The word-of-mouth phenomenon in the social media era
Ana Margarida Barreto
New University of Lisbon
Introduction
With the emergence of the internet, and especially of the Web 2.0, consumers found new, easy and accessible tools to obtain and compare information about products and services with other people. As a result, consumers are no longer restricted to their personal network in order to get recommendations, as they can also access information from unknown people (for instance, through blogs or forums) via the web. They are also able to gain information through their friends’ friends via social networks, as it is now...