Zeran v. America Online, Inc. (4th Cir. 1997)

Since itâ€™s introduction in November 2004, World of Warcraft (WoW) has exploded in popularity within the sphere of Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMOs), dominating the field with over 11.5 million monthly subscribers, an order of magnitude larger than its nearest competitor (Woodcock, 2008). It has become a pop-culture phenomenon, parodied in South Park, promoted by William Shatner, and fiercely defended by its proponents. However, much of the current analysis of the game itself has been on the activities and functions that occur within its virtual space (Ducheneaut, et. al., 2006). The exogenous processes by which WoW came to dominate in its sphere have been under-explored, and the effect their marketplace entry had on established groups within that sphere has been neglected. In this paper, I propose that similarities to what WoW has accomplished in the MMO market can be found in the rise of America Online (AOL) in the early 1990â€™s, and its effect on the existing service providers and systems of the nascent internet. Exemplifying this is the opening of UseNet to its users in 1993, the infamous â€œSeptember That Never Ended.â€

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Emergent Transportation “Platforms” in Latin America: Online Communities and Their Governance Models

Frontiers in Human Dynamics ◽

10.3389/fhumd.2021.628556 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

Author(s):

Luis H. Lozano-Paredes

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Research ◽

Latin American ◽

Online Communities ◽

Global South ◽

Typical Structure ◽

New Models ◽

Community Platforms ◽

America Online ◽

Governance Models ◽

American Cities

New models of peer governance are emerging from online communities in the Global South. This is visible in an understudied case of ridesharing “platforms” created on social media communities and materializing in Latin American cities. In this article, I investigate these online communities in different cities of Colombia and how they develop peer governance models. A particular focus is paid to developing organization forms that do not follow the typical structure of firms. In these communities, I study the relationships between members, community managers, and the governance rules they create, while illuminating the hierarchies present, the accountability of their administrators, and its legitimacy. The emerging literature on platform cooperativism, platform urbanism, and peer governance is used to structure a way to understand this new phenomenon with its “southern” particularities. Moreover, in-person and online qualitative research methods are incorporated to engage with the elusive nature of these structures. This will be one of the first studies engaging with the peer governance dilemmas emerging from online communities in the Global South. An analysis on what the platform literature and the institutional ecosystem in developing countries can harness from the particularities of these community-platforms as they evolve in these contexts is also included.

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Social and Usage-Process Motivations for Consumer Internet Access

Advances in End User Computing - Computational Advancements in End-User Technologies ◽

10.4018/978-1-60566-687-7.ch009 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 159-175

Author(s):

Thomas F. Stafford

Keyword(s):

Internet Use ◽

Uses And Gratifications ◽

Internet Usage ◽

Heavy Users ◽

Internet Users ◽

America Online ◽

The Difference ◽

Socially Motivated ◽

Social Uses ◽

Usage Processes

Differences between light and heavy users of America Online are investigated using theoretical expectations derived from recent research on uses and gratifications theory. Measures of Internet-usage-process gratifications and Internet socialization gratifications were utilized to test for differences between light and heavy Internet users in the consumer market, and it was expected that heavy users would be more socially motivated in their Internet use while light users would be more motivated by gratifications related to usage processes. However, results indicate that both heavy and light users are more motivated by usage factors, although the difference between usage and social motivation was more pronounced for heavy users. Heavy users are more socially motivated than light users, but both heavy and light users show a significant preference for process uses and gratifications as compared to social uses and gratifications for Internet use.

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Portals in Consumer Search Behavior and Product Customization

Human Computer Interaction ◽

10.4018/978-1-87828-991-9.ch106 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 1673-1677

Author(s):

Ian Michael

Keyword(s):

Search Behavior ◽

Consumer Search ◽

Web Content ◽

Portal Site ◽

One Stop ◽

America Online ◽

Product Customization ◽

Time Warner ◽

E Mail

A portal is defined as an entrance point to online content. The portal concept has evolved across a number of markets and applications. Customer portals focus on individual customer and offer a one-stop Internet access. By providing a number of services, such as searches, shopping, e-mail, and games, portals allow individuals to avoid browsing the Web but to in-fact rely and stay at one Web site like a one-stop shop. Accordingly, portals drive eyeballs, and hence create and drive advertising revenue and alliances. The concept of a single public port to given content on the Internet is used as a means of pulling in a large number of users. As an example, America Online (AOL) acts as a portal site to general Web content. It is a specialized portal created by AOL and also has content from partners such as Time Warner (Kleindl, 2003). This article reviews the role of portals in consumer search behavior and certain aspects in marketing.

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Exercises in the Strategy of Post-Merger Integration

Darden Business Publishing Cases ◽

10.1108/case.darden.2016.000114 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Robert F. Bruner ◽

Chad Rynbrandt

Keyword(s):

British Petroleum ◽

Target Firm ◽

Integration Strategy ◽

Union Pacific ◽

Target Company ◽

America Online ◽

Post Merger Integration ◽

Time Warner ◽

Merger Integration ◽

Strategic Motives

This case recounts the announced terms of five prominent acquisitions of the late 1990s, and asks the student to suggest a preliminary strategy for integrating the target firm into the buyer. The five acquisitions are America Online/Time Warner, British Petroleum/Amoco, Daimler-Benz/Chrysler, Union Pacific/Southern Pacific, and Warner-Lambert/Agouron Pharmaceuticals. The objectives of the case are: 1) to highlight the linkage of the post-merger integration approach with the strategic motives for the acquisition; 2) to consider the range of possible challenges to successful post-merger integration; 3) to explore the varieties of integration strategy, especially surrounding decisions about autonomy of the target company within the buyer, importance of interdependence between the buyer and target, and need for speed of integration.

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