Dotcoza, the man handpicked by Andersen Consulting to participate in an e-commerce research project, yesterday began his new cyberlife. He will spend the next three months researching the truth behind e-commerce in SA in a project co-sponsored by UUNet SA.
Chris Botha, a 23-year-old freelance journalist, is the man behind the moniker. Based in a Johannesburg suburb, on a property reportedly belonging to Dimension Data Holdings, dotcoza will have to cram the e-commerce experiences of a normal lifetime into just three months.
Purchases chalked up for future weeks include that of a car, clothing and medical services - but first, he`ll have to furnish his house. At the end of the project, dotcoza will put all his purchases up for online auction, with proceeds going to a charity catering to the needs of homeless children.
Dotcoza is expected to explore a different aspect of e-commerce each week for the next 13 weeks, and will be up for 24-hour-a-day scrutiny during that time. Each of the rooms in which he will play out the next months is kitted out with a Webcam. Dotcoza wears a tag around his wrist which emits a constant signal, and thereby alerts the various Webcams to his movements around the house. Despite this, he does not feel like a prisoner. "I do feel like a lab rat, though," he jokes.
Alan Quinn, senior manager, Andersen Consulting, quashed concerns that the results of this research may be tainted by the use of unrealistic parameters, such as an unlimited budget. Quinn confirms that dotcoza will be limited to the budgets normally adhered to by the working middle-class.
In addition, dotcoza will be making use of several aliases to assure that e-tailers treat him just as they would any other Web shopper.
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