Source Of Information For Consumers Research Articles

“Highly Recommended!” The Content Characteristics and Perceived Usefulness of Online Consumer Reviews

The aim of the present study was to gain a better understanding of the content characteristics that make online consumer reviews a useful source of consumer information. To this end, we content analyzed reviews of experience and search products posted on Amazon.com (N = 400). The insights derived from this content analysis were linked with the proportion of ‘useful’ votes that reviews received from fellow consumers. The results show that content characteristics are paramount to understanding the perceived usefulness of reviews. Specifically, argumentation (density and diversity) served as a significant predictor of perceived usefulness, as did review valence although this latter effect was contingent on the type of product (search or experience) being evaluated in reviews. The presence of expertise claims appeared to be weakly related to the perceived usefulness of reviews. The broader theoretical, methodological and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Hotels Pricing at Travel Search Engines

Web 2.0 applications have been increasingly recognized as important information sources for consumers, including the domain of tourism. In the center of the travelers’ interest is the use of these applications in order to compare and choose hotels for their accommodation at various tourism destinations. It is important to investigate the issues related to the presence of the hotels on some of the most dominant tourism search engines and to the prices that they present. This paper compares the search engines and determines whether the cheapest and to the most complete one can be discovered. This paper focuses on analyzing the hotel prices presented on their official websites and on the following eight tourism search engines: Booking.com, Expedia.com, Hotelclub.com, Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, Priceline.com, Travelocity.com, and Venere.com. The data analysis, by the use of the descriptive statistics, showed that only 23% of the hotels examined are found at all the search engines. Furthermore, the price analysis showed that there are differences among the search engines. Although some search engines statistically give lower prices, there is not a single search engine that always gives the lowest price for every hotel.

A Dynamic Model of the Effect of Online Communications on Firm Sales

Interpersonal communications have long been recognized as an influential source of information for consumers. Internet-based media have facilitated information exchange among firms and consumers, as well as observability and measurement of such exchanges. However, much of the research addressing online communication focuses on ratings collected from online forums. In this paper, we look beyond ratings to a more comprehensive view of online communications. We consider the sales effect of the volume of positive, negative, and neutral online communications captured by Web crawler technology and classified by automated sentiment analysis. Our modeling approach captures two key features of our data, dynamics and endogeneity. In terms of dynamics, we model daily measures of online communications about a firm and its products as contributing to a latent demand-generating stock variable. To account for the endogeneity, we extend the latent instrumental variable technique to account for dynamic endogenous regressors. Our results demonstrate a significant effect of positive, negative, and neutral online communications on daily sales performance. Failure to account for endogeneity results in a severe attenuation of the estimated effects. From a managerial perspective, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for communication valence as well as the impact of shocks to positive, negative, and neutral online communications.

Student evaluation web sites as potential sources of consumer information in the United Arab Emirates

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the attitudes of students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) towards non‐institutionally sanctioned student evaluation web sites, and to consider how educational institutions might respond to the demands of students for specific information.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved a self‐completed questionnaire administered to 118 undergraduate students at a single university in the UAE.FindingsEven though there exists no UAE‐based web site that carries student evaluations of faculty/teaching, 13 per cent of the survey participants had previously visited a site that held student ratings, 85 per cent said they would consider posting on one if it existed in the country, and just over a half of the students were in favour of such web sites being established in the UAE.Research limitations/implicationsDespite limitations, such as the sample size and convenience sampling strategy, it is clear that students appreciate information about course evaluations and that educational institutions should consider how students obtain this information.Practical implicationsThe advent of student evaluation web sites in the UAE could bring a set of challenges and opportunities to educational institutions, but, whether they are established or not, institutions might benefit from developing effective strategies for the dissemination of course evaluation and other student‐related data in the near future.Originality/valueStudent evaluation web sites, such as RateMyProfessors.com, are popular in the USA, Canada and the UK, but it was unknown how students in a relatively conservative country such as the UAE would react to such web sites. Educational institutions can use the findings of this study to develop suitable policies and strategies that address the issues discussed herein.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine in MedlinePlus

Complementary and alternative therapies are widely used in the United States and other countries where conventional modern medicine holds sway. The U.S. National Library of Medicine web portal, MedlinePlus, is a highly respected source of health information for consumers. MedlinePlus offers a great deal of information on complementary and alternative medicine, but its mission to provide selected scientifically sound resources to guide consumer health choices means that some topics must be sought elsewhere.

