scholarly journals Segmenting The Web 2.0 Market: Behavioural And Usage Patterns Of Social Web Consumers

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlota Lorenzo-Romero ◽  
Efthymios Constantinides ◽  
Maria-del-Carmen Alarcon-del-Amo
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Current Phase ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Social Web ◽  
The Web

The evolution of the commercial Internet to the current phase, commonly called Web 2.0 (or Social Web) has firmly positioned the web not only as a commercial but also as a social communication platform: an online environment facilitating peer-to-peer interaction, socialization, co-operation and information exchange. Internet users are not any more passive consumers of information but are actively involved in online creation, editing, and dissemination of content. They form virtual communities and interact with each other making use of a variety of interactive applications like social-networking sites, online forums, blogs, and wikis. This new social environment entails new challenges and opportunities for marketers, practitioners and behavioural researchers encompassing an appealing and untapped research area. In this empirical study we develop a classification of Web 2.0 users.  Segments are identified on the basis of socio-demographic features, involvement, usage of the Internet, online purchase behaviour, personality characteristics, and the degree of use of Social Web sites. We analyze the differences between user segments, their trust levels and satisfaction and conclude that the degree of online experience is one of the most important antecedents of trust and satisfaction with Web 2.0 applications. The study identifies issues of further research and ways that can help field marketers to better map and understand their online markets in order to utilize effectively the Internet and particularly of the Web 2.0 domain as part of their marketing strategy.

Sharing Bites on Global Screens

2011 ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Hudson Moura
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Equal Access ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Professional Skills ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Social Content ◽  
The Web

Snack culture is the new phenomenon that shrinks media cultural products and can be easily shared on social networks of the Internet. Thus, it can be consumed in a reduced amount of time circulating instantly all over the globe. These tiny and snappy materials are changing people’s habits, transforming passive viewers into active users, and promoting equal access to all, and requiring no professional skills. Viewers now can also produce cultural and social content in widespread virtual communities (based on the Web 2.0) that are increasingly interactive. This chapter presents and analyses a variety of media snacks that form and circulate as snack culture; it also elucidates some of those current changes that are shaping today’s relationship between society and media.

Methods and Issues for Research in Virtual Communities

2009 ◽  
pp. 912-920
Author(s):  
Stefano Pace
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Social Research ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Activity ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Social Side ◽  
The Web

The Internet has developed from an informative medium to a social environment where people meet together, exchange messages and emotions, and establish friendships and social relationships. While the Internet was originally conceived as a commercial marketspace (Rayport & Sviokla, 1994), nowadays the social side of the Web is a central phenomenon to truly understand the Internet. Social gratification is among the most relevant motivations to go online (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006; Stafford & Stafford, 2001). People socialise through the Internet, adding a third motivation to their online activity, other that the pleasure of surfing in itself (the “flow experience” described by Hoffman & Novak, 1996) and the usefulness of finding information. Virtual communities are springing up both as spontaneous aggregation (like the Usenet newsgroups) or forums promoted and organised by Web sites. The topics of a community range from support for a disease to passion for a given product or brand (Muñiz & O’Guinn, 2001). The intensity and relevance of the virtual sociality cannot be discarded. Companies can receive useful and actionable knowledge around their own offer studying the communities devoted to their brand. Hence social research should adopt refined tools to study the communities in order to achieve reliable results. The aim of this article is to illustrate the main research methods viable for virtual communities, examining their pros and cons.

