This document discusses user-generated content on the internet and its value to commercial companies. It argues that while internet users freely generate content and share their experiences, commercial companies are able to collect and analyze this user data to learn about consumer behaviors and preferences. This allows companies to highly target their advertisements and marketing strategies. However, internet users are often unaware of how much economic value their contributions online provide to corporations. The document explores whether this relationship between users and companies makes the internet an unfair platform for users from an economic perspective.
The Effectiveness of Internet Marketing in Increasing the Reach and Awareness...Dr. Amarjeet Singh
The present research seeks to expound the effective
of Internet marketing in increasing the read and awareness of
consumers. Impatient the research conducted a good review
about the privies literature related to the study. It leads a brief
idea of the study before articulating the statement of the
problem. From the statement of the problem deducting the
researcher found that the social media , mobile apps and
internet marketing have Promina impact with the
effectiveness and in cornering the awareness of the consumer
.hence the research subdivided the research problem into four
different objective such translates the formation of the study
states that these is no significant relationship between level of
effectiveness and level of utilization of internet marketing on
consumer in kingdom of Bahrain . Further the research
employs multiple methodologies to a new conclusion on the
particular issue, the study used convening sampling method
combined with the spss software for data analyse.
The study aims to assess the Effectiveness of Internet
in Business to increase reach and awareness among consumers
in Bahrain. Data and correspondence innovation has changed
quickly in the previous 20 years with a key advancement being
the development of online networking. Business, which does
not utilize internet-based life, tends to lose on key client
base. The rise of social media means it’s unusual to find an
organization that does not reach its customers and prospects
through one social media platform or another. Companies see
the importance of using social media to connect with
customers and build revenue.
Businesses have realized they can use social media to generate
insights, stimulate demand, and create targeted product
offerings. This is important in traditional brick-and-motor
businesses, and, obviously, in the world of e-commerce.
In this research, to adequately address the research questions
a variety of data collection methods and instruments were
used such as questionnaire survey and t-test.
From the study, the researcher concluded that there is no
significant relationship between the Level of utilization &
Effectiveness of Internet marketing among consumers in
Bahrain. Therefore, the researchers accept the null
hypothesis.
The problems faced by the respondents on the Level
of utilization & Effectiveness of Internet marketing among
consumers in Bahrain is privacy, censorship and online
security. The Internet, social media, online advertising, mobile
apps etc. as a whole, can be seen as technology that has greatly
enhanced our lives but should be done responsibly.
Digital Marketing and "Virtual Touch" TechnologyCharmian Solter
The reach and effectiveness of digital marketing caused a decline in the usage of traditional marketing channels, including face-to-face interaction, paving the way for “virtual touch,” social media platforms, video marketing, and real-time chat applications to address consumer demand for authenticity and engagement in today’s digital marketplace.
The Effectiveness of Internet Marketing in Increasing the Reach and Awareness...Dr. Amarjeet Singh
The present research seeks to expound the effective
of Internet marketing in increasing the read and awareness of
consumers. Impatient the research conducted a good review
about the privies literature related to the study. It leads a brief
idea of the study before articulating the statement of the
problem. From the statement of the problem deducting the
researcher found that the social media , mobile apps and
internet marketing have Promina impact with the
effectiveness and in cornering the awareness of the consumer
.hence the research subdivided the research problem into four
different objective such translates the formation of the study
states that these is no significant relationship between level of
effectiveness and level of utilization of internet marketing on
consumer in kingdom of Bahrain . Further the research
employs multiple methodologies to a new conclusion on the
particular issue, the study used convening sampling method
combined with the spss software for data analyse.
The study aims to assess the Effectiveness of Internet
in Business to increase reach and awareness among consumers
in Bahrain. Data and correspondence innovation has changed
quickly in the previous 20 years with a key advancement being
the development of online networking. Business, which does
not utilize internet-based life, tends to lose on key client
base. The rise of social media means it’s unusual to find an
organization that does not reach its customers and prospects
through one social media platform or another. Companies see
the importance of using social media to connect with
customers and build revenue.
Businesses have realized they can use social media to generate
insights, stimulate demand, and create targeted product
offerings. This is important in traditional brick-and-motor
businesses, and, obviously, in the world of e-commerce.
In this research, to adequately address the research questions
a variety of data collection methods and instruments were
used such as questionnaire survey and t-test.
From the study, the researcher concluded that there is no
significant relationship between the Level of utilization &
Effectiveness of Internet marketing among consumers in
Bahrain. Therefore, the researchers accept the null
hypothesis.
The problems faced by the respondents on the Level
of utilization & Effectiveness of Internet marketing among
consumers in Bahrain is privacy, censorship and online
security. The Internet, social media, online advertising, mobile
apps etc. as a whole, can be seen as technology that has greatly
enhanced our lives but should be done responsibly.
Digital Marketing and "Virtual Touch" TechnologyCharmian Solter
The reach and effectiveness of digital marketing caused a decline in the usage of traditional marketing channels, including face-to-face interaction, paving the way for “virtual touch,” social media platforms, video marketing, and real-time chat applications to address consumer demand for authenticity and engagement in today’s digital marketplace.
The following whitepaper from IBM which throws more light on how digital marketers are leveraging technological tools to engage better with today’s digitally empowered customers.
Social Media is being integrated into every aspect of the consumer journey including pre-purchase research, the actual purchase, post-sale and loyalty. This research examines trends and innovations in social media, and provides case studies demonstrating the leveraging of the different social platforms.
2014 Digital-Inspired Trends in the Financial Services Industry: Banks, Card ...Carmelon Digital Marketing
The financial services industry is utilizing new technologies and channels, in order to become more efficient, more reliant, more convenient and above all – simpler. Among such new channels are internet websites, social media platforms, smartphone / tablet apps and others. Banks, credit card companies and insurance companies are using those digital channels along the entire service chain, including sales & marketing, communications, consumer service and CRM.
The high rate of technology penetration is affecting the state of financial services:
• Collaboration economy – driven by social media
• On the go behavior – driven by intensive lifestyles and the rise of mobile technology
• Convenience seeking – driven by connectivity (“the internet of things” and wearable technology)
Time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide is on the rise, causing more sharing and peer to peer behaviors resulting in the “collaboration economy”.
Global Mobile penetration continues to rise, giving birth to more on the go/ mobile financial solutions. Rising penetration of Wearable Technology offers opportunities for companies.
In the EU, online banking adoption rates are 49% in the EU, and in other countries, USA included, penetration surpassed 50%.
We expect Mobile financial services to grow at an accelerated rate, due to the increase in solutions offered through mobile devices as well as younger demographics demand for ultra-convenient solutions. According to the Federal Reserve, in the USA, use of mobile banking continues to rise but is yet to reach the rates of online banking: 43% of all mobile phone owners, and 53% of all smartphone owners with a bank account, had used mobile banking in the 12 months prior to the survey, compared to 71% who used online banking on a desktop, laptop or tablet computer in the same period.
Analysis of Online Comments (BEO) is a research model developed jointly by Corporate Excellence – Centre for Reputation Leadership and Llorente & Cuenca in order to analyse the impact of Internet communication on corporate reputation. The analysis is based on the study of relevant comments made by different members of the public about a company on the Internet.
Since the model supports complicated computations, it enables us to interpret the data almost in real time, not only information provided by structured databases, but also unstructured data that account for 80% of existing information. These include medical images, video streaming, conversations, pictures taken with mobile phones, etc. Our capacity to interpret this vast new natural resource leads to interesting conclusions, considerations and decisions. Therefore, it is possible to say that The Online Comments Report is a strategic tool that may be used for corporate positioning on the Internet based on the analysis of data gathered throughout the year rather than a tool for monitoring in real time.
Reputation is a set of collective evaluations evoked by an organisation in its stakeholders that drive valuegenerating behaviours. Thus, it is clear that an organisation’s reputation does not exist online. Instead, it exists in the minds of people who are stakeholders of the company. Given this definition, we understand that on the Internet we find comments about a company shared by stakeholders in the different online networks. These comments may affect evaluations made about the company. In other words, in the term online reputation, online is the cause and source, and reputation is the effect or result.
The global market for self service is experiencing growth, and research companies predict it will keep growing in the next few years. The main reason for growth is that self service can benefit both customers and companies.
Companies that deliver online self service are able to minimize costs (as long as service is provided efficiently) and benefit from increased customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, lifetime value and advocacy.
in terms of customer satisfaction, there is a clear preference for digital and multi-channel service. However, poor self service can cause the customer to abandon the channel. For organizations, self- service saves costs as long as the service is provided correctly and the information is synchronized between the different channels. Today, customer satisfaction is still very high when a live representative is involved, but our assessment is that in the near future, the picture may change following the entry of innovative tools that enhance the service experience significantly. We expect robots (or “bots”) to become the next preferred channel for self service, with the accumulation of data, which enables a better automatic service than ever before.
