing is not about pushing your ads on social networks or deleting negative comments about your brand. Because in social media marketing you should always attempt get all feedbacks from your customers (this process should not be one way interaction). Getting all types of feedbacks will be more valuable when you developing the further social media marketing campaigns.

Social media planning frame work.

There are five major steps you have to follow in social media panning frame works

Listen- Observe the all online conversations related to your brand and understand your current position you can monitor this through Google search, customers forums, blog search and social media networks searches.

Analyze- Social media brand health check

Set Goals- Set objectives based on the results of social media brand health check.

Engage- Crating an action plan to achieve your SM objectives (create brand centric   conversations and improve social likability)

Amplify- get the support of paid advertising campaigns and timely promotions to amplify your social media marketing effect.

If I go to explain this frame work in detail it will take lot of time. Therefore I’ll explain only the SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND HEALTH CHECK which can be considered as most vital part of this frame work.

SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND HEALTH CHECK

Social media brand health check use to analyze the current situation of your brand in social media marketing compared to your competitors. I chose Etislat as my brand and Dialog as my competitor brand which are leading telecommunication service providers in the country.  Following criteria, Scale we can use for this analysis.

The criteria use for SMBHC

    Reach – Number of people that you reached via your social media profiles

    Quality of audience – relevancy of reached target group

    Engagement – to what extent the people engage with your brand through the social media

    Share of voice - How often do people talk about your brand in social media.

    Sentiment – how was the conversations happened trough online related to your brand. How many   positive and negative comments were there?

Scale

0 - Totally Dissatisfied

1 - Somewhat Dissatisfied

2 - Neutral

3 - Somewhat Satisfied

4 - Very Satisfied

The results of my SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND HEALTH CHECK on Etisalat as follows     

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Based on above analysis we can see that dialog has 43% more facebook fans compared to Etisalat. In Twitter dialoglk followers count approximately 5 times bigger than the EtislatSL followers count. So Etisalt should be improve their status on facebook and twitter by taking necessary actions. However in YouTube Etisalt has more channel views than Dialog. This may be due to Etisalat’s recently developed interactive video campaign on YouTube (Ada kale kollo kello). Both brans are available on LInkedln , myspace and google+ But they are very unlikely to involve actively in social media marketing on those social networks. Etislat has 89.2 % of local fans on facebook. But dialog has only 65.8% it indicates that Etisalt maintaining good target audience through facebook. Number of people who are talking about Etisalt and Dialog on facebook as a percentage of total facebook fans 2.94 %, 0.45 % respectively. So Etisalt leads in that aspect. We can see 19 links out of 20 links which are relevant to the Etisalt on Google blog search. That figure for dialog was 16/20. Number of @ mentions for EtisaltSL on Twitter during last 48 hours was 3 and dialog had only one @ mention on twitter within last 48 hours. It suggest that Etislat somewhat popular among the Sri Lankan twitter users as well as Etisalt recently implemented a Twitt-up campagins for local audience. % of 'Negative Sentiments' in brand mentions is not indicate big difference between two brands both the brands close to 3%.

BaSed oN above results Etisalt gained 52.77 overall score. So we can conclude that Etisalat is a comparatively a successful brand on Social Media. However, there can be few areas (E.g.:-facebook and twitter fan count) where they can strengthen their presence.

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Pay per Click Advertising

 Hi everyone here I come with my 4th blog post. And it’s about PPC (Pay per Click Advertising). In my previous blog post I have already discussed Search engine optimization (SEO).Before moving on to the PPC advertising campaign I would like to emphasize the major difference between SEO & PPC. If you are using SEO you have to put great effort in order to display your website among top web rankings. But with PPC you can get considerable amount of traffic to your website within a short time. Below I discussed how launch a PPC advertising campaign. Here, I will develop this PPC advertising campaign to Promote Abans Company’s LED TVs to the Sri Lankan market.

