Consumer-generated versus marketer-generated websites in consumer decision making

Internet users are encouraged to rate and review all kinds of services and products. These kinds of reviews are described as eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth).

Consumer-generated versus marketer-generated websites in consumer decision making

Fred Bronner

University of Amsterdam

Robert de Hoog

University of Twente

Introduction: from WOM to eWOM, from opinion leaders to e-fluentials

The hypothesis that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders and from these to the less active sections of the population, was tested and confirmed back in the 1950s (Katz 1957). In this two-step flow, informal communication, denoted as word-of-mouth (WOM), played a crucial role. Now, 50 years later, this WOM concept has been revitalised and given new significance through the use of the internet (Dellarocas 2003). As a result, a...

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