A “Mobile First” strategy is more important than ever. It requires more than merely transferring a general e-commerce experience into a mobile format as it is more instant and local, and it enables leveraging of the mobile device’s features, such as the camera. Proximity, personalization and loyalty are the three key themes for mobile in 2018.
2016 Continues to reflect the enormous role of Big Data in digital marketing. Wisely used, Big Data can tell us almost everything about our consumers – who they are, what their interests are, what they are interested in buying / doing / drinking etc., where they are and who they are with.
Furthermore, despite consumers' need in protecting their privacy, they are willing to give away details that will help companies personalize better to their personal benefit (for example through personalized discounts, personalized offers etc.).
In order to succeed doing so, companies need to use Big Data by first recognizing the questions they would like to answer; then, gathering the information; and finally, analyzing it.
In 2016, more than ever, simultaneously is the key word – 79% of consumers (and 90% of Millennials) switch devices during a single online activity, according to Get Personal report by Adobe; The usage of applications and social media for messaging continues to grow, creating "data exclusives" who rarely use their mobile for voice calls; and applications of familiar technologies are expanding to new areas (such as location-based technologies which in addition to marketing are also used for business operations, customer services and more).
6 Content Marketing Trends To Look Out For Beyond 2021PaulDonahue16
Content marketing plays a pivotal role in running a business. If you are a business owner, understanding the trends working well for other brands can help you achieve your business goals, such as generating leads, improving conversions, and increasing sales.
https://advdms.com/blog/6-content-marketing-trends-to-look-out-for-beyond-2021/
E-Commerce Connected By Social Media: Microblogging Information Recommitted t...dbpublications
In recent years, the boundaries
between e-commerce and social networking have
become increasingly blurred. Many e-commerce
websites support the mechanism of social login where
users can sign on the websites using their social
network identities such as their Face book or Twitter
accounts. Users can also post their newly purchased
products on micro blogs with links to the e-commerce
product web pages. In this paper we propose a novel
solution for cross-site cold-start product
recommendation which aims to recommend products
from e-commerce websites to users at social
networking sites in “cold-start” situations, a problem
which has rarely been explored before. A major
challenge is how to leverage knowledge extracted
from social networking sites for cross-site cold-start
product recommendation. We propose to use the
linked users across social networking sites and ecommerce
websites (users who have social networking
accounts and have made purchases on e-commerce
websites) as a bridge to map users’ social networking
features to another feature representation for product
recommendation. In specific, we propose learning both
users’ and products’ feature representations (called
user embeddings and product embeddings,
respectively) from data collected from e-commerce
websites using recurrent neural networks and then
apply a modified gradient boosting trees method to
transform users’ social networking features into user
embeddings. We then develop a feature-based matrix
factorization approach which can leverage the learnt
user embeddings for cold-start product
recommendation. Experimental results on a large
dataset constructed from the largest Chinese micro
blogging service SINA WEIBO and the largest
Chinese B2C e-commerce website JINGDONG have
shown the effectiveness of our proposed framework.
The business case for Personal Financial Management (PFM) — and MoneyDesktop (MD) specifically — continues to get better and better each year. As proof, we’ve gathered data from dozens of compelling sources. This data collectively answers three key questions:
1. Why Change?
2. Why PFM?
3. Why MD?
The answers to these questions showcase why MD continues to bring a phenomenal return on investment (ROI) for financial institutions everywhere.
Let’s get started.
The following whitepaper from IBM which throws more light on how digital marketers are leveraging technological tools to engage better with today’s digitally empowered customers.
Social Media is being integrated into every aspect of the consumer journey including pre-purchase research, the actual purchase, post-sale and loyalty. This research examines trends and innovations in social media, and provides case studies demonstrating the leveraging of the different social platforms.
2014 Digital-Inspired Trends in the Financial Services Industry: Banks, Card ...Carmelon Digital Marketing
The financial services industry is utilizing new technologies and channels, in order to become more efficient, more reliant, more convenient and above all – simpler. Among such new channels are internet websites, social media platforms, smartphone / tablet apps and others. Banks, credit card companies and insurance companies are using those digital channels along the entire service chain, including sales & marketing, communications, consumer service and CRM.
The high rate of technology penetration is affecting the state of financial services:
• Collaboration economy – driven by social media
• On the go behavior – driven by intensive lifestyles and the rise of mobile technology
• Convenience seeking – driven by connectivity (“the internet of things” and wearable technology)
Time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide is on the rise, causing more sharing and peer to peer behaviors resulting in the “collaboration economy”.
Global Mobile penetration continues to rise, giving birth to more on the go/ mobile financial solutions. Rising penetration of Wearable Technology offers opportunities for companies.
In the EU, online banking adoption rates are 49% in the EU, and in other countries, USA included, penetration surpassed 50%.
We expect Mobile financial services to grow at an accelerated rate, due to the increase in solutions offered through mobile devices as well as younger demographics demand for ultra-convenient solutions. According to the Federal Reserve, in the USA, use of mobile banking continues to rise but is yet to reach the rates of online banking: 43% of all mobile phone owners, and 53% of all smartphone owners with a bank account, had used mobile banking in the 12 months prior to the survey, compared to 71% who used online banking on a desktop, laptop or tablet computer in the same period.
Analysis of Online Comments (BEO) is a research model developed jointly by Corporate Excellence – Centre for Reputation Leadership and Llorente & Cuenca in order to analyse the impact of Internet communication on corporate reputation. The analysis is based on the study of relevant comments made by different members of the public about a company on the Internet.
Since the model supports complicated computations, it enables us to interpret the data almost in real time, not only information provided by structured databases, but also unstructured data that account for 80% of existing information. These include medical images, video streaming, conversations, pictures taken with mobile phones, etc. Our capacity to interpret this vast new natural resource leads to interesting conclusions, considerations and decisions. Therefore, it is possible to say that The Online Comments Report is a strategic tool that may be used for corporate positioning on the Internet based on the analysis of data gathered throughout the year rather than a tool for monitoring in real time.
Reputation is a set of collective evaluations evoked by an organisation in its stakeholders that drive valuegenerating behaviours. Thus, it is clear that an organisation’s reputation does not exist online. Instead, it exists in the minds of people who are stakeholders of the company. Given this definition, we understand that on the Internet we find comments about a company shared by stakeholders in the different online networks. These comments may affect evaluations made about the company. In other words, in the term online reputation, online is the cause and source, and reputation is the effect or result.
The global market for self service is experiencing growth, and research companies predict it will keep growing in the next few years. The main reason for growth is that self service can benefit both customers and companies.
Companies that deliver online self service are able to minimize costs (as long as service is provided efficiently) and benefit from increased customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, lifetime value and advocacy.
in terms of customer satisfaction, there is a clear preference for digital and multi-channel service. However, poor self service can cause the customer to abandon the channel. For organizations, self- service saves costs as long as the service is provided correctly and the information is synchronized between the different channels. Today, customer satisfaction is still very high when a live representative is involved, but our assessment is that in the near future, the picture may change following the entry of innovative tools that enhance the service experience significantly. We expect robots (or “bots”) to become the next preferred channel for self service, with the accumulation of data, which enables a better automatic service than ever before.
A “Mobile First” strategy is more important than ever. It requires more than merely transferring a general e-commerce experience into a mobile format as it is more instant and local, and it enables leveraging of the mobile device’s features, such as the camera. Proximity, personalization and loyalty are the three key themes for mobile in 2018.
2016 Continues to reflect the enormous role of Big Data in digital marketing. Wisely used, Big Data can tell us almost everything about our consumers – who they are, what their interests are, what they are interested in buying / doing / drinking etc., where they are and who they are with.
Furthermore, despite consumers' need in protecting their privacy, they are willing to give away details that will help companies personalize better to their personal benefit (for example through personalized discounts, personalized offers etc.).
In order to succeed doing so, companies need to use Big Data by first recognizing the questions they would like to answer; then, gathering the information; and finally, analyzing it.
In 2016, more than ever, simultaneously is the key word – 79% of consumers (and 90% of Millennials) switch devices during a single online activity, according to Get Personal report by Adobe; The usage of applications and social media for messaging continues to grow, creating "data exclusives" who rarely use their mobile for voice calls; and applications of familiar technologies are expanding to new areas (such as location-based technologies which in addition to marketing are also used for business operations, customer services and more).