As we did in SEO, When we develop a PPC advertising campaign our first step should be carry out a Keyword Research in order to identify the most appropriate keywords that target audience use. The following link can be used to do the keyword research.  https://adwords.google.com/                                      (To use this tool it’s better to sign in with your g-mail account otherwise you may have to feel the captcha box).After you log in to the keyword research tool you will be able to find the keywords for you product. After you finish the search there is an option to save your searching results as an excel file. Following I show you the summarized results of my keyword research.

Now you know the most appropriate keywords to develop the PPC advertising campaign. Then   to launch the PPC advertising campaign you have to log on to Google adwords .

Then click the campaign   tab. (If you are log in for the first time click the tab called “create your first   campaign). After that you have give a name for your advertising campaign.  At this stage you can change the   settings like daily budget, locations, etc. as you want.

After completing the settings you will be directed to the crate stage of the ad. At this stage you must give a eye catching and attractive statements to the headlines and the description lines.  Then you can add the keywords to the campaign that you have already identified during the keyword research. Exact keyword matching enhances the probability of displaying your PPC in search results below you can see the demonstration of my one.

After completing these stages (including the billing stage) your ad will appear on Google. Here another advantage is you have to pay only for the clicks on your ad when the daily budget limit is exceeded it automatically disappears so, you can have a good cost control over your campaign. As well as you will be able to generate more traffic to your website very quickly.   Hope you will get a basic understanding about PPC advertising from this blog post.

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Introduction to Search engine Optimization

Hi everyone this is my 3^rd blog post. Here I would like to give you a brief introduction to Search engine optimization (Especially about the facts that we should know about the SEO as marketers)

We all search on the web using search engines like google, bing ,yahoo,etc. after you search some word on google  you can see searching results on your browser. These results can be divided into two areas. The area  on the top and right side of your browser shows web links with highlighted background is known as ppc (pay per click) in order to place your company website in this PPC area you have to pay for the search engine.  And other white larger area with searching results, known as organic area. SEO deals with this organic area.  If you want to place your company’s web links in this organic area you don’t want pay for the search engine but you have to implement organic optimization (SEO) this is not an easy task. So if you want to place your company’s web links among top ranks in search engine you have to practice proper SEO tactics. (Key successes factors). Following image shows ORGANIC area and PPC area of a google searching result.

In order to place your web links among top ranked web searching results (in the organic area) you have to practice few strategies which are known as key successes factors for SEO.

Enhance the website crawlability

Simply the crawlers are automated programs which come from the search engines to your website to capture your website and make it appear on web search engine results. Because of that your web site should be accessible for crawlers. Crawlers detect new web pages changes and updates of these pages in order to bring them to the google (web search engine) index. Following steps are essential to ensure crawlability. *Make sure that all web links and web navigational system visible to the search engines. *Avoid dynamic URLs (use strong, flat and direct URLs)*submit XML and HTML sitemaps to the search engine using webmaster tools (Google webmaster tools).

Keyword Research

Keyword research is important for understand web searching words used by real customers. To find appropriate keywords for a given product you can use   “google adwords” facility. It shows Competition, global searches and local monthly searches for a given specific keyword. If you want to optimize your website through the Keyword Research you need to maintain webpages for most critical keywords for your product or service. As an example if you are maintaining a mobile phone selling website especially for Sri Lankan market,  it’s better to developed webpages under “Nokia” , “Samsung” , “mobile phones prices in Sri  Lanka” like categories Based on keyword research results.

Website structure and keyword mapping

It’s better to maintain separate pages for major keywords that you identified through the keyword research. Each targeted keyword needs its own page. Then each webpage will optimize for its own keyword. Then webpages need to be categorized. As an example for mobile phone selling website in Sri Lanka (especially target local consumers), Ideal site structure and keyword mapping would be applicable

Home page: Targets highly competitive local keywords like “mobile phones in Sri Lanka”

Category pages: comparatively less competitive keywords like “Samsung phones” ,” SonyEricson”  , etc

Content pages: locally less competitive keywords like “Samsung galaxy”, “Nokia Lumia” (single fully detailed web page for each mobile phone)  

Content building and Formatting

Your website should have significant content to build authority among other web sites. Content building can be done through by creating blogs, category/product descriptions rich in key terms, adding integrated YouTube channel, and adding customers’ reviews to the website. It’s important to create and maintain unique content for your website.   

