Perceived Quality of Mobile Services

The book investigates user satisfaction with mobile services, the perceived quality of m-commerce products, and the loyalty towards service providers. After introducing the m-commerce value chain and emerging mobile services, the first part examines relevant theories from diffusion of innovations and service quality to mobile services, and identifies new trends in the mobile communication market. The book demonstrates to what extent service quality and adoption theories of consumer behavior literature explain the (repeated) usage of mobile services, and how the results differ by user segments. A-priori and a-posteriori segmentations provide detailed insights. The results indicate that it is important to consider (un)observed heterogeneity in explanatory models

The Importance of Previous Experience for the Trial of Mobile Self-Service Technologies

An increasing number of companies utilize mobile communication such as advertisements via Short Message Service (SMS) or mobile payment to facilitate interaction with their customers. Given the manifold potentials of mobile technologies, it is not surprising that a lot of innovative business models and services are emerging. In this paper we first discuss various theories of technology diffusion and trial of technology, which are frequently used in information systems and marketing research. Subsequently, we present a system which allows ordering products by simply photographing an advanced form of barcode, which can be placed on virtually any printed media, the product itself, or even be shown on television. We use a Structural Equation Modeling approach to measure the importance of various antecedents of trial, namely the ability to use a mobile technology, users’ role clarity, and both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, the role of previous experience as a moderator of the antecedents of technology trial is explored. The results show that there is a significant difference between experienced and inexperienced users regarding the trial of this service innovation

Perceived Quality of Mobile Services

The book investigates user satisfaction with mobile services, the perceived quality of m-commerce products, and the loyalty towards service providers. After introducing the m-commerce value chain and emerging mobile services, the first part examines relevant theories from diffusion of innovations and service quality to mobile services, and identifies new trends in the mobile communication market. The book demonstrates to what extent service quality and adoption theories of consumer behavior literature explain the (repeated) usage of mobile services, and how the results differ by user segments. A-priori and a-posteriori segmentations provide detailed insights. The results indicate that it is important to consider (un)observed heterogeneity in explanatory models

Analyzing News Media Coverage to Acquire and Structure Tourism Knowledge

Destination image significantly influences a tourist's decision-making process. The impact of news media coverage on destination image has attracted research attention and became particularly evident after catastrophic events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that triggered a series of lethal tsunamis. Building upon previous research, this paper analyzes the prevalence of tourism destinations among 162 international media sites. Term frequency captures the attention a destination receives �­ from a general and, after contextual filtering, from a tourism perspective. Calculating sentiment estimates positive and negative media influences on destination image at a given point in time. Identifying semantic associations with the names of countries and major cities, the results of co-occurrence analysis reveal the public profiles of destinations, and the impact of current events on media coverage. These results allow national tourism organizations to assess how their destination is covered by news media in general, and in a specific tourism context. To guide analysts and marketers in this assessment, an iterative analysis of semantic associations through natural language processing extracts tourism knowledge automatically, and represents this knowledge as ontological structures

Where Do You Want to Go Today? A Media Analysis of Global Tourism Destinations

Destinations are at the heart of travel decisions, and destination image has a significant influence on tourists’ decision-making. Many travelers acquire information via the Internet, which offers abundant information and an increasing number of tourism-related services. The impact of media coverage on destination image has attracted research attention and became particularly evident during the 2003 outbreak of SARS, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Building upon previous research, this paper analyzes the prevalence of tourism destinations among 162 international media sites. Measuring term frequency investigates the attention a destination receives – from a general and, after contextual filtering, from a tourism perspective. Calculating the semantic orientation estimates positive or negative media influences on destination image at a given point in time. By detecting associations with country names, keyword analysis reveals the countries' public profile, and the impact of events on media coverage

Scalable Annotation Mechanisms for Digital Content Aggregation and Context-Aware Authoring

This paper discusses the role of context information in building the next generation of human-centered information systems, and classifies the various aspects of contextualization with a special emphasis on the production and consumption of digital content. The real-time annotation of resources is a crucial element when moving from content aggregators (which process third-party digital content) to context-aware visual authoring environments (which allow users to create and edit their own documents). We present a publicly available prototype of such an environment, which required a major redesign of an existing Web intelligence and media monitoring framework to provide real-time data services and synchronize the text editor with the frontend’s visual components. The paper concludes with a summary of achieved results and an outlook on possible future research avenues including multi-user support and the visualization of document evolution

Acquisition and Relevance of Geotagged Information in Tourism

In the case of tourism applications, it is particularly evident that geography is emerging as a fundamental principle for structuring Web resources. Recent improvements in semantic and geographic Web technology, often referred to as the Geospatial Web, acknowledge the relevance of adding location metadata to existing databases and accessing the vast amounts of information stored in these databases via geospatial services. This paper outlines the acquisition of geospatial context information, describes usage scenarios and real-world applications in the tourism industry, and presents an automated software tool for annotating large collections of Web documents automatically. The quality of this tool is tested based upon Web pages from the Austrian National Tourism Organization. Initial results are encouraging and help define a roadmap for further improving the automated tagging of tourism resources

What Drives Fitness Apps Usage? An Empirical Evaluation

Part 3: Creating Value through ApplicationsInternational audienceThe increased health problems associated with lack of physical activity is of great concern around the world. Mobile phone based fitness applications appear to be a cost effective promising solution for this problem. The aim of this study is to develop a research model that can broaden understanding of the factors that influence the user acceptance of mobile fitness apps. Drawing from Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), we conceptualize the antecedents and moderating factors of fitness app use. We validate our model using field survey. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Consumer trust in user-generated brand recommendations on Facebook

The transparency of social web paves the way for user-generated content (UGC) to become a trusted form of brand communication. Research offers little guidance on UGC and trust development in social networking sites (SNS) and has yet to debate the effects of ad-skepticism in the context of UGC and SNS. This study builds on theory to develop a conceptual framework that yields insights into the development of consumer trust towards user-generated brand recommendations (UGBR). A set-theoretic approach using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis is applied to data derived from 303 consumers. The study findings suggest that high levels of trust in UGBR are associated with high levels of trust toward Facebook friends and provide support for the moderating role of ad-skepticism. Benevolence and integrity are found to be necessary/core conditions for the development of trust toward Facebook friends. Ability and disposition to trust are of peripheral importance. The significance of the findings and their implications are discussed