6 Content Marketing Trends To Look Out For Beyond 2021PaulDonahue16
Content marketing plays a pivotal role in running a business. If you are a business owner, understanding the trends working well for other brands can help you achieve your business goals, such as generating leads, improving conversions, and increasing sales.
https://advdms.com/blog/6-content-marketing-trends-to-look-out-for-beyond-2021/
E-Commerce Connected By Social Media: Microblogging Information Recommitted t...dbpublications
In recent years, the boundaries
between e-commerce and social networking have
become increasingly blurred. Many e-commerce
websites support the mechanism of social login where
users can sign on the websites using their social
network identities such as their Face book or Twitter
accounts. Users can also post their newly purchased
products on micro blogs with links to the e-commerce
product web pages. In this paper we propose a novel
solution for cross-site cold-start product
recommendation which aims to recommend products
from e-commerce websites to users at social
networking sites in “cold-start” situations, a problem
which has rarely been explored before. A major
challenge is how to leverage knowledge extracted
from social networking sites for cross-site cold-start
product recommendation. We propose to use the
linked users across social networking sites and ecommerce
websites (users who have social networking
accounts and have made purchases on e-commerce
websites) as a bridge to map users’ social networking
features to another feature representation for product
recommendation. In specific, we propose learning both
users’ and products’ feature representations (called
user embeddings and product embeddings,
respectively) from data collected from e-commerce
websites using recurrent neural networks and then
apply a modified gradient boosting trees method to
transform users’ social networking features into user
embeddings. We then develop a feature-based matrix
factorization approach which can leverage the learnt
user embeddings for cold-start product
recommendation. Experimental results on a large
dataset constructed from the largest Chinese micro
blogging service SINA WEIBO and the largest
Chinese B2C e-commerce website JINGDONG have
shown the effectiveness of our proposed framework.
The business case for Personal Financial Management (PFM) — and MoneyDesktop (MD) specifically — continues to get better and better each year. As proof, we’ve gathered data from dozens of compelling sources. This data collectively answers three key questions:
1. Why Change?
2. Why PFM?
3. Why MD?
The answers to these questions showcase why MD continues to bring a phenomenal return on investment (ROI) for financial institutions everywhere.
Let’s get started.
Business Case #7 Internet Marketing The Internet has b.docxRAHUL126667
Business Case #7
Internet Marketing
The Internet has been the fastest-growing marketing medium in recent years. As Internet
technology has developed and broadband penetration has increased, numerous opportunities have
arisen which more and more companies are trying to exploit.
This note describes various aspects of online marketing. Each section of the note is self-contained
and addresses a particular theme:
The first section, “The online audience”, explains how, and how widely, the Internet is used today.
A medium is only useful for marketing purposes if it allows sellers to reach potential buyers. This
section looks at online shoppers and their willingness to research and carry out purchases online.
The second section, “Particularities of the Internet”, compares the Internet with other media. The
Internet is different from other media in certain respects, but there is nothing to be afraid of. The
challenge is to exploit its particularities so as get the best possible return on investment.
The third section, “Potential of Internet marketing”, shows how the Internet can be the vehicle for
marketing activities at all stages of the purchase process. Whether the aim is to arouse consumer
interest in a sales proposition, explain the proposition or close a sale, the Internet has the tools to
do it.
The fourth section, “Options for Internet marketing”, describes the most widely used online
marketing tools.
The fifth section, “The Internet marketing market”, presents the players in the market. To find the
right service provider, assuming we have decided what we expect from our online campaign and
how we want to approach it, we need to know the types of companies there are and the services
they offer.
The last section of the note, “Examples of Internet use”, describes some advertising campaigns
that have included the Internet in their media plan. This section is not intended as an exhaustive
sample but presents different ways in which the Internet has been used by companies that
advertise online.
At the end of the note we attach a list of sources of up-to-date information about the Internet.
Although the ideas and concepts set forth in the note are relatively well established, the statistics
are likely to change quite rapidly. Anticipating this eventuality, we indicate public sources from
which the latest figures on Internet marketing can be obtained.
Business Case #7
The Internet Audience
Who is Online?
One of the first questions to be considered when organizing a communication campaign is who
the intended audience is. The larger the population that use a given medium as a source of
information, the more communication options that medium will offer.
The population of Internet users in Spain is around 22.5 million and the population of daily users,
around 12 million. This makes the Internet the sixth most widely used medium.
Figure 1. Penetration of the m ...
Abstract
Over the last decade, the way people communicate with each other has been changing astonishingly. The
extensive new plethora of media has given to customers more options to gather and provide information
about products and services. This study attempted to identify and measure the degree to which Social
Networking Sites influence people's professional lives, their social skills and work productivity and
ultimately boost effectiveness. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies were used for this research.
The results reveal that Social Networking Sites play an essential role in employees‟ relations with
customers, that Instant Messaging (IM) services offered by Social Networking Sites can be a crucial
element for organizations in disseminating information, enabling knowledge sharing, increasing
productivity and promoting teamwork. It seems that customer engagement and Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) are vital tools for organizational effectiveness, not only to maintain loyal clients but
also to survive and keep maintaining profitability.
Keywords: Social Media, Social Commerce, Social Networking, CRM, Instant Messaging (IM), Web
2.0, Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter, Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Cyprus.
An Analysis of Strategy of Internet Marketing in Indian ScenarioDr. Amarjeet Singh
The use of internet has a direct effect on country’s
economy. A study from Indian Council for Research and
International Economic Relations (ICRIER) reveals that on
an average 10% increase in internet subscriber results in
1.08% of increase in output. Thus, the increasing internet
penetration has a huge impact on country’s GDP. Internet is
overcoming the constraints like lack of alternative
infrastructure, lack of proper roads and lack of information
fairly efficiently and quickly. Internet has brought more
transparency into the system which is giving everybody equal
opportunity. Internet users are able to compare prices, search
hard-to-find items or information, communicate and learn in
new, improved ways. Governments can serve citizens much
more quickly and cost effectively through e-governance. It
has changed the way business is conducted in today’s world.
This article will focus on Internet marketing and the
strategies used to make the efforts successful. The Internet
poses both opportunities and threats to the field of marketing.
When developing a strategic marketing plan, organizations
will need to determine if and when internet marketing will be
utilized. The success of the Internet as a medium for
marketing depends upon how well the system outperforms
alternative systems. This article will also explore how an
organization can establish a customer base with the sitecentric and symbiotic marketing approaches.
Face of Today's Consumer: 2010 Trend ReviewK Anggakara
What drives consumer to go wow nowadays? Business must acknowledge that in 2010, the face of consumer has changed in an extent never seen before!, the presentation offer a view on the consumer trend and how business gel-in to the matter.
“Impact of E-Marketing on Consumer Behaviour: a Case of Karachi, Pakistan”IOSRJBM
The increase of technologies in the business world marketer’s job changes from billboard and print advertisement to more on e-marketing mediums. The design, the target audience specified with the high increase of online marketing, online buying and selling, and online companies web-design. Today’s companies focused on designing the web-page for marketing their product rather than showing advertisements on TV, billboard, magazines, newspapers etc. e-marketing is the future of marketing, it is quick, less costly and give accurate information on time. This research shows that almost 80-90% people are attracted with the online advertisement which is done mostly on social websites, as social webs users are not specific to gender and age group so everyone see their type of advertisement on their Facebook pages. Today’s customers are buying products mostly after watching online advertisement rather than by reading a newspapers, magazines or watching T.V. As today’s customers are not brand loyal anymore so with the help of online marketing company give updates of their products or services to maintain loyalty with their customers. For staying into the nowadays business world, companies should adopt e-marketing, e-buying and e-selling, online banking facilities to purchase online goods, ATM cards, mobile marketing and other these kinds of marketing tool. E-marketing is the golden success factor for nowadays marketing firms. A good source of capturing the overall world marketing through online marketing is by imposing advertisement on YouTube, Facebook, E-mail, E-webs for both business advertisement and consumer buying products and services advertisements. For the greater success of any business companies are quickly adopting e-marketing style of advertisement because they see more spark in e-marketing rather than advertised on other commercial tools. Because of e-marketing, e-buying and selling increase, and because of e-buying and selling ATM cards and e-buying, e-shopping and e-marketing reach to the best stage of their success.
Who, What, Why, and how computerize advancing AkramKhan68669
Digital marketing, also called online marketing, refers to all marketing efforts that occur on the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. This also includes communication through text or multimedia messages.
A seasoned inbound marketer might say inbound marketing and digital marketing are virtually the same thing, but there are some minor differences. And conversations with marketers and business owners in the U.S., U.K., Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, I've learned a lot about how those small differences are being observed across the world
MANAGERIAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL COMMERCE Re.docxinfantsuk
MANAGERIAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL COMMERCE
Research Paper
Managerial Economic Analysis of the Impact of Social Commerce on E-commerce
Submitted by
Student
Prepared for
Professor Thomas C. Makemson
BUSN 6120, Managerial Economics
Spring 1, 20XX
Section: XX
Webster University
March 2, 20xx
CERTIFICATE OF AUTHORSHIP: I, xx, certify that I am the author. I have cited all sources from which I used data, ideas, or words, either quoted directly or paraphrased. I also certify that this paper was prepared by me specifically for this course.