 Use of images and videos

 In your web site it’s better to use viral videos to and ALT tags for each image because viral videos and ALT tags boost the optimization of your web by adding those to the search engine index. Because if you use ALT tags those are easily readable to the crawlers so crawlers add these images that link to your web site to the search engine results. And there is a high probability for an image with ALT tag to appear in top results of an Image search. Viral videos also optimize your web page by spreading over the internet.

Domain properties and URLs

Use an appropriate domain name for your web site is very effective. (Exact Match Domains). Eg :-Cellularlanka.com . As well as URLs belongs to your webpage should be meaningful and should contain appropriate keywords.

Special thanks goes to Mr suranga Priyashantha  who gave us the SEM knowledge

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Usability analysis of SLT website

Hi everybody. Here I’m going to present you the results of usability test of Sri Lanka Telecom official website (www.slt.lk). You all know that SLT is the leading organization in Sri Lankan telecommunication industry. This website developed by Affno web solutions.

Accessibility

Site loading time

Total website loading time is 8.30 seconds.it consist 1.2mb data. This loading time is averagely good compared to the amount of data available

Adequate text to background contrast

Text to background contrast is in an adequate level.

Font size, spacing is easy to read

Font sizes are varies BasEd On importance of the text or a paragraph. However font sizes are good enough to read.

Flash/ add ons are used sparingly

There is a flash slideshow placed in on top of the home page.it shows SLT brands and innovations in an attractive manner. And there is an option available for download macromedia flash player plugin.

Images have appropriate ATL tags

ATL tags are available only for the home page images

Site has a not found/ 404 page

No customize page is  available  

Identity

Company logo is prominently placed

SLT company logo is prominently placed top of the left hand corner. But the logo is not much highlighted.

Tagline

There is a tagline below the logo which indicates there core brand message. “one country one voice”

Home page is digestible in 5 seconds

After the first login home page digestible less than 5 seconds. but for the initial login it will take 7 seconds.

Clear path to company information

There is a tab called “About SLT” which describes essential information about the company. It clearly located top of the left hand corner.

 Clear path to contact information

They have separate contact information like telephone numbers and e-mail under every single web page dedicated for their separate products and services.

Navigation

Main navigation is easily identifiable

There is an excellent main navigation with search box, appropriate tabs and links.

Navigation labels are clear and concise

Navigation labels like FOR HOME, FOR BUSINESS give clear idea for the users to find required information very quickly.

Numbers of buttons/links are reasonable

All the buttons and appear on the web site reasonable. All these links and buttons are providing path for the essential information. 

Company logo is linked to the home page

Yes it linked to the homepage.

Links are consistent and easy to identify

Links In home page very clear and identifiable.(Annual report, SLT News high lights ,  links to the social networks ,etc ). There is a option called quick links which allows user to accesses the desired information very quickly.

Site search is easy to access

Site search is available on the home page with more advanced searching features. Search box is located at middle off the left hand corner.

Content

Major headings are clear and descriptive

Each tab and link appear on the home page represent a heading.(eg :- for business, for home , tele shop,etc). Those are highlighted and placed in the appropriate eye catching areas. By looking at this headings user can get a clear & descriptive idea.

Critical content is above the “fold”

Critical information placed as a row near the logo. And other critical information like “About SLT” , “Subsidiaries”  located apex of the website.

Styles and colors are consistent

Main colors are blue and white. They use blue & black fonts in the white background. These color combinations facilitate to improve user visibility. Home page colors are matching with the colors of other pages on the website.

Emphasis is used sparingly

Headings are emphasized by using tabs and bold blue color. More essential links placed in the apex of the website. However some crucial information likes “mega line” , “PEO TV” “broadband” located bottom of the homage as hyperlinked images to grab the attention of the user.

