This page contains the whole summary of references from academic readings (books, eBooks, eJournals), to academic websites. These references will be used for my upcoming wiki project, which will revolve around the world of E-Commerce; which will be written in a different perspective of how I see toward the current landscape of E-Commerce alongside the rapidly-advancing web 2.0.
Some of the references will also highlight the example of e-commerce products, from as simple as goods to artists that we have known globally.
This page will be updated frequently during the semester. Changes might occur before the deadline.
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Table of Contents
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References
Social Media and E-Commerce Converging: Report, By Matthew G. Nelson (2006)
Summary
The landscape of e-commerce has changed over time, and has given possibilities of any kinds or achievement to wider audiences along the development of the Internet and how people see it over the years.
The beginning of this changes happened around the year of 2006, when social networking and e-commerce activities was not as big and has much varieties as in now; albeit the growth. However, marketers admitted and learned the effects and benefits of social networking within the consumer’s perspective, and took advantages to fuse the e-commerce business in social media frameworks.
The decision of merging those two efforts is made based on a report of the lifestyles of social media consumers, and it has been a huge success attempt so far. It has been proven by the report that social media consumers spent less time on traditional and mainstream media, and instead prefers to do some internet activities like blogging, online shopping, or like updating statuses on their social media accounts.
From that on, it was clear that social media is by far the easiest, most accessible, and the most obvious choice for both marketers and consumers. This has marked the early popularity of consumer-to-consumer due to the emergence of e-commerce and social media; where business can be done almost virtually anywhere and by anyone. However, as Stephen DiMarco (2006) stated that the return on investment is still in bigger with traditional campaign method, as he further added that audience’s direct association with the brand is better than just stare at the product’s images on their consumer’s screen. So in that way, the marketers have to be creative.
Conclusion
This report shows us the early era that leads to the popularity of C2C business. A quite strong reports indeed, and will be a useful source to show that anyone can be the marketers, or the opposite, the consumers.
Justin Bieber : A Social Media Case Study, By Vishal Sanjay (2011)
Summary
Nowadays, teenagers alike are attempting to raise their social statuses of popularity in almost any ways in order to get the eyes of their colleagues. The most visible and preferable method of doing it is by creating a viral video and uploading it in online video services such as YouTube, Vimeo, MySpace, or even on Tumblr. Most of them are self-promoting themselves by the recording of their musical skills show-off; mostly singing, video-blogging; popular with the term ‘Vlog’, showcasing their outrageous and sometimes silly home video. However, sometimes a viral video with no intention of showing off profiles can lead you in an unexpected, and sometimes, bigger possibility of fame. Justin Bieber, the current pop singing sensation is on of the victim of viral video.
It is all started when he was very young; when his mom recorded every vocal performance he did, and uploaded it on YouTube. In few days, the videos go viral by approximately 10 million total viewers, and have made some fan-base dedicated to him. Scotter Braun, who is now Bieber’s manager, later discovered him from an online singing video competition.
His overwhelming popularity has been proven effective for his further campaign. In fact, Bieber and his advisers have been proven adept at social networking. Thus, resulting Twitter, one of the biggest social media today, to dedicated him 3% of infrastructure for his own account.
However, it was not a clean road for him, as he is often being a victim of scam-artists to take advantage of his fame for leading the consumer to viruses, online theft, and some kind.
Conclusion
This article gives us great examples of an e-commerce product in an entertainment business perspective. It is a well-balanced article that covers the processes and realities of viral marketing, and also the strength of effectiveness of the recent social networking facilities, which will be one of the ideas of my future wiki topic.
The Future of Advertising and the Value of Social Network Websites: Some Preliminary Examinations, Authored By Eric K. Clemons, Steve Barnett, and Arjun Appadurai (2007)
Summary
This research revolves around the relationship between advertising and social networking media that we recently knows, and examining what kind of and how the value of social networking sites can be well executed in the future of advertising.