____________ 03/02/20xx
Signature Date
Today, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, MySpace are well-known social networking brand names that many of us have grown accustomed to making part of our daily routine, whether it be for staying in touch with friends, networking, or micro-blogging. Social networking tools have the potential to revolutionize e-commerce as we know it today through “social commerce” platforms. A 2011 study by Booz & Co estimates that social commerce is currently a $5 billion market with the potential to grow to $30 billion in five years. Social commerce's transformational power lies in its personalization of the internet experience, connectivity with an individual’s network, and the dynamic customer data collection that can drive current and future marketing and sales efforts. In this paper, the author will introduce the social commerce concept, examine the social commerce market, explore the effect of social commerce on consumer behavior, discuss social commerce pricing strategies and valuation of social commerce networks, evaluate the industry concentration and look at the future of the social commerce.
What is Social Commerce?
Even though today we equate social networking with Facebook and Twitter, social networking itself is not a brand new concept. “Early forms of social networks include the guilds in medieval Europe, trade groups, and unions, which can be traced back to the early 18th century, and more modern venues like the Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Clubs, which have emerged over the last 10 decades as accepted forums for professionals in similar industries and business communities to meet and further commerce, business relationships, and advocate for changes in business practices”. These early systems evolved into the social networks of today and more recently integrated with modern e-commerce capabilities to develop a new marketing and sales channel known as social commerce.
Because it is a nascent field, the term “social commerce” has many definitions depending on consumer and provider viewpoints. However, the author has chosen to use this definition throughout this paper: social commerce is a “subset of electronic commerce that involves using social media, online media that supports social interaction and user contributions, to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services”.
Today, soc ...
The purpose of this article is to explore e-commerce issues particularly for developing an appropriate framework for ecommerce marketing. The issues that e-commerce faces will be examined through the marketing mix. The authors consider process as an additional P especially for ecommerce. Exploring the ideas of product, place, price, promotion and process with their implication in addressing and mitigating problems of ecommerce is the main focal point of this article. The authors find that the five concepts of the marketing mix equally play a critical part in the success of e-commerce. Therefore, concentrating on these concepts will prove to be of the utmost importance as an e-commerce provider.
Similar to Internet is unfair – Exploring exploitation and consumer power (20)
A framework for e commerce marketing in bangladesh
Internet is unfair – Exploring exploitation and consumer power
1. 1
Internet is unfair – Exploring exploitation and consumer power.
Introduction
As a convergence medium of digital generation, Internet has a rapid
development in today’s world. Tiziana (2000) argued that ‘the Internet is
animated by cultural and technical labor through and through, a continuous
production of value that is completely immanent to the flows of the network
society at large.’ Internet users have been adding almost 1 million more users
each month since 1997, according to the head of the UN's telecommunications
agency, Hamadoun Toure (2011), the number of Internet users worldwide has
reached the two billion mark already. In other words, with the world's
population exceeding 6.8 billion, nearly one person in three surfs online.
Moreover, Nielsen and the Pew Research Center found that ‘55 percent of
Americans use the Internet every day’ and devote ‘60 hours a month online.’
(Catherine, S., 2010). With the advent of cyber generation, more and more
online activities appeared, people spend their time online and cyber world
seems to be their second life. With the wave of online activities increased,
user-generated content become important than ever and these creative
content controlled Generation Y in some way, especially purchasing decisions.
In terms of such influence of user-generated content, commercial companies
began to make strategies around achieving the value of these content. Thus,
because of creative content, Internet users not only are being as customers
but also have the identities of producers. With these changes, the relationship
between commercial companies and Internet users has changed as well,
particular in economic aspect, the relationship become even more intimate
(José van Dijck, 2008). In this study, economy is the main perspective that will
be exploring.
2. 2
In recent critical analysis of digital media, user-generated content and cultural
industries, there is a dominant theme that they involve unpaid work on the part
of participants (David, H., 2010). In the digital era, Internet users participate
online activities as free labor to commercial companies.
Have you ever wondered about why websites seem to know exactly how to
placing the advertisements about the merchandise you would be willing to
purchase? Technically, websites contract with the commercial companies and
put these influential advertisements on the pages for increasing partnering
business. However, how these companies find these advertisements which
useful to customers? In fact, in online activities like with every click and every
webpages users visit, the personal information including credit card numbers,
social security numbers, passwords, and even medical records, have the
potential to be accessed by third parties without any permission. However,
these are invisible contribution from users, a mount of user-generated content
used by companies are visible contribute. In cyber area, users like to
exchange their ideas and share their own experience to others for helping. The
most common visible contribution to commercial companies is making
comments on purchasing items. In this case, from customers view, buyers
share experience to strangers for giving advice on their purchasing decisions,
however, these information are using for improve their products by companies
with no thanks to producers.
In this research, the main argument is to explore the exploitation and
consumer power from economic perspective in Generation Y. Furthermore,
exploring whether Internet is an unfair platform for users. Using the term unfair
because most Internet users don’t realize that their contribution is more
significant to corporations than it is to them and especially in economic
perspective. The research will identify the relationship between commercial
companies and Internet users. Additionally, analyzing who get the most
3. 3
economic benefits from Internet platform, furthermore, exploring the
exploitation of user generated content and its value to commercial companies.
Based on case study and interview in quantitative methodology, through
responds after interviewees realizing their position in economy perspective
online, exploring users’ understanding on user-generated content value and
economic benefits online.
However, all research in this study is in specific boundary. Some words and
phrases have limited definition like economic benefits and commercial
company, at the meantime, analysis from this study is in economic
perspective.
Specific definitions in this study
This research is about exploring exploitation and consumer power, additionally,
analyzing whether Internet is unfair platform to users, furthermore, explaining
the results to users and exploring their understanding in user-generated
content and their position in internet. In the meantime, this study is specifically
focus on analysis the one who gain more economic benefits online,
commercial companies or individuals at Generation Y. Under this
circumstance, some words or phrases have a specific meaning in this essay,
such as economic benefits, commercial companies. As following, I will define
these specific words and core subjects for this essay.
Generation Y
Recently, marketers have been paid attention to a certain group of consumers
because of their strong roles in influence public’s purchasing decisions. These
power purchasers are known as Generation Y (Corey, E., 2012). Generation Y
consists of the segment of the population born between 1978 and 1994, which
4. 4
also known as The Net Generation and Millennials. In Sheahan’s book about
Generation Y (2005), he indicated that while Generation Y people are creative
and ambitious, they are difficult to manage. However, owning to these
specializations of this generation, the development of user-gradated content
has been promoted a lot.
According to MarketingProfs via a Bazaarvoice survey (2012), Generation Y
counts for 25 percentage of the US population, moreover, these millennials’
annual spending power of over $200 billion will eclipse baby boomers’ by 2017.
With that kind of purchasing power, commercial companies want to figure out
the purchasing habits and alter marketing strategy for this huge demographic
of power purchasers. In this situation, user-generated content becomes a
significant key for marketers. From the survey, it turns out that Generation Y
cares about recommendations from strangers more than their friend or family
members, which is means users’ comments on goods work for them. More
than 8 in 10 say user-generated content from people online influences what
they buy.
Under this situation, the main object in this study will be focus on Generation Y,
analyzing their understanding and reaction for the ‘real look’ of Internet.
Economic benefits
According to the business dictionary, economic benefits is benefit quantifiable
in terms of money, such as revenue, net cash flow, net income. Meanwhile,
through Investor words, the definition of economic benefits is similar which
defined a benefit that can be expressed numerically as an amount of money
that will be saved or generated as the result of an action. It also mentioned
about the importance of economic benefits when comes to a business case.
Making a business case for a new strategy or product idea usually involves
5. 5
pointing out the economic benefits of the proposal to decision makers,
enabling them to measure the financial effects of the proposed change.
By summarizing these definitions, in short, economic benefit means an
increase of money. When it comes to Internet environment, money cannot only
refer to currency but also virtual currency and incomes that through network
marketing.
Everything cannot be created from nothing, so as money. In reality worlds,
through business event, take a simple explanation, goods can transferred into
money. While same things happened in cyber world, contents online can be
changed into money. For instance, blogging is a popular way to make money
online nowadays. The key here is that companies selling advertising through
Internet from many services. After starting up a personal blog, writers sign up
for ad services like Google AdSense, which post those familiar sponsored links
you often see at the top and on the sides of Web sites. The money will come
through the ad service when your blog readers click on those ads (John Fuller
and Stephanie Crawford, 2013). In this way of raising money, the most
important thing is that the blog should be consistently interesting and well
written, in other words, it is a kind of transfer contents into money. There are
some successful blogs, like ‘I Can Has Cheezburger?’ and ‘Boing Boing’,
which is so famous that companies want to reach their fan base with graphical
advertising around the blog (John Fuller and Stephanie Crawford, 2013).