Influence of Age and Sex on the CLA and Other Fatty Acids Content in Roe Deer Meat (Capreolus capreolus L.)

Meat is an important source of animal protein but, at the same time, it includes saturated fatty acids, which makes it a potential cause of different cardiovascular diseases and still little is known about influence of age and sex on these parameters in roe deer muscles. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of age and sex on the CLA and other fatty acids content in the musculus longissimus lumborum in 67 roe deer (Capreolus capreolus L.). In the meat from the oldest individuals a higher content of CLA was noted (89.76 [mg/kg]) when compared to the fawns (42 [mg/kg]). In this research meat from roe deer does showed in general a higher percentage proportion of SFAs and MUFAs, but lower of PUFAs, than the meat from bucks. These results may provide an important source of information for consumers of roe deer meat because of differences between CLA and other fatty acids content depending on age and sex of the animals. Meat from roebucks is the most advantageous for dietary purposes.

Double learning: Who is learning from online reviews?

Online user reviews have become an important source of information for consumers seeking to make the best purchase decisions possible in an online environment. Based on data collected from the online retailer website Amazon.com, this study explores the potential opportunity provided by online reviews that vendors can use to evaluate their own products and possibly make price adjustments. Using portfolio methodology, this study addresses how vendors view online ratings as quality indicators and how a change in online ratings can lead to an increase or decrease in price. The paper concludes that vendors respond to online reviews of quality and tend to fine tune the price of their products accordingly in order to increase sales revenue.

Bringing Internet-based education and intervention into mental health practice: afterdeployment.org

BackgroundInternet-facilitated interventions may offer numerous advantages in reaching the large numbers of military service men and women exposed to traumatic events. The Internet is now a primary source of health-related information for consumers and research has shown the effectiveness of web-based interventions in addressing a range of mental health problems.ObjectiveClinicians can learn how to bring Internet education and intervention into routine care, to help clients better understand mental health issues and learn skills for self-management of problems.MethodThe Afterdeployment.org (AD) Internet site can be used by health care professionals serving U.S. military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families. The site currently addresses 18 key domains of functioning, including post-traumatic stress, sleep, anger, alcohol and drugs, and military sexual trauma. It provides an extensive amount of client and family education that is suitable for immediate use by clients and providers, as well as the kinds of interactive workshop content and self-assessment tools that have been shown to be helpful in other treatment contexts.ResultsAD can be utilized in clinical practice in a variety of ways: as an adjunct to treatment for PTSD, to supplement existing treatments for a range of post-deployment problems, or as the primary focus of treatment for a client.ConclusionsAD represents a kind of service that is likely to become increasingly available in coming years and that is important for mental health providers to actively explore as a tool for extending their reach, improving their efficiency, and improving quality of care.For the abstract or full text in other languages, please see Supplementary files under Reading Tools online.

기혼여성의 블로그 소비자정보 생산활동에 관한 연구

Recently a prevailing trend in marketing has been the use of consumer participations or prosumer activities and this has caused consumers to become skeptical in their treatment of information found on blogs. Therefore, these marketing practices can be usefully examined to ensure they represent a neutral source of information for consumers. This study thus investigated married women's production activities of consumer information using personal blogs, their motives and experiences, and the characteristics of the information they produced. A qualitative study was undertaken using focus group interviews with two groups of sixteen married women in their 30's and 40's. Results suggested that personal bloggers' information production activities were primarily initiated by businesses and that bloggers were paid for their activities either with money or through the products they reviewed. Although the information produced was, because of its basis in consumer experience, consumer friendly, its quality was limited in the sense because it primarily reflected the perspective of businesses. The bloggers, themselves, expressed ethical uncertainty about their practices. Implications for consumer education and policy were also discussed.