There have been some kind of “drama” between traditional and modern, mostly digital, advertising; where the argument lies on which methods are effective and trustworthy. Traditional advertising has lost the impact due to how technology alternatives, customer’s transactional behaviors, and their demand toward media preferences, are changed and advancing over time. But that doesn’t always mean that it’s a good thing. Social media, in this case, has always be the most mainstream options, and there will be more marketers that will use this method as the part of their strategies. It will be easy to just gain as much consumer’s attention as the marketers want, as long as the value of social network is still imply on the ongoing relation between members for specific reasons. However, the problem with social networking media is hardly done by software errors, but to the users, or in this case, the marketers themselves. Because in basic, modern social networking sites are completely user-generated facilities, which means that users can just modify, add, or remove anyway they want to. Moreover, members might just alter their behavior in digital social networking to separate them from real life or traditional social network; despite their statuses and reputation that shown on their page. Therefore, these will affect the trusts within the community and customer. Reaching consumers through ads today are way more complex than in the past.
The best way to implement the values of social networking as advertising medium is by execute resonance marketing method; where in this method, the marketers have to make the audience feels identified; which means, understanding the culture and behavior of their audiences. It is difficult to do sometimes, but effective.
Conclusion
It is interesting to see a research based on the relatively current environment and timeframe (in case of this research, 2007). This research has some further examination and prediction about the value of social networking with advertising, which will be useful to explain the core of a modern e-commerce.
The Role of National Media in Promoting Work Culture, By Ali A. Farhangi & Ali A. Rahmati (2011)
Summary
This journal argues in how the use of media, especially television, can determine the general perspective within general audiences toward the media they use. It also explains between the arguments in how can the new media can promote work culture.
People have their own general knowledge toward certain media. For example; when we think about the iPod Touch, television, or comic book, we will have a fixed thought that it is just an entertainment medium. Although it is true, those things can deliver so much more than just a mere entertainment, but the problem is that most of our general culture seems resistant to the idea of those things as just an entertainment media. There is also a statement that people will be more engaged with a specific content if it is delivered via in interesting medium like movies, music, or Internet. Although it is true, we can’t blame the forms of the media; as they are just tools, and fully content-controlled by the users. As Lever (1998) stated that media plays a neutral role within the process of signification, as if the true values hide behind the representation. This means that it doesn’t matter what kind of forms that the information are delivered, the achievement can be determined by the selection of information and also how it is organized. Thus, development and success can actually be achieved despite the forms of the media.
Conclusion
Although it is not so much of an e-commerce related topic, it has views on the roles of one of the mediums that most marketers are used for their e-commerce activities, which mostly revolve around film and television. As the journal said, film and television has evolved its own forms, either the programs or the medium of presentation. Since online viral video marketing services like YouTube is also another evolved form of film and television, the explanation points toward the media, especially television in this journal, will be useful.
The Prosumer Movement : A New Challenge for Marketers, By Philip Kotler (1986)
Summary
This argument talks about the role of prosumer in the world of marketing. It covers the histories, classification, and also their beneficial existences for other consumers.
There are three waves in human history in transactional point. The first wave is when most people are adapting the agricultural lifestyle where prosumption activities are totally visible (hunting, grow foods, etc). This is way before the industrial revolution in England until the second wave, where almost every people relied on vacancies for the factory, and the domination of marketization and industrialization as the marketing processes. Fast-forward to the third wave, a post-industrial age; where everything is a balance between the two waves. But despite the rebalancing, prosumers keeps growing, and has been a major problem for most marketers.
There are reasons that drive people for doing prosumption activity. Those reasons are mostly revolves around how “incompatible” their skills and times are with the current scheme of industrial jobs; such as the decreasing working hours over time, and demand for more physical and advancing activity due to the advancing technological society and as they will be highly educated in the future. Prosumers also thought that they could produce better products or services than what the industry-standards have provided in perspective of quality and affordability; which could also lead them to get away from mass-produced goods and services.
This concludes that prosumer products are in chances of being an advantage for consumers, while at the same time has become an unofficial competition for marketers.
Conclusion
It is a great background reading for explaining everything about the prosumers, since producers and consumers are not the only audiences in the landscape of e-commerce. Marketers and prosumers, although not too mainstream, has fought for a long time to compete each other, and has been one of the scene of e-commerce as well.
“Trust Me, I’m an Online Vendor”: Towards a Model of Trust for E-Commerce System Design, By Florian N. Egger (2000)
Summary
This research investigating the most typical and biggest concern in e-commerce activities for both marketers and their customers: Trust. It also covers a methodology used to address the issues.