In terms of this perspective, economic benefits in Internet have specific
meaning, and the type of money and the way of transfer are all in specific
boundary. Thus, in this essay, the definition will be a specific one for Internet
platform, which refer to transfer user-generated content to economy value
(either money or virtual currency).
6. 6
Commercial company
According to Longman Business English Dictionary, commercial company is a
company that has to follow normal accepted business practices and operates
in order to make a profit a company that is not a financial institution. However,
in the cyber world, commercial company still playing the role to provide an
economic cycle for the Internet. In this essay, the commercial company refers
to those companies that participant in online economy.
User-generated content
The rapid advance of technological process over the past years has provided
general public a new ways of interaction and communication via Internet (Nico,
C., Alexander K., Daniel S. and Matthias S., 2009). With more and more users
participate on online activities, user-generated content (UGC) showing on the
stage of Internet. Furthermore, UGC ‘is one of the main features of this
so-called participative web’. (Wunsch-Vincent, Vickery, 2007)
UGC appears in many forms on internet as ‘a broad variety of channels to
grant information, views and media to other people’ (Wunsch Vincent, Vickery,
2007). It has variety content types: text, images, audio, video, customer
reviews/feedbacks, educational content, mobile content, and virtual content. In
the meantime, internet offers different platforms to fit these content such as
blogs, wikis (text-based collaboration formats), feedback-allowing sites like
Amazon.com, group-based aggregation like del.icio.us, podcasting, hosting
sites like YouTube and Flickr, social networking sites like Facebook (Nico, C.,
Alexander, K., Daniel, S. and Matthias, S., 2009).
7. 7
As there is no commonly agreed definition of UGC, there are three main
characteristics from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) as follows: Publication requirement, Creative effort,
Creation outside of professional routines and practices.
With these characteristics from UGC, in the meantime, with the advance of
Internet, user-generated content began to show its values in variety aspects.
For example, there are visible benefits from user-generated content, like in
news reporting. Nowadays, owing to user-generated content online becoming
popular, ‘citizen journalism’ is a common phenomenon. In recent years, a
number of big news organizations like in BBC and CNN, user-generated
content have been used to supply the area which cannot be collected by
traditional journalism gathering system, in specific, like they giving rights to
internet users submitting photos, videos and updates on breaking news. In
short, the benefits are that as soon as incidents happened, the audiences
witnessing can post reports, photos or videos to the media on the Internet.
However, the advantages of UGC are massive, this is only a simple example
on the benefits from UGC, in economic perspective, UGC has the capacity to
influence purchase decisions, brand affinity and brand loyalty, which means it
has the ability to affect online economic value for commercial companies.
Under this situation, the study will explore the value of UGC in economy
aspect and whether the distribution of economic benefits from UGC is fair
enough.
8. 8
Whether Internet is unfair in economic perspective
With the advance of technical online services, Internet becomes a second
world in our daily life, creating online contents and receiving information from
web is a common stuff in Generation Y. To exploring whether Internet is unfair
to users in economic perspective, the following questions should be analysis
first: how Internet works in economic way; how about the distribution of profits;
what are users position in economy cycle online.
Since the beginning of the web, there are thousands of volunteers, hobbyists
and idealists have worked for the development of Internet. Thus, some
observers have described this phenomenon as a ‘gift economy for information
exchange’ (Barbrook, 2002). Apparently, Internet provides a simple,
convenience and fast way for information exchange. The module of economy
cycle online is about the exchange between user layer and commercial
company layer from content creation to data analysis. In user layer, the
activities are about content creation, interactive communication, information
received, while data collection and information analysis, marketing strategies
formulation in commercial company layer. When comes to the discussion
about economy value to all participants online, the most important thing is
about pointing out the fountainhead of economy cycle. Among the whole
process, online content should be a key to economic and the owner of it may
become the winner in this competition of benefits. Therefore, to be more
accurate, in this exchange, the way online content works reveals the way
Internet works in economy perspective.
Content online can be divided into UGC and non-UGC (professionally
generated content). According to a research from (Meeyoung, C., Haewoon,
K., Pablo, R., Yong-Yeol, A., and Sue, M., 2007), compared to non-UGC, UGC
9. 9
has more proportion in online content, and, a key characteristic of UGC is the
fast content production rate. There is a data from the research about the
unbelievable content number of UGC. It compared two famous video websites,
which is non-UGC, IMDb, the largest online movie database, carries 963,309
titles of movies and TV episodes produced since 1888 until today. In contrast,
the representative of UGC websites, YouTube, enjoys 65,000 daily new
uploads, which means that it only takes 15 days in YouTube to produce the
same number of videos as all IMDb movies.
From these data, it can be clearly seen that UGC should be the influence key
to online content, in other words, return to the perspective of this study,
economy, UGC plays a significant role in the decision on who get more
economic benefits from internet.
The form of user-generated content in virtual world seems to be a second
language to users. It provides a chance for users to speak freely in a public
sphere, in the meantime, offers a window for commercial companies observing
market online.
Whether these UGC content really worth money, the answer of this question is
obvious positive. The most obvious evidence is that companies willing paid for
the content users post online. Take Google purchase YouTube for $1.6 billion
as an example, YouTube is obviously only a platform for people sharing videos,
which may not valued for that large amount of money, however, in this trade,
Google company not only own the platform but also obtain the large database
from YouTube. Companies want to use their money more effectively which can
be seen as target marketing, in short, by analyzing users’ information and their
content, companies can improve their goods or services to obtain more
economic benefits. Thus, after Google purchase YouTube, they analysis user
data from it, then, YouTube had been re-cataloged its modules and with these
10. 10
changes it attract more Internet users to enjoy the platform. In a word, the
information that user supplied worth a lot of money to commercial companies.
There is another example from DataSift, DataSift signed an agreement with
twitter for buying its recent two years user-generated content. What makes
DataSift willing to pay such a mount of money buying gossips from Twitter
users? The reason is that the main service of DataSift is doing the excavation,
reorganization, and analysis of information from Twitter, after that,
comprehends real-time information from other social media platforms such as
Klout, PeerIndex and Facebook. By analysis these content, username,
followers, personal information and even position data from Twitter, getting
results about users’ behavior characteristic, tendency of interest. With these
results, DataSift can provide market guidance services for commercial
companies.
Both two cases indicated that Internet users’ content has a big value, however,
the interesting thing is that users enjoy create online content and they haven’t
realize the value of their contribution.
Furthermore, UGC is not only important to commercial companies but also has
a lot of meaning to users themselves as well. In Generation Y, create content
online seems to be a fashion, everyone enjoy the process to trigger a
discussion or share emotions. Additionally, in this age, users tend to consider
about others that including strangers’ advices. According to eMarketer, 65
percentage of users aged 18-24 considered information shared on social
networks when making a purchasing decision. There is about 2/3 of
consumers use search engines to help them research and make purchase
decisions (eConsultancy, 2013). It can be seen that, Generation Y have
integrated UGC into their day to day lives, making access to the opinions of
others easier than ever.
11. 11
Knowing user-generated content is significant to Millennials, marketers began
to align their strategies with the way users prefer to consider and execute
purchases. So there is a question about the way companies get user
information for economic value.
How commercial companies could access personal information and how they
use it? Companies gain economic benefits in a complicated way, the common
schedule is that companies get consumers’ user-generated contents first and
then analysis the data, after that, using the results to formulate their business
strategy.
Internet is an open area and personal information from this platform can be
collected by a variety of parties. What’s more, for some companies, data
collection is becoming a side business: companies track their Internet users,
organize that data and gain profiles from the information they develop. For
instance, Facebook utilizes users’ personal information to choose posting
pertinence advertisement on individuals’ pages. If a user comes into a certain
age group, has discussed movies, or posted about traveling, he or she should
see advertisements related to these topics. Take Amazon.com for another
example, which makes product suggestions to customers based on their past
purchases and/or searches. In both cases, Facebook and Amazon, they are
using information from their own websites and they have collected these data
to market to consumers.
Under the situation about user-generated content is important to both users
and commercial companies and they both rely on these content to continue
their online activities, it is so obvious that UGC can create economic profits
online, moreover, these profits were spectacular when come to exact money.
Here is a statistics from MYCUBE that trying to figure out how much do sites
12. 12
profited from UGC (Figure 1).
Figure 1
The info-graphic mentioned above indicated that a combined total of around
3.7 billion dollars are made from Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube and
Facebook from user-generated content. However, users do not received any
economic profits from these content, which means users being free labors in
this process.