Comments on Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes: Toward a Creative Social Web for Learners and Teachers

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 274-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianwei Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Teacher Learning ◽  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Social Web ◽  
Community Knowledge ◽  
Design Based Research ◽  
Innovation Research ◽  
Collaborative Creativity ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The Web

This article commenting on Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes (2009) examines the potential strengths and weaknesses of Web 2.0 in supporting student collaborative creativity in light of sociocultural conditions of knowledge creation. Weaknesses and challenges are identified related to the embedded and dispersed representation of community knowledge, weak commitment and support to sustained progress, judging of contributions on the basis of popularity instead of advancement, and the conflict between the chaotic emergent Web and rigidly organized schooling. Discussion is extended to the use of the Web for supporting teacher learning and innovation. Research questions are identified calling for design-based research to advance both pedagogy and technology design.

scholarly journals Web technology and farmers

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (No. 6) ◽  
pp. 243-248
Author(s):  
Z. Havlíček
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Major Element ◽  
Web Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The Web

Web technology is a major element of the Internet. The various and inexpensive possibilities to use this technology allow for the minimisation of differences between rural and urban areas. This article focuses on the use of www technology for creating web sites. It outlines theoretical starting points for planning web sites, as well as practical methods, which are utilised for setting up the web presentation of a farm.

Gaining a Past, Losing a Future: Web 2.0 and Internet Historicity

2012 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Allen
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Web 3.0 ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
The Web

This article explore how, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the internet became historicised, meaning that its public existence is now explicitly framed through a narrative that locates the current internet in relation to a past internet. Up until this time, in popular culture, the internet had been understood mainly as the future-in-the-present, as if it had no past. The internet might have had a history, but it had no historicity. That has changed because of Web 2.0, and the effects of Tim O'Reilly's creative marketing of that label. Web 2.0, in this sense not a technology or practice but the marker of a discourse of historical interpretation dependent on versions, created for us a second version of the web, different from (and yet connected to) that of the 1990s. This historicising moment aligned the past and future in ways suitable to those who might control or manage the present. And while Web 3.0, implied or real, suggests the ‘future’, it also marks out a loss of other times, or the possibility of alterity understood through temporality.

Shopping Agent Web Sites

2011 ◽  
pp. 222-231
Author(s):  
Ming Wang
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Internet Marketing ◽  
Agent Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Price Information ◽  
Comparison Shopping ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Software Programs ◽  
The Web

This chapter introduces the shopping agent technology as a new Internet marketing trend. The recent development of shopping agent Web sites has offered online shoppers an excellent comparative shopping environment. Shopping agent Web sites, also called shopping agents or shopping bots, are software programs that search the Internet stores on the Web and find products that meet a buyer’s specifications. Not only do these agent Web sites bring comparative product and price information from individual merchants’ Web sites, but also provide the online merchant ratings to customers. In summary, these agent Web sites take a query, search the Web sites of individual merchants that may have the product sought, bring back the results, and present them in a consolidated and compact format that allows comparison shopping at a glance.

Mix, Match, Rediscovery

2010 ◽  
pp. 2298-2309
Author(s):  
Justin Meza ◽  
Qin Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Web Site ◽  
Web Application ◽  
Knowledge Organization ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Future ◽  
Enterprise Mashups ◽  
The Web

Knowledge is the fact or knowing something from experience or via association. Knowledge organization is the systematic management and organization of knowledge (Hodge, 2000). With the advent of Web 2.0, Mashups have become a hot new thing on the Web. A mashup is a Web site or a Web application that combines content from more than one source and delivers it in an integrated way (Fichter, 2006). In this article, we will first explore the concept of mashups and look at the components of a mashup. We will provide an overview of various mashups on the Internet. We will look at literature about knowledge and the knowledge organization. Then, we will elaborate on our experiment of a mashup in an enterprise environment. We will describe how we mixed the content from two sets of sources and created a new source: a novel way of organizing and displaying HP Labs Technical Reports. The findings from our project will be included and some best practices for creating enterprise mashups will be given. The future of enterprise mashups will be discussed as well.