A report card on provider report cards: current status of the health care transparency movement.

Public reporting of provider performance can assist consumers in their choice of providers and stimulate providers to improve quality. Reporting of quality measures is supported by advocates of health care reform across the political spectrum. To assess the availability, credibility and applicability of existing public reports of hospital and physician quality, with comparisons across geographic areas. Information pertaining to 263 public reports in 21 geographic areas was collected through reviews of websites and telephone and in-person interviews, and used to construct indicators of public reporting status. Interview data collected in 14 of these areas were used to assess recent changes in reporting and their implications. Interviewees included staff of state and local associations, health plan representatives and leaders of local health care alliances. There were more reports of hospital performance (161) than of physician performance (103) in the study areas. More reports included measures derived from claims data (mean, 7.2 hospital reports and 3.3 physician reports per area) than from medical records data. Typically, reports on physician performance contained measures of chronic illness treatment constructed at the medical group level, with diabetes measures the most common (mean number per non-health plan report, 2.3). Patient experience measures were available in more hospital reports (mean number of reports, 1.2) than physician reports (mean, 0.7). Despite the availability of national hospital reports and reports sponsored by national health plans, from a consumer standpoint the status of public reporting depended greatly on where one lived and health plan membership. Current public reports, and especially reports of physician quality of care, have significant limitations from both consumer and provider perspectives. The present approach to reporting is being challenged by the development of new information sources for consumers, and consumer and provider demands for more current information.

Survey: More U.S. Adults Tap into Health Information Online

More adults are using health information technology (IT) to access, retrieve, store, or share healthcare information, according to a new federal survey. The U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), released preliminary estimates of a 2009 survey about the use of health IT by men and women ages 18 to 64. The results come as many hospitals and physician offices are exploring health IT measures such as electronic health records (EHR). The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included nearly $19 billion in financial incentives to entice hospitals and physicians to implement EHR systems. The survey of 7,192 adults from January to June 2009, found that 61% of participants have used the Internet to search for health or medical information. The survey also found that 49% of adults logged on to a website that provides information about a medical condition or problem. One IT expert says that while the results are encouraging, widespread adoption of health IT has a long way to go. “One of the challenges for everyone involved in this effort is to make this technology easy to use, especially for people who don't use technology every day in their work or personal lives,” says Leanne Cordisco, healthcare IT program manager for GE Healthcare and a member of AAMI’s Technology Management Council (TMC). “As an industry, we must find a way to engage healthcare consumers over the age of 50 in the use of health IT for the full benefit of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s goal to be achieved. I think tremendous inroads have been made by the widespread use of devices like the Nintendo Wii for fitness, and the health IT industry can build on that momentum.” The survey showed a disparity between men and women in the use of health IT. Women were more likely than men to look up health information on the Internet (58% versus 43%), and were also more likely to use online chat groups to learn about health topics (4.1% versus 2.5%). “As the percentage of U.S. adults who use the Internet continues to grow, the Internet may become increasingly important as a source of health information for consumers,” according to the report. Cordisco likened the challenges of health IT to a complicated television. “Many consumers over 50 are challenged by using three remote controls to turn on a high definition television system, and I even have problems with this simple task,” she says. “Health IT must be as easy to use as a TV with one remote control for widespread adoption among Americans over age 50.” n Survey: More U.S. Adults Tap into Health Information Online