However, from this view of UGC has a large percentage in sites profits, the
creation of UGC, in economic aspect, users seem to be as ‘working’ for
Internet. Nevertheless, users still can earn little money from Internet or even
commercial companies. For instance, Google is well known for its
unconventional labor contracts and its ‘geek culture’ that pays bonuses for
creative input and provides spare time for employees to spend on
non-assigned projects (José van Dijck, 2008). However, these paid content is
so less and have a strict condition limited, most of UGC is unpaid. Thus, under
this situation, Internet users seem as free labors to make contribution to
13. 13
Internet economy. According to Tiziana (2000), it ‘is a feature of the cultural
economy’.
However, while these users in the process of ‘working’ online, they enjoy their
creation as play. Douglas (1999) and Gillespie (2006) indicated that working
with media technologies has been the department of hobbyists since the time
of radio hams, and digital labor has acquired the image of being creative play.
Thus, under this statement, being as a free labor to Internet seems to be a
volunteer work for users, they may do not care about the economic value.
However, even though it is so obvious that Internet provide much convenience
to both Internet users and commercial companies and users enjoy the process
when they being ‘digital labors’, it can be seen as an unfair economy exchange
to Internet users, even they may not care. Typically, most content online
belongs to user-generated content while commercial companies always
playing the role to profit on user online activity by tracking their interests,
affiliations, and habits, through gathering and using information to create
economic interests. Even sometimes users can earn money from their creative
content, in the environment of Internet information area, commercial
companies still in the leader position.
Therefore, it comes to the question that who gains more economic benefits
from Internet, commercial company or individual users. The answer of this
question is the commercial company and the reason is that users doing unpaid
work online for creating content to support the running of economy cycle. In
term of the definition of economic value and the percentage of data users
provide to websites, it can be seen that users are in the weak position from
economy perspective, they created valuable content without awareness.
14. 14
Who run Internet exactly, from all the above, no one actually running it. The
Internet is not ‘run’ by any one person, group or organization. It might be better
to think of it as an entity that is governed by a number of different groups from
different backgrounds. Collectively, they work to develop standards and
policies to ensure the Internet is usable and appropriate globally. In other
words, Internet is like a platform that building a world just likes the reality one.
Commercial companies are not changing their responsibility while Internet
users played producer and consumer at the same time.
Back to the questions about whether Internet is fair in economic aspect, if we
said there is a fair relationship between customer and companies in the reality
world, the relationship must be unfair in cyber world. Because users have two
identities in cyber world that they both are producer and consumer, in the
meantime, they do not obtain any extra economic benefits from these invisible
contributions.
However, some users hold the idea that they received economy interest online.
It cannot be denied that with the advance of web 2.0 technologies, more and
more UGC sites appeared, it encouraged internet users participating into
producing activities more than consuming activities, during this period, users
be given more power over content because they add business value as well.
Standing on marketing and business perspective, hybrid terms such as
‘co-creation’ and ‘produsage’ are rapidly replacing the terms ‘consumption’ and
‘customization’ (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). According to media
analysts and business gurus, there is a new shift among digital platforms,
especially Internet, in the way companies approach their customers and go
about business relations:
15. 15
You can participate in the economy as an equal, co-creating value with your
peers and favorite companies to meet your very personal needs, to engage in
fulfilling communities, to change the world, or just to have fun! (Tapscott and
Williams, 2006)
However, before users can actually contribute to these commercial companies
by uploads or comments to a site, they usually have to register with their name,
email address and sometimes add more personal details such as gender, age,
nationality or income. Their subsequent media behavior can be detailed traced
by variety means. More importantly, all users of UGC sites provide information
without awareness because their IP addresses which platform owner can used
without limit. Furthermore, even it comes to permission that should users to
agree, the bottom line of agreement is that users have no power over data
distribution, which is means there is almost no rights for users to control the
use of their information. However, in the information era, losing the control of
content means losing the position in online platform.
All in all, under the situation above, what we cannot deny is that Internet is a
platform for exchange, however, in economy perspective, it exits in an unfair
way to users.
Methodology
The purpose of this research is to examine the exploitation and consumer
power on the platform of Internet in economic aspect and analysis the reaction
of users after pointing out their value and things they ignored in daily life
through case study.
In this section, I will describe the methodology used in this research and
explain the design of case study, additionally, provide an explanation of data
16. 16
analysis.
Research methodology
Researchers have long debated the relative value of qualitative and
quantitative inquiry (Patton, 1990). Qualitative research uses a naturalistic
approach that seeks to understand phenomena in context-specific settings.
While quantitative research uses experimental methods and quantitative
measures to test hypothetical generalizations. (Marie C. Hoepfl, 1997)
However, qualitative research aims to gather an in-depth understanding of
human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. Additionally, the
qualitative method emphasizes the why and how of a question or phenomena,
not just using numbers to represent of what, where and when as quantitative
research.
In this study, the main discussion is about users’ reaction when engaging a
different view of Internet from economic perspective. The data will be analysis
is about their feelings before and after knowing what happened online,
moreover, their opinions on ‘whether internet is unfair’. In this case, an open
answer will contribute to the research and the reactions may be difficult to
convey quantitatively, which means quantitative research method maybe not
suitable enough to reach the request. Hence, a qualitative research
methodology was used for this study.
Qualitative research, broadly defined, means ‘any kind of research that
produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other
means of quantification’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). There are several
considerations suitable to adopt a qualitative research methodology. Strauss
and Corbin (1990) claim that qualitative methods can be used to better
understand any phenomenon about which little is yet known or gain new
17. 17
perspectives on things that already known, or to gain more in-depth
information. Thus, using qualitative methods may help this study identify
variables vision from the same situation, moreover, participants could describe
or interpret the situation they experienced before and compared with the
website I will show to them.
There are many research method belong to qualitative methodology, the main
methods employed in qualitative research are observation, interviews, case
study and documentary analysis (Nick, P., 2006). Among these methods,
interviews are suitable for discovery of information about experience from
participants. Interview questions tend to be framed as open-ended questions
that will support discovery of new information. Furthermore, ‘If you want people
to understand better than they otherwise might, provide them information in
the form in which they usually experience it’ (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). It can
be know from Lincoln and Guba that the information from qualitative research
is not only from the researchers’ perspective, but also from participants’
perspective as well. What researcher can do is only guiding the questions and
cannot restrict the answer. Therefore, the reports from qualitative research
typically rich with detail and insights into participants' experiences of the
situation, ‘may be epistemologically in harmony with the reader's experience’
(Stake, 1978) and thus more meaningful.
Based on the research questions and case study I supposed to use, interview
will be chosen to analysis users’ experience from both before and after receive
information from case study. In the following, I will explain the design of case
study and interview.
18. 18
Design of case study and interview
Case study
Case study is a form of qualitative research methodology that is used to collect
descriptive data through individuals, a small group of participants. Meanwhile,
Siggelkow (2007) argues that a single case analysis can be a very powerful
example and can be used to fill in the gaps in existing theories. Furthermore,
Thomas (2011) offers a definition of case study as follows.
‘Case studies are analyses of persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies,
institutions, or other systems that are studied holistically by one or more methods. The case
that is the subject of the inquiry will be an instance of a class of phenomena that provides an
analytical frame, an object, within which the study is conducted and which the case illuminates
and explicates.’
Therefore, using a case study for analyzing users’ reaction after they realize
their economic value is suitable for this research.
The case in this study is a website that I designed by myself. The purpose of
the website is showing people the process of Internet, the policy they ignored
and the value of UGC in the perspective of economic benefits. In another
words, pointing out how much contribution Internet users has made in online
activities. The website demonstrates information about the exploitation of
user-generated content and its value to commercial companies in interesting,
interactive and entertaining ways. Moreover, the idea is to make users think
differently about the value of their contributions and all the statements in the
website is based on the above research about whether Internet is unfair.
19. 19
In this project, three sections have been designed to refresh users visions of
Internet，respectively are videos about the process of internet, introduction
games in UGC’s value and description of privacy policy.
The section of videos tries to represent the process of Internet and the
purpose of this section is to provide a deep introduction of Internet to users. In
those videos, the following contents have been mentioned: the creation of
online content, the translation between content and code, the database of
Internet, the process of data organized and the analysis of online
information(Figure 2).
Figure 2
The section of introduction about users their value to websites is using an
interactive form. Additionally, these value in this part come from ‘Backupify
Social Data Value Infographic’ (figure 3-4), which adopted a roundabout way
by building off some publicly available information to figure out what social
data, which social media companies, and what social media actions are the
most valuable.