Ads and popups are unobtrusive

They advertise their own brands using flash slideshow and hyperlinked images but no other popups or annoying advertisements are appearing on the website.

Main copy is concise and explanatory

Home page is very clear and understandable. Appropriate links and tabs are placed in a good order. So users are able to get well understanding and the path to required information within few seconds.

URLs are meaningful and user-friendly

www.slt.lk  is the URL of this site. Users can easily remember this URL and it contains the company’s own name.

HTML page titles are explanatory

HTML page title sates:"welcome to SLT"  this can gives clear idea to the html reader about the organization.

My idea is overall usability of the website is excellent. But better to reduce the data amount in the homepage in order to quick accesses. 

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Globalized Sri Lankan Consumer

Globalized Sri Lankan Consumer

Every Sri Lankan consumer experiencing globalization regardless of where they live (it doesn’t matter whether urban or rural).Because after the imposing of open economy in Sri Lanka many multinational companies arrived to the country & many global brands were flown to the Lankan economy. Many global brands are available in the Sri Lankan market. From automobile industry to FMCG goods we can see global brands more than the local brands. So it’s clear that every Sri Lankan consumer is a globalized consumer to a certain extent. When transforming an ordinary consumer to a globalized consumer technology plays a vital role. Internet is the key feature of that technology which opens door for Sri Lankan consumer to globalized consumer society. I would like to discuss few examples below, which indicates the behavior of Sri Lankan globalized consumer.

According to the Alexa web rankings, in Sri Lanka Amazon.com and ebay.com which are considered as global auctions or virtual markets holds 11^th and 12^th positions respectively while local auction website called ikman.lk holds 9^th place. bAsed oN tHat we can realize the growing tendency of Sri Lankans to find and buy goods through the internet as globalized consumers. Now many Sri Lankans before make a purchase decision find information about the product or service via internet (e.g. :- before buying a mobile phone check prices and features). Some automobile traders in Sri Lanka now offer their customers, facilities to order vehicles from the Japanese auctions through the internet and even to customize it as they want. Web 2.0 provides platform for users to become more interactive & knowledgeable. There are some blogs maintained by Sri Lankans containing tutorials about how to use internet auctions and to learn secure payment methods like PayPal. There is a thread on Elakiri.com called “ebay gadgets” this thread is daily updating about the goods that people received from ebay. They share their ebay experience with others by using this thread. That shows the encouragement of Sri Lankan globalized consumers. (Especially youth people).As well as some educational institutes in Sri Lanka provide distance learning lecture facilities(live lectures conducting at foreign universities) for students through the Internet. This can be treated as a consumption of a globalized service. In the previous year many international artistes arrived in Sri Lanka because Lankan music fans now requesting entertainments which comply with international standards. This shows Sri Lankan consumer is globalized even in their entertainment preferences.

But as a globalized consumer benefits and opportunities experienced by an urban consumer different from a rural consumer. This means Majority of Urban & semi urban consumers enjoying far more superior benefits & opportunities more than the rural consumers as globalized consumers. Major reason for this difference is Technology that they use. Urban & semi urban people have more updated technology to reach global markets and for improve their knowledge as global consumers. They are enjoying benefits of high speed internet connections, smart phones, tab pcs & such devices to accesses global markets while majority of the rural people get awareness on global brands via TV or newspapers.

Now Sri Lanka having wider globalized consumer society due to following reasons. High speed internet connections (eg: 4.5g, LTE), Easy online payment methods (eg:sampath web card) , Global advertising & promotional campaigns(eg:red bull events) , Satellite TV services , development of country’s infrastructure. There are some advantages that consumers can gain from this globalization, this improve consumers overall living standards but the negative side is this will encourage consumers to buy unwanted goods and forex problems to the country. Finally in more practical sense, majority of the Lankans prefer to buy global brands more than the local brands. So above facts prove that how Sri Lankan consumers are globalized.

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