Consuming Professions

By the middle of the 20th century the medical profession had established itself as the archetypical profession. The relationship between doctor and patient was variously regarded as ‘special’, ‘outside’ or otherwise at a distance from other consumer experiences. Since then, the status of doctors has changed and information about health and illness has moved from the confines of the consulting room to the World Wide Web. This article considers the recent development of Web 2.0 resources that are constructed around user-generated content about identified health practitioners and services. Web sites where users can both read and write comments about health practitioners and services reflect the broader consumer content industry commonly associated with sites such as Amazon and TripAdvisor. In this article, user reviews about health care are contextualized along two dimensions: first, the relationship with differently oriented health care systems; and second, the engagement with Web 2.0 characteristics and challenges to established consumer information sources. Examples are provided from a number of user-review sites and the implications of their growing popularity are discussed. It is concluded that we are witnessing the beginning of a new phase of the doctor—consumer/patient relationship.

Internet Mavens in India

Internet penetration is growing dramatically in the emerging economy of India. This study examines whether the Internet maven construct, first identified in the United States, exists amongst the online population in India. Internet mavens, an extension of the market maven, are savvy Internet users who act as sources of consumer information for others. In this study, Internet mavens are identified in the Indian population. Various aspects of Internet usage (amount, purpose, and enjoyment) are found to be predictors of Internet mavenism. Further, Internet mavens are found to more fully trust the Internet as a source of consumer information and to see the Internet as more essential to their day-to-day life than do non-mavens. Mavens were found to have significantly higher household incomes than non-mavens however despite looking across a variety of additional variables, no clear demographic profile of the Indian Internet maven emerged.

Internet Mavens In India

Internet penetration is growing dramatically in the emerging economy of India. This study examines whether the internet maven construct, first identified in the United States, exists amongst the online population in India. Internet mavens, an extension of the market maven, are savvy Internet users who act as sources of consumer information for others. In this study, internet mavens are identified in the Indian population. Various aspects of Internet usage (amount, purpose, and enjoyment) are found to be predictors of Internet mavenism. Further, Internet mavens are found to trust the Internet more fully as a source of consumer information and to see the Internet as more essential to their day-to-day life than do non-mavens. Mavens were found to have significantly higher household incomes than non-mavens. However, despite looking across a variety of additional variables, no clear demographic profile of the Indian Internet maven emerged.

Changing Effects of Direct-to-Consumer Broadcast Drug Advertising Information Sources on Prescription Drug Requests

This study tracks the changes of the effects of 4 information sources for direct-to-consumer drug advertising on patients' requests for prescription drugs from physicians since the inception of the “Guidance for Industry about Consumer-directed Broadcast Advertisements.” The Guidance advises pharmaceuticals to use four information sources for consumers to seek further information to supplement broadcast drug advertisements: small-print information, the Internet, a toll-free number, and health-care providers (nurses, doctors, and pharmacists). Logistic models were created by using survey data collected by the Food and Drug Administration in 1999 and 2002. Results show that throughout the years, health-care providers remain the most used and strongest means associated with patients' direct requests for nonspecific and specific prescription drugs from doctors. The small-print information source gains power and changes from an indirect means associated with patients' discussing drugs with health-care providers to a direct means associated with patients' asking about nonspecific and specific drugs from their doctors. The Internet is not directly related to drug requests, but the effect of its association with patients seeking information from health-care providers grew 11-fold over the course of the study. The toll-free number lost its power altogether for both direct request for a prescription drug and further discussion with health-care providers. Patient demographics will be considered for specific policy implications.

The effects of interface design and age on children's information processing of Web sites

AbstractChildren increasingly utilize the Internet as a primary medium, a source of consumer information, and an important source of entertainment. This article investigates the influence of Web site design on children's information processing performance. A model is advanced that integrates theories from a variety of disciplines, including developmental psychology, human computer interaction (HCI), and consumer behavior. This study found that age moderates the relationship between Web site design and spatial (search) and learning (recall) performance. Younger children, between the ages of 7 and 9, recalled more content when using a map (as compared to a content list) and when learning cues were employed. Older children, between the ages of 10 and 12, performed equally as well with either a map or a content list, and with or without learning cues. Implications for business, education, and public policy are discussed and guidelines are provided for designing more child‐friendly Web sites. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Do online reviews affect product sales? The role of reviewer characteristics and temporal effects