20. 20
Figure 3
Figure 4
In this participate part, the website will simulate a social networking life for
users, users will be guided to choose a website they prefer and then they will
experienced steps about being a number of the one they chose like sign up
and publish their thoughts. However, in this period of time, after they finished
fill in information or click button for submit, the economic value of the content
they just created will be showed into exact money. Because of exact numbers
are more easily to stimulate people thinking, with the numbers of value, the
purpose of this part is making users rethink about what they contributed before.
(Figure 5)
21. 21
Figure 5
The section of privacy policy provides significant information that users ignored
in their daily surfing life like the privacy policy from social media and some
other websites. Take privacy policy from Facebook for example, when the first
time a users sign up for his or her Facebook, there is a line below says ‘By
clicking Sign Up, you agree to our Terms and that you have read our Data use
policy, including our Cookie Use’, which is always ignored by users. However,
what exactly in the policy? In data use policy, it explicitly point out that the
information they received about users and how they use the information they
receive. Thus, in the website, some content from the policy that users ignored
were highlight like ‘ we use the information we receive about you in connection
with the services and …the advertisers that purchase ads on the site and
developers…’(Figure 6)
22. 22
Figure 6
From this policy, it can be seen that users’ information can turn into economic
profiles by shared with social media’s working partners. In daily life, most of
users do not reading the policy that website provide to them. When coming to
sign up for website, most of Internet users just click the box below to agree
with the policy without read it. In this section, specific rules showing for remind
users about what they had missed when given out information.
The purpose of designing this website is to be a case for helping the study to
collect data from users reaction on receiving a different view of Internet in
economic aspect. Furthermore, I want to using this website to refresh people's
thoughts about Internet and let them notice their position in the platform of
Internet.
Interview
Interview is a form of qualitative methodology that can be referred as
conversations between two or more people where the interviewer asks
questions to the interviewee to obtain information. It is an important tool used
23. 23
to depict the story behind the interviewees’ experiences (McNamara, 1999).
Owning to interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a
participant's experiences, it provided interviewer a chance to pursue in-depth
information around a topic. In this study, the topic will be around whether
Internet is fair to users in economic perspective.
In this study, participants will be asked to have a short interview and talking
about their opinions on this study in both before and after using website.
Because of open content of interview will have more research value, the form
of interview will be use semi-open interview, which interviewees will be asked
specific core questions and the purpose is exploring in-depth information and
interviewees are allowed broad freedom of expression and elaboration. During
this period, the conversation will be record into text for analysis.
There are 12 interviewees who come from different country, university and
major but in the same age group (18-25) that is in Generation Y. Even though
the age group is limited, the different backgrounds provide a variety and
interesting research. All of them are agreed about using our conversation in
this research. (More information can be seen in appendices)
In the interview, the design of questions were divided into two main sections
that are before and after using website. The main questions will be explored
before using websites is about users’ cyber life, understanding of UGC, the
value of content they created, their relationship with commercial companies
and opinions about information security. The after part of interview was
exploring the changes after users receiving information in different vision of
Internet. Additionally, whether Internet is unfair will be asked in the last
questions of interview.
24. 24
Research in users’ understanding of UGC and position online
Before case study
Before interviewees using website, they will be asked some questions about
their understanding of UGC and their position in online economy cycle. In this
part, the answers were all based on participants’ own experience before and it
reflected the truly understanding from Internet users. Only fewer participants
know what is UGC exactly and showed a positive attitude to create content
online. Most of interviewees need the explanation of UGC, even they know the
definition of content they generated online, they can hardly had a vision in
what they have contributed to internet. Thus, all of interviewees have created
online content more or less but almost everyone did not know it worth money.
As following, it is a typical example on the understanding of UGC from users.
Q: Have you released any information or created any content, after accessing to the Internet?
A: I think I have not created any information myself.
(After giving the detail conception about publishing information)
Yes, I have. I often forward some breaking news and interesting jokes posted by others, cause
I think it is convenient for me to share with my friends; simultaneously I can keep the
information that I am interested as my favour, so that I can read it later.
(Interview from Xiaolong Zheng, 24, Chinese, MSc Management and Finance, University of
Sussex)
When it comes to the questions about economic value of content, most of the
participants were hardly in giving an answer to it, most of them never thought
about the value of content in economic way. They were just like the idea of
working as play, which from Douglas(1999) and Gillespie(2006), they enjoy the
process in creating content and seeing this as play, in other word, economic
25. 25
benefits are not their motivation in cyber world. In Evangeline1
’s interview, she
mentioned that she thought create content and sharing it to other people online
is a happy thing and she did not think about the money refund, what she
expect is the responses from other Internet users. From her interview, it was
clearly showing the motivation of online content creation from general Internet
users. Besides money, the Internet users preferred to interactive content
communication with others online. Because of their understanding about
content that users generated, the question of the relationship between users
online and commercial company making interviewees confused became
reasonable. Xiaolong2
said the relationship might be only the normal business
relationship between consumer and producer. In the meantime, Shanshan3
hold the similar idea and given the answer like their relationship ‘basically the
same as in the real world’.
When considering the online private security problem, it was about half of the
interviewees said they did not worried about it and mentioned the idea about
the believable website. In Roda4
’s interview, he said that he think in today’s
cyber world, websites were believable than before and he mentioned that
everything he given out online is not so private that he should worried. This is a
kind of ‘volunteer sharing’ (Linda, C., 2011), Linda also mentioned that with too
many and too often clicks through permission requests and privacy policies
without thinking, Internet users use to ignore the impact of their privacy.
However, in this question, the other half of participants who said they have
trust problem in online private security had mentioned about bank account
security and private information on social networking. Most of them said they
would never given out their bank details to unsure websites. For Chang5
’s
interview, he mentioned the topic about personal data protection, he take an
1 Evangeline Lai, 23, Chinese, MBA, New York Institute of Technology (Interview at 2013/8/3)
2 Xiaolong Zheng, 24, Chinese, MSc Management and Finance, University of Sussex (Interview at 2013/8/1)
3 Shanshan Jiang, 21, Chinese, BA Bank and finance, University of Sussex (interview at 2013/8/4)
4 Roda Haidar, 22, French, BA Mechanical Engineer, UCL (Interview at 2013/8/3)
5 Chang Jiang, 24, Chinese, MA digital media, University of Sussex (Interview at 2013/8/3)
26. 26
example to explain why he cannot trust Internet now. He said that he thought
internet is an amazing technic platform and he only given out the personal
information to the web which has data protection techniques like login or
privacy setting system, however, sometimes he still can receive
advertisements from unknown senders, and the most scaring thing to him is
that when he searched some items online and the advertisements about it
were appeared everywhere on different web pages. ‘The ads like a ghost
watching you, following you everywhere, it was horrible.’
After case study
After showing website to these interviewees, explaining what exactly
happened in Internet and showing them things that they maybe ignored when
they surfing online, their responds were different and have a great value to the
research.
Based on the description of how user-generated content works in Internet from
an economic vision, coming to the questions about UGC, most interviewees
said that they haven’t realized these content they generated working in such
way. The brand new thing for them is about the place contents went to after
they created. Some of interviewees said that they never thought about the big
database and professional analyzed contents. However, most of them felt this
process is reasonable and can help the development of Internet in a right way.
During this stage, some of users also mentioned that they do not care about
the economic value about their information being sold in the process, in other
vision, they hold the idea about they gain other benefits from internet as well,
like after their information be analyzed they can get useful information or
service more directly from companies. There also has the comment like
everything should be paid and Internet is a platform which providing
27. 27
convenience life for public, internet users must contribute to these commercial
companies which support the running of internet.
Take Saori6
’s interview for example, after she saw videos from website, she
had a big reaction to the process of Internet working. She said that ‘ I never
thought it before’. In her imagination, firstly, the content users created on social
media like Facebook was just an expression for self-emotion and do not have
an economic value, secondly, information given out for sign up specific website
is only can use by user themselves and do not sale to other companies.
Additionally, she said she never thought there are surveillances in Internet by
commercial companies or other parties.
In the meantime, there is about five of participants mentioned that they notice
the surveillance online but still surprise about the way that commercial
companies gathering the information. What does not surprise for them was the
way companies using these information, and almost every interviewees said
that they did not care about their information were analysis for companies’
business strategy and even some of participants said they were glad that their
information can help those companies improve the marketing.
Even the process of how user-generated content turn into economic value
gives most of participants surprise, they still hold the idea that this model
supply users other benefits, such as individual shopping advices or improved
items, which is good for the revolve of Internet. Thus, it can be seen that
participant culture (José van Dijck, 2008) has a rapid development among
cyber world, users are enjoy the process of create content online.