Privacy has always been the main points that led to decreasing in trust, aside errors in software. The concerns were regarded as one major obstacle of truthful and deep online interaction. It is due to the lack of substantive knowledge about how trust is formed, maintained, and lost in business-to-consumer e-commerce within the disciple of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). In order to avoid this issue, Florian N. Egger (1998) designed and developed a model of trust for e-commerce (MoTEC); which the components are the result of an analysis for the general issue of trust in a psychological and marketing perspective. This led to the identification of a number of crucial factors for trust development and maintenance.
MoTEC models itself are used to evaluate the trustworthiness of e-commerce systems. Substantively, MoTEC components are consisting Pre-purchase Knowledge (customer’s previous experiences with a particular marketers), Interface Properties (first impression toward facilities or services), and Informational Content (the transparency of vendors). While methodologically, the components are redesigned qualitatively into three requirements that consists of the Appeal (graphic design of the interfaces), Trustworthiness (content design and availability), and Usability (design of structure and navigation of, in this case, the website).
Conclusion
Trust has always been e-commerce’s biggest vulnerability. By the point of this reading, it has clear views of the obstacle while the argument is balanced with a solution, including how both obstacle and its solution are constructed in which will also be argued along my wiki topic.
Community Media in the Prosumer Era, By Ellie Rennie (2007)
Summary
This is a case study that gives a contrast between a community media and social media albeit some similarities, by using a real community called Student Youth Network (SYN).
It is a media organization and also a community radio licensee that stands in Melbourne, Australia. They are technically categorized as prosumers, because they produced television programs, radio shows, and websites, by using the currently available and popular user-generated social media like Facebook and YouTube as their canvas.
The similarity between community and social media is the freedom of generating. However, that does not mean that they are completely the same thing. Community media has always been prosumer, which in this case it enables consumers or audiences to become producers in their own community. While on the other hand, social media is purpose-free and automated for a certain purposes; a mere tools or facilities that just provide the “ground” for consumer to decide what kind of places they want it to be. Community media is community-governed, and made for non-profit purposes, while on the other hand, social media are made with business in mind although no consumers of a particular social media is involved within their businesses. This kind of activity defines the rise of non-market media, which has changed the way people produced and shared information to the consumers.
Conclusion
Social media has played the most roles in the modern e-commerce scenery. By this case study, it will help me as a sort of background reading of the characteristic of social media, and especially its role in digital marketing.
The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing, By Dr. Ralph F. Wilson (2000)
Summary
This reading provides the structure behind the meaning of viral marketing, and also explains in which way viral marketing can be effective, including the general post-effect of it.
Viral marketing, in short, have similarities with virus: It replicates, explodes, and lasts. It is a strategy that lead audiences to pass on a marketing message to other kind of audiences, which if the messages are big or catchy, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. This method can be done in both traditional (off-internet) and by new media marketing, although it is usually called differently in both ways (Network-Marketing for traditional marketing, and Viral-Marketing for new media marketing).
A viral marketing can be called effective with six strategy components.
First, by giving away their products or services. Most of viral marketing programs are provided free of charge, just like how virus influenced us without us having to do anything.
Second, by providing hassle-free transfers to others. They have to make sure that the media that they will use must be easy to transfer and replicate by audiences. Twitter, for example, as the ability to ReTweet the messages from others, so the followers of that twitter account can do the same thing on and on.
Third, scaling. As simple as it sounds, it is hard to do because it requires the provider of the media to follow up the customer’s demand, and the remaining space of the servers hard-drive in order to let the process flows.
Fourth, utilizing common motivations and behaviors within the product. In this way, people will simple engaged because of their common knowledge of certain motivations and behaviors.
Fifth, by executing the existing communication networks. In this which means that communicating the marketing messages through people that definitely has broad connection with certain consumers or communities will help the message spreads even faster than spreading the news individually; one person at the time.
Lastly, by taking advantage of others’ resource, which means linking the content of your campaign (for example: graphics or text in the website) into another web page that relates to the purpose of the marketing message (usually to official sites).
Conclusion
This is a short, but straightforward, somewhat entertaining article that is well written and easy to understand. This reading will do as the background reading for the currently popular viral marketing method, since this method is mostly effective to use in marketing nowadays.