Online product reviews provided by consumers who previously purchased products have become a major information source for consumers and marketers regarding product quality. This study extends previous research by conducting a more compelling test of the effect of online reviews on sales. In particular, we consider both quantitative and qualitative aspects of online reviews, such as reviewer quality, reviewer exposure, product coverage, and temporal effects. Using transaction cost economics and uncertainty reduction theories, this study adopts a portfolio approach to assess the effectiveness of the online review market. We show that consumers understand the value difference between favorable news and unfavorable news and respond accordingly. Furthermore, when consumers read online reviews, they pay attention not only to review scores but to other contextual information such as a reviewer’s reputation and reviewer exposure. The market responds more favorably to reviews written by reviewers with better reputation and higher exposure. Finally, we demonstrate that the impact of online reviews on sales diminishes over time. This suggests that firms need not provide incentives for customers to write reviews beyond a certain time period after products have been released.

Do Online Reviews Affect Product Sales? The Role of Reviewer Characteristics and Temporal Effects

Online product reviews provided by consumers who previously purchased products have become a major information source for consumers and marketers regarding product quality. This study extends previous research by conducting a more compelling test of the effect of online reviews on sales. In particular, we consider both quantitative and qualitative aspects of online reviews, such as reviewer quality, reviewer exposure, product coverage, and temporal effects. Using transaction cost economics and uncertainty reduction theories, this study adopts a portfolio approach to assess the effectiveness of the online review market. We show that consumers understand the value difference between favorable news and unfavorable news and respond accordingly. Furthermore, when consumers read online reviews, they pay attention not only to review scores but to other contextual information such as a reviewer's reputation and reviewer exposure. The market responds more favorably to reviews written by reviewers with better reputation and higher exposure. Finally, we demonstrate that the impact of online reviews on sales diminishes over time. This suggests that firms need not provide incentives for customers to write reviews beyond a certain time period after products have been released.

온라인 의복구매를 위한 소비자 정보탐색의 경로분석적 탐구

This study identified types of information source, and explored a path model for consumer information search by shopping attributes in the context of online decision making. Participants completed self-administered questionnaires during regularly scheduled classes. A total of 219 usable questionnaires were obtained from respondents who enroll at universities in the southwestern region of the United States. For data analysis, factor analysis and path model estimation were used. Consumer information source was classified into three types for online clothing purchases: Online source, Offline retail source, and Mass media. Consumers were more likely to rely on offline retail source for online clothing purchases, than other sources. In consumer information search by shopping attributes, online sources were more likely to be related to transaction-related attributes(e.g., incentive service), whereas offline retail source(e.g., displays in stores, manufacturer`s catalogs and pamphlets) were more likely to be related to product and market related attributes(e.g., aesthetics, price) when purchasing clothing online. Also, the path model emphasizes the effect of shopping attributes on traditional retailer search behavior, leading to online purchase intention for clothing. This study supports consumer information search by attributes, and discusses a managerial implication of multi-channel retailing for apparel.

Is Blog Value Relevant? Insights from Cheap Talk

Word of Mouth (WOM) has been widely considered as a major driver behind the consumer adoption and diffusion of new products and services because online reviews have become a major information source for consumers to access a product's quality information. In this paper, we hypothesize that compared to the traditional media exposures, blogs can serve as a major information source for consumers to assess the intrinsic valuation of a company. Using data collected from Blogpulse, this study empirically shows that after controlling the traditional media visibility, a firm's visibility in the blog space is positively associated with its capital market valuation and trading volume. Blogs could achieve their credibility through renegotiation. Over all, we draw the conclusion that on average any publicity is good visibility. And we call upon SEC to pay special attention to this information media and enforce the necessary rules to regulate this information channel.