72,275 research outputs found
The Dark Side of Micro-Task Marketplaces: Characterizing Fiverr and Automatically Detecting Crowdturfing
As human computation on crowdsourcing systems has become popular and powerful
for performing tasks, malicious users have started misusing these systems by
posting malicious tasks, propagating manipulated contents, and targeting
popular web services such as online social networks and search engines.
Recently, these malicious users moved to Fiverr, a fast-growing micro-task
marketplace, where workers can post crowdturfing tasks (i.e., astroturfing
campaigns run by crowd workers) and malicious customers can purchase those
tasks for only $5. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of
Fiverr. First, we identify the most popular types of crowdturfing tasks found
in this marketplace and conduct case studies for these crowdturfing tasks.
Then, we build crowdturfing task detection classifiers to filter these tasks
and prevent them from becoming active in the marketplace. Our experimental
results show that the proposed classification approach effectively detects
crowdturfing tasks, achieving 97.35% accuracy. Finally, we analyze the real
world impact of crowdturfing tasks by purchasing active Fiverr tasks and
quantifying their impact on a target site. As part of this analysis, we show
that current security systems inadequately detect crowdsourced manipulation,
which confirms the necessity of our proposed crowdturfing task detection
approach
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Advertising and Word-of-Mouth Effects on Pre-launch Consumer Interest and Initial Sales of Experience Products
This study examines how consumers' interest in a new experience product develops as a result of advertising and word-of-mouth activities during the pre-launch period. The empirical settings are the U.S. motion picture and video game industries. The focal variables include weekly ad spend, blog volume, online search volume during pre-launch periods, opening-week sales, and product characteristics. We treat pre-launch search volume of keywords as a measure of pre-launch consumer interest in the related product. To identify probable persistent effects among the pre-launch time-series variables, we apply a vector autoregressive modeling approach. We find that blog postings have permanent, trend-setting effects on pre-launch consumer interest in a new product, while advertising has only temporary effects. In the U.S. motion picture industry, the four-week cumulative elasticity of pre-launch consumer interest is 0.187 to advertising and 0.635 to blog postings. In the U.S. video game industry, the elasticities are 0.093 and 1.306, respectively. We also find long-run co-evolution between blog and search volume, which suggests that consumers' interest in the upcoming product cannot grow without bounds for a given level of blog volume
Information Technology Applications in Hospitality and Tourism: A Review of Publications from 2005 to 2007
The tourism and hospitality industries have widely adopted information
technology (IT) to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to
improve service quality and customer experience. This article offers a comprehensive review of
articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007.
Grouping the findings into the categories of consumers, technologies, and suppliers, the article
sheds light on the evolution of IT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries. The
article demonstrates that IT is increasingly becoming critical for the competitive operations of
the tourism and hospitality organizations as well as for managing the distribution and
marketing of organizations on a global scale
Data Mining in Electronic Commerce
Modern business is rushing toward e-commerce. If the transition is done
properly, it enables better management, new services, lower transaction costs
and better customer relations. Success depends on skilled information
technologists, among whom are statisticians. This paper focuses on some of the
contributions that statisticians are making to help change the business world,
especially through the development and application of data mining methods. This
is a very large area, and the topics we cover are chosen to avoid overlap with
other papers in this special issue, as well as to respect the limitations of
our expertise. Inevitably, electronic commerce has raised and is raising fresh
research problems in a very wide range of statistical areas, and we try to
emphasize those challenges.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000204 in the
Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Interactive Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age
Looks at the practices of food and beverage industry marketers in reaching youth via digital videos, cell phones, interactive games and social networking sites. Recommends imposing governmental regulations on marketing to children and adolescents
Digital Food Marketing to Children and Adolescents: Problematic Practices and Policy Interventions
Examines trends in digital marketing to youth that uses "immersive" techniques, social media, behavioral profiling, location targeting and mobile marketing, and neuroscience methods. Recommends principles for regulating inappropriate advertising to youth
Twitter: Businesses Increasing Their Revenues 140 Characters at a Time
With the consumer market becoming more competitive by the day, businesses must find innovative yet cost effective means of reaching their target markets and steadily increasing their revenues. While businesses compete with one another to remain the best, they must have a strategic market plan that differentiates their products and/or services from their competitors. In an effort to do this, many businesses have begun using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn as a means of reaching their target markets. Such sites have opened businesses to a new level of advertising where they reach consumers faster, have the ability to be more innovative, and spend less money than they would with conventional means of advertising. In addition to these social networking sites, Twitter has emerged, gaining interest from businesses looking to get their products and/or services out to consumers through a new medium. With the number of users increasing daily and the ease of passing information along from one user to the next, businesses have begun to see their new found means of advertising on Twitter as the way to increase their revenues 140 characters at a time. This project highlights how the understanding of the benefits of social media marketing is essential to businesses venturing into the use of Twitter. This understanding allows businesses to frame the use of Twitter to successfully fit their business strategies, while the Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) shows the connection between the use of social networking sites by businesses and how it relates to the manner in which consumers are receptive to the information such sites provide. Various studies conducted on the use of Twitter by companies along with a case study on FM Global, a mutual insurance company, highlight how Twitter can be used by businesses as a marketing tool for branding purposes and increasing revenues
A Comparative Evaluation of the Internets Influence on International Market Penetration and Development Strategies of Australian SME's
The Internet has the capability to generate geographical international market expansion and future growth for the firm, a concept known as Internetalisation. However, it is yet to be determined as to how much or to what level the Internet influences internationalisation, and thus international market growth. Both international market penetration and the development of new international customers are achievable goals for the Internet enlightened SME. The aim of this research is to explore the influence of the Internet on international market penetration and development from the strategic perspective of the SME in Australia. It was found that although the Internet has given firms the capabilities to become instantly international, a new theory is not needed but rather an evolved version of network theory may be a better explanation of internationalisation of SMEâs in todayâs digital environment
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