Al-Qaeda on Web 2.0

2012 ◽  
pp. 221-238
Author(s):  
Anne Gerdes
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Structured Media ◽  
Web Communication ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Web

This chapter investigates al-Qaeda’s use of Web 2.0 as a tool for radicalization and recruitment. The media network of al-Qaeda is described in order to demonstrate the impact of their well structured media strategy for harnessing the power of the Web. They use a strategy that makes them stand out from other extremist groups, who in most cases lack an overall approach towards branding and Web communication. It is shown why this strategy works and enables al-Qaeda to set the agenda for online global jihadism and cultivate virtual communities of engaged jihobbyists. Finally, a virtue ethical perspective demonstrates the shortcomings of the al-Qaeda Web 2.0 strategies, by which it is suggested that their Achilles’ heel is exactly the ideas inherent to Web 2.0, which are reflected in a bottom up participatory perspective. Thus, the Al-Qaeda online social movement does allow for engaged user participation, but without providing opportunities for free spirited critical reflection and self articulation of goals.

Establishing the Credibility of Social Web Applications

2011 ◽  
pp. 1432-1437
Author(s):  
Pankaj Kamthan
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Web Applications ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Web ◽  
The People ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Web

In recent years, there has been a steady shift in the nature of Web applications. The vehicle of this transition of Web applications is us, the people. The ability to post photographs or videos, exchange music snippets with peers, and annotate a piece of information, are but a few exemplars of this phenomenon. Indeed, the pseudonym Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005) has been used to describe the apparent “socialization” of the Web. In spite of the significant prospects offered by humancentric Web applications, the mere fact that virtually anyone can set up such applications claiming to sell products and services or upload/post unscrutinized information on a topic as being “definitive,” raises the issues of credibility from a consumers’ viewpoint. Therefore, establishing credibility is essential for an organization’s reputation and for building consumers’ trust. The rest of the article is organized as follows. We first provide the background necessary for later discussion. This is followed by the introduction of a framework within which different types of credibility in the context of human-centric Web applications can be systematically addressed and thereby improved. Next, challenges and directions for future research are outlined. Finally, concluding remarks are given.

Codes of Ethics in Virtual Communities

2008 ◽  
pp. 1434-1442
Author(s):  
Calin Gurau
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Online Discussion ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
Online Discussion Forums ◽  
The Difference ◽  
E Mail ◽  
The Web

The development of the World Wide Web has created new opportunities for interpersonal interaction. The Internet allows one-to-one (e-mail), one-to-many (Web sites, e-mail lists) or many-to-many (online discussion forums) interaction, which represent a unique feature in comparison with traditional communication channels (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996). On the other hand, the Internet has specific characteristics, such as: • Interactivity: The Internet offers multiple possibilities of interactive communication, acting not only as an interface, but also as a communication agent (allowing a direct interaction between individuals and software applications) • Transparency: The information published online can be accessed and viewed by any Internet user, unless this information is specifically protected • Memory: The Web is a channel not only for transmitting information, but also for storing information¾in other words, the information published on the Web remains in the memory of the network until it is erased. These characteristics permit the development of online or virtual communities¾groups of people with similar interests who communicate on the Web in a regular manner (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996; Goldsborough, 1999a, 1999b; Gordon, 2000). Many studies deal with the ethics of research in Cyberspace and Virtual Communities (Bakardjieva, Feenberg, & Goldie, 2004), but very few publications relate with the Codes of Ethics used in Public Discussion Forums (Belilos, 1998; Johnson, 1997). Other specialists have analyzed specific categories or uses of online discussion forums, such as online learning (Blignaut & Trollip, 2003; DeSanctis, Fayard, Roach, & Jiang, 2003) or the creation of professional communities of practice (Bickart & Schindler, 2001; Kling, McKim & King, 2003; Millen, Fontaine, & Muller, 2002), and in this context, have also discussed briefly the importance of netiquette and forum monitoring (Fauske & Wade, 2003, 2004). The difference between these online communities and public discussion forums is the degree of control exercised on the functioning and purpose of the forum by a specific individual or organization. This article attempts to investigate, analyze and present the main patterns of the codes/rules of ethics used in the public discussion forums, otherwise known as Newsgroups, and their influence on the profile and functioning of the community.

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