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...