The Perishability of Online Grocers*

In this article we explore the profitability of different operations models used by online grocers and develop a linear demand model in a competitive setting to better understand the trade‐offs made by two competing online grocers in choices for distribution strategy (leverage or direct) and product focus (perishable or nonperishable). We find that the results derived in the duopoly setting are different from those in a monopolistic setting. Specifically, we determine that there is a threshold value for the secondary competitive effects in the demand function that determines how the prices and profitability of an online grocer will be affected by the supply chain length of its competitor. There is also a threshold value for the ratio of supply chain lengths of the two competitors that determines whether product perishability increases or decreases profits. We demonstrate that the existence of this threshold is robust when considering capacity constraints. Further, we show, assuming that supply chain length can be optimized, how the relative size of the infrastructure change cost (when compared with that of the competitor) coupled with the perishability of the product determines the profitability of an investment leading to a shorter supply chain.     

Challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era

Internet usage continues to explode across the world with digital becoming an increasingly important source of competitive advantage in both B2C and B2B marketing. A great deal of attention has been focused on the tremendous opportunities digital marketing presents, with little attention on the real challenges companies are facing going digital. In this study, we present these challenges based on results of a survey among a convenience sample of 777 marketing executives around the globe. The results reveal that filling “talent gaps”, adjusting the “organizational design”, and implementing “actionable metrics” are the biggest improvement opportunities for companies across sectors.     

Online authority communication during an epidemic: A Finnish example

Social media are creating new challenges for authority communications during crises, such as a pandemic. This study examined Finnish citizens’ opinions about authorities as crisis managers during the swine flu epidemic of 2009-2010 and examined the success of authority intervention to online discussion forums. Through a content analysis carried out at the discussion forums, the study showed that though authorities are highly trusted in general in Finland, this trust is not extended to the online environment. Online, civilians did not trust authorities and the protective actions taken. Moreover, the authorities’ intervention to the discussion forums aimed at correcting false information and shaping opinions seemed to fail, as the intervention was carried out too late and with too little resources. The paper calls for more proactive authority communication that would establish a dialogue with citizens before a crisis to ensure credibility during difficult times.     

Modeling Reputation as a Time‐Series: Evaluating the Risk of Purchase Decisions on eBay*

Reputation systems based on buyer feedback play an important role in today's online markets. In this article, we provide a rigorous methodology to establish a relationship between a seller's feedback history and risk of default. We validate this method against eBay's reputation system, using a dataset of terminated users (Not‐A‐Registered‐User or NARU) and the feedback left for them by buyers. By treating feedback rating data as a function of time, we characterize the tendency of change in seller feedback ratings in order to predict the behavior of a seller. We find that NARU sellers have significantly more negative feedback in their final weeks. Applying functional principal component analysis and classification tree methods, we find that when projecting the feedback data to an appropriate space, NARU and non‐NARU sellers can be distinguished at better than 92% accuracy. We use this to provide a quantitative mechanism for evaluating the risk of trading with a seller who has less than perfect feedback, and offer advice on how much a buyer should offer to pay, given an asking price on a commodity item and a seller's feedback history.     

Estimating Social Influences from Social Networking Sites—Articulated Friendships versus Communication Interactions

Despite the ubiquity of social networking sites, the online social networking industry is in search of effective marketing strategies to better profit from their established user base. Social media marketing strategies build on the premise that the social network of online users can be predicted and social influences among online users can be estimated. However, the existence of various heterogeneous social interactions on social networking sites presents a challenge for social network prediction and social influence estimation. In this article we draw upon the literatures on self‐presentation on social networking sites and signaling in online social networking to categorize six heterogeneous online social interactions on social networking sites into two types—articulated friendships and communication interactions. This article provides empirical evidence for the differences between articulated friendships and communication interactions and the corresponding articulated and communication networks. In order to compare the impacts of the social influences based on these two networks, we utilize support vector machines to build a classifier to predict virtual community membership and we further estimate the marginal effects of these social influences using a two‐stage probit least squares method. We find significant explanatory power of social influences in predicting virtual community membership. Although the communication network is much sparser than the articulated network, social influences based on the communication network achieve similar performance as the articulated network. These findings provide important implications for social media marketing as well as the management of virtual communities.     

网络新闻媒体的媚俗化现象及其治理对策

随着互联网的发展和普及,网络新闻媒体已经成为人们获取信息的一个重要渠道。作者阐述了在商业利益驱动下,网络新闻媒体出现的媚俗化现象。由于媒介消费主义的兴起,商业性网络新闻媒体所持的新闻业务方针、从业者的业务素质和作风都受到了强烈影响,此即网络新闻媚俗化的主要成因。因而应从政策和规范的制订、完善培训与认证制度以及加强监督等方面,应对网络新闻的媚俗化问题。     

‘The language is disgusting and they refer to my disability’: the cyberharassment of disabled people

Disabled people face hostility and harassment in their socio-cultural environment. The use of electronic communications creates an online context that further reshapes this discrimination. We explored the experiences of 19 disabled victims of cyberharassment. Five themes emerged from the study: disability and health consequences, family involvement, misrepresentation of self, perceived complexity, and lack of awareness and expertise. Cyberharassment incidents against disabled people were influenced by the pre-existing impairment, perceived hate-targeting, and perpetrators faking disability to get closer to victims online. Our findings highlight a growing issue requiring action and proper support.     

Sports PR in message boards on Major League Baseball websites

Message boards are possible places for sports fans to actively express and exchange their opinions. The purpose of this study is to explore the typology of message board uses on sports websites. The analysis of 1350 topics on eight Major League Baseball teams’ websites for 10 days revealed that: (1) the cognitive need of using message boards in a sports organization's website was an outstanding motivation; (2) sharing opinions was a new motivation category (compared to traditional uses and gratifications) that was found to be dominant; and (3) winning teams and losing teams’ message boards were significantly different in terms of number of topics, number of users, and optimism score; however, messages seemed to be optimistic. Implications for public relations practitioners suggest that the message board is an excellent monitoring tool for them as well as a fine communication tool between sports organizations and fans.     

基于语料库的外宣新闻话语效度研究———以People’s Daily Online体裁分析为例

语料库量化分析发现，People’s Daily Online外宣新闻体裁具有强历时稳定性，具体表现为标题结构模式化，信息来源机构身份强化，事件描述宏观化、数据化，事件评论主观化等特点，倾向于构建强势传者，而受众则相对弱势。这种关系造成两种效应：一是在资源高度集中的信息传播中，双方关系虽不平等，但仍处于平衡状态，传播效度较强。但外宣受众参与不足会造成其对信息的相关性感受减弱，对此，可通过增加阅读引导性元素、事件描述的个体性事例、事件评论的社会性引语等策略提升传播效度。二是在资源开放程度较高的信息传播中，双方关系既不平等，也不平衡，传播效度较弱。对此，需通过弱化传者的机构身份、为受众提供发声和交流途径等策略满足受众对平等关系的诉求。     

情绪与在线学习

传统上,情感和认知被认为是极端对立的,而且这一观点在学习理论当中有所体现。之所以有这样的认识是因为缺乏对情感的正确理解。事实上,情绪与认知有关,情绪与智力有关,情绪与学习有关。这些观点在网上学习的实践中逐渐呈现出新的活力。本文在调查访谈几十位不同层次的在线学习大学生之后,着重探讨有关在线学习的主要情绪以及这些情绪对网络教与学过程的影响。