6 Saori Somekawa, 22, Japanese, BA International communication, Kyoto Sangyo University (Interview at
2013/8/6)
28. 28
When it comes to the questions about the position of UGC and participants
themselves, interviewees had different opinions. Some of them thought that
they were at a high position first, cause they saw users were producer in the
process but after known the exact money and the private policy, they have
changed the idea.
Take Yang7
for example, he said that he felt ok when he saw the process and
glad to participant in helping companies for marketing improvement but when
he reached the price of each words or sentence he made, he came up the idea
that it is unfair. He talked about the idea that he needs to protect personal
information in the future. He agreed with that analysis will improve the market
in a right way but he can hardly accept the collections way companies do.
Companies giving users flexible space to create and exchange content online,
at the meantime, users get a sense of being the owner of Internet. Commercial
companies use their sense to let them being the free labor to create interests.
However, the truth is that some users live in the virtual world that companies
created. They cannot see it clearly and being free labor for a long time, like
Charlie8
, in his interview, he mentioned that, he thought users were being a
kind of leader on Internet before because there are always some hot debate
can be stirred up by the Internet users. However, when he saw the exact
numbers of money for his content, he was surprise at the first time and then a
conflicted emotion came out and he began to think about the contribution he
has done. But he said that he just surprised the content worth such money, he
does not care about whether this money belongs to him cause he already
experienced a sense of achievement. In term of his interview, it can be seen
that commercial companies using this psyche motivation from consumers to
push them create content, which is as ‘participant culture’ (José van Dijck,
7 Yang Zhang, 23, Chinese, MA Telecommunication, Michigan State University (Interviewed at 2013/8/6)
8 Charlie Chen, 23, Chinese, MA Digital media, University of Sussex (Interviewed at 2013/8/5)
29. 29
2008) and ‘volunteer sharing’ (Linda, C., 2011) mentioned before.
There are also participants said they were surprise about the value of
information but they can accept the use of the information and it is ok to trade
their information under the law.
Take Haoxin9
for example, she said that, ‘ it seems we were be exploited from
the commercial companies, but we still cannot do anything, in this situation,
maybe the best thing we can do is to accept and have fun with it.’ Her words
was exactly indicated the mental state of ‘digital labor’, the free labor of
Internet.
Through analyzing reactions from participants, the answer of ‘does Internet
users know Internet exactly?’ is obviously negative. In most of the time, users
just use Internet as a platform they can have free speak and gathering
information they need, they do not care about the process inside Internet and
do not realize they are being ‘free labor’ in the process of building the cyber
world economy circle.
Internet users play a role named ‘digital labor’, in book ‘Digital Labor: The
Internet as Playground and Factory’, Scholz (2013) indicated that on the
Internet there are besides traditional wage labor irregular forms of labor that
are not paid, moreover, at the same time he pointed out that these digital labor
activities do not ‘feel, look, or smell like labor at all’. It can be seen that when
users having fun in online activity, they are making contribution to the Internet
all the time, more specifically, they contribute to commercial companies.
9 Haoxin Wang, 22, Chinese, MSc Informatics, RMIT University (Interviewed at 2013/8/5)
30. 30
When it comes to private policy, participants were answered questions like
‘Have you seen these policy before’ and ‘how do you feel when you see these
policy now’. In this interview, no one said they have read the policy before sign
up social media or other websites. When asked why they do not read policy,
the reason they given out was that they thought the policy is a protection for
users and all the people who signed up social media or other websites do not
have any problem, so they thought there is no risk in it. However, when they
known about how the policy works, they began to complain the policy, they
thought it was a kind of robber. In the meantime, participants said that they
think the website should giving an option for users to choose if they agreed to
share their information with some companies. Take Shan10
for example, he
said that ‘ It gives us no choice to share our information. Even though it is no
risk for our personal profiles, I still feeling weird to find the truth.’ When I asked
for if he would read these before sign up, he said never, cause it is too long
and he think there must be some boring law sentences. After he knows it now,
he said he might read the policy next time.
It was so obvious that people do not care about these policy content before
they know what is inside, however, they have no choice to change the situation
about the content, furthermore, even they known it, they will not chose to read
it as well because of they think their personal information is fine online and the
policy protect them more or less.
Nowadays, privacy is a hot issue when it comes to any aspect of online activity.
However the concept of privacy has existed for hundreds of years, lots of
people just have a lower understanding of it. Indeed, in Magna Carta11
, which
has the first definitions of the rights of the individual in history, there is no
mention of privacy. At that time, personal information had little value. With the
10 Shan Wang, 25, Chinese, MSc Computing with digital media, University of Sussex (Interviewed 2013/8/5)
11 Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter),[1] also called Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of the
Liberties of England, is an Angevin charter originally issued in Latin in the year 1215
31. 31
development of business, fierce competitions between companies appear,
thus, the value of personal information began to increase and with it the need
for privacy. Meanwhile, with the advent of the Internet, with its facility of global
instant access to information at virtually costless, companies can put
advertisements on individual pages directly. Additionally, by analyzing personal
information, companies can improve their individuation service and helpful to
set down business strategies. The value of personal data increased in these
years, especially in economic aspect. Public began to worry about their rights
online, for this reason, companies and websites began to claim privacy policy
to public.
Generally, there are many fundamental authentication, policy statements and
data protection techniques like logins, user-driven privacy settings for
protecting our privacy online by service providers (Steven Furnell and Andy
Phippen, 2012). The service provider will usually clearly propose about how
users’ data is used and how it is protected in publication of the privacy policy.
However, privacy policies often comes in for criticism for being too verbose
and complex to truly allow users to know their rights while using the service. In
today’s cyber world, all of the sites have policies on their home pages, so
users have the chance to read them before they login of sign-up. However,
while all sites have the clear links to privacy policy, this does not mean that
users will read and understand them.
Based on the research I have done before, the statement is that Internet is
unfair in the economic perspective. Thus, the suspect I made for this interview
is about after users knowing the contribution they made for Internet, they will
realize there is an unfair exchange in economic perspective. However,
according to the interview, the result is different from suspect before. Getting
economic benefits are not the motivation for users surfing online, under this
situation, users do not care about the value of contents they generated. They
32. 32
willing to create content online and enjoy changing economic value into other
service, from the interview, it can be seen that they think this trade is fair
enough. Compared to the value of UGC, users were more care about their
personal information security. Even so, the economic benefits from the
personal data are not the point of ‘unfair’ for them, what they considered was
the right online. Therefore, in terms of case study and interview, the conclusion
is that even Internet is unfair in economic perspective, there are many other
benefits it provided to users, from overall situation, Internet is a fair platform.
Conclusion
With the advance of Internet technologies, user generated content sites jump
into the main stage of Internet, in the mean time, changing people’s daily life.
Online users change their identities to be as producers and consumers at the
same time.
In this study, it used the quantitative research methodology to explore
exploitation and consumer power in economic aspect. The data analyzed in
the research collected from designed case study and interview. However, this
research is not a comprehensive one, which has many unconsidered aspects
as follows: firstly, the statement about ‘internet is unfair’ refer to the economic
benefits online which can not extend to other aspect of internet; secondly, in
the research, there were many words or phrases has limited definition which
may narrow down the result of research; thirdly, the interview data is only from
age group 18-25, even this study concentrated on Generation Y, which still
limited stand for whole internet users; fourthly, most of the interviewees are
Chinese which might influent the accuracy of result. In a word, this research is
not consummate enough, which could be exploring more in the future.
33. 33
The main research is about exploring exportation and consumer power in this
study and it analysis through the reaction of Internet users realizing the real
process of Internet in economy aspect.
Through analyzing content and current situation, there is a statements about
Internet is not fair enough to users in economic perspective, users are being
‘digital labors’ in contributing to online economy cycle. Users do invisible
contribution to commercial companies all the time like in the process of their
online social life, even an emotion message may has a big value to companies.
The most obvious use of information from users is that different
advertisements appear on side bar at individual pages. The style and demand
of advertisements were analysis through users information post online by
commercial companies, by tracking their cookies or IP address,
advertisements were post on individual pages.
However, interviews of this study provide a new vision for the understanding of
Internet, the main motivation to users is not in economic benefits. In terms of
users reactions, it can be seen that users enjoy the feeling to contribute for the
Internet and do not care about their content are using in other place not only
for their enjoying. In users’ vision, maybe Internet is unfair in economic
perspective but that is not what they concern about. They achieve other
benefits via Internet platform and they do not care about making contribution to
commercial companies, they enjoy the process of creation content and sharing
with others. Through interview, it can be clearly seen that compared with
sharing economic benefits with commercial companies, users preferred to
consider more about their other experiences online like communication and
individual advices.
34. 34
From the research, user obvious in the weak position when it comes to
economic benefits, however, economic value is not the motivation for Internet
users creating contents online. All in all, Internet is only unfair in economic
perspective and it is still a fair platform in whole situation.
35. 35
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