Collaborative Shopping Networks: Sharing the Wisdom of Crowds in E-Commerce Environments

Social web services have gained enormous popularity over the past years because of a steadily increasing demand for user participation in the whole web sphere. Social networks like MySpace or Facebook and media sites like Flickr or YouTube clearly demonstrate the variety and functionality of social sites. Significantly affected by this trend, online retail and e-commerce environments rapidly changed within the last years. Users were integrated into existing e-shops and mutated from simple buyers to fully integrated customers. Thus, a modern shop visitor can recommend products, leave comments, rate vendors or publish wish lists. This recent phenomenon, called social commerce or social shopping, leads to more customer satisfaction, user participation and social interaction. Accordingly, there is a strong demand for innovative social commerce models and concepts like crowdsourcing, consumer generated content or live shopping. This paper shows the results of an extended analysis of collaborative shopping networks and demonstrates the development of a representative interaction model. An evaluation of social commerce models gave insights into functionalities, interactions and entities of successful social web applications. To create a collaborative shopping network model, conventional web services as well as selected best practice cases were analyzed in detail. To meet the demands of modern consumers, success factors are presented in the final part

Citizen Empowerment on the Basis of the new Freedom of Information Act in Austria - Make Information Freedom Great Again

Austria is the only country in Europe that has official secrecy, so called “Amtsgeheimnis”, as a constitutional principle. In contrast to other countries, this has consequences for citizens in their dealings with the authorities. Information is therefore not free per se, but is only released under certain conditions. These are severely restricted. This leads to a number of problems, for example, Austria is already among the worst 10 countries in terms of freedom of information. A new Freedom of Information Act is intended to change this. In this paper, the authors present a prototype that enables query processing between citizens and government agencies. Cloud services are used, and the data does not leave the respective data sovereignty

SOCIAL ONLINE SHOPPING: NEUE FORMEN DER INTERAKTION UND KOLLABORATION IM ELECTRONIC COMMERCE DER ZUKUNFT

Der große Erfolg von etablierten Social Web Services wie Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia oder YouTube führte innerhalb der letzten Jahre zu einer massiven Transformation im gesamten Web. Bedingt durch den verstärkten Einsatz von interaktiven und kollaborativen Elementen entwickelte sich parallel dazu der Internetuser von einem passiven Informationskonsumenten zu einem aktiven Inhaltsdistributor. Der anhaltende Trend zur Integration von Social Web Funktionalitäten beinflusst auch maßgeblich die aktuellen Entwicklungen im B2C und C2C Electronic Commerce. Innovative Konzepte im Bereich des Social Online Shopping ermöglichen dem Konsumenten aktive Partizipation und Kommunikation innerhalb interaktiv vernetzter Shopping-Plattformen. Dieser Beitrag veranschaulicht ein innovatives Rahmenwerk für Social Online Shopping-Anwendungen. Die Grundlage für das hier vorgestellte Design bildete eine Analyse von 100 etablierten Services, wobei ein besonderer Schwerpunkt auf vielfältige Integrationsmöglichkeiten und leichte Skalierbarkeit des Modells gelegt wurde. Abschließend werden identifizierte Kernfunktionalitäten, erfolgsversprechende Erlösmodelle und signifikante Metadaten, abgeleitet aus den analysierten Services, präsentiert

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AIM: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery. METHODS: This was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin. RESULTS: Overall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P < 0.001). After adjustment, delay was not associated with a lower rate of complete resection (OR 1.18, 95% CI 0.90-1.55, P = 0.224), which was consistent in elective patients only (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.69-1.27, P = 0.672). Longer delays were not associated with poorer outcomes. CONCLUSION: One in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease

Scalable Social Software Services: Towards a Shopping Community Model Based on Analyses of Established Web Service Components and Functions

The common use and variety of social software services has rapidly increased over the past years. The big success of established services like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube accelerates the transformation of the whole web. Next generation services are characterized by strong social interaction and collaboration tools. Significantly affected by this movement, conventional commerce platforms and online shops are gradually substituted by social shopping communities. Social commerce allows consumers to collaborate online, to exchange information about products and to get advice from trusted individuals. This paper introduces a scalable social software service model for an online shopping community built under consideration of existing best practice services. The model combines features of social networking, online shopping and social commerce sites. We present comparative analyses of these three service categories, significant showcases as well as the creation process of the model itself. The designed framework serves as basis for both service developers and researchers

Next Generation Shopping: Case Study Research on Future E-Commerce Models

Driven by the fast evolution of the internet, innovative technologies and web services, the user changed from a passive information consumer to an active content distributor within the whole web sphere. The buzzword web 2.0 became a synonym for this evolution which has enormously increased communication possibilities among people by enabling them to stay in touch via communities, blogs and social networks. In the same way B2C and C2C e-commerce rapidly changed within the last years. Users were integrated into existing online shops and mutated from a simple buyer to a fully integrated customer. Thus, a modern shop visitor can recommend products, leave comments, rate vendors or publish wish lists. This recent phenomenon, called social commerce or social shopping, leads to more customer satisfaction, loyalty and consequently to more revenue for the vendor. Accordingly, there is a strong demand for innovative e-commerce models and new shopping functionalities. Currently, only few vendors succeeded to launch new platforms and services,but market researchers confirm the economically expanding value of innovative user driven e-commerce solutions. In the near future, social shopping features might become a must-have for every modern shop owner. This paper presents the results of an extended case study research on future B2C and C2C e-commerce models. As a main focus, the key features as well as current trends of social commerce are identified and analyzed in detail. For successful next generation shopping, the presented trend-setting movements have to be integrated in new e-shops and platforms to meet the demands of modern customers

Customer Generated Content: Embedding Interactive Collaboration Tools into E-Shops

The explosive growth of online retail within the last years has increased competition among companies selling over the internet. Thus, vendors are looking for new possibilities to increase site traffic and consecutively revenue on their platforms. Social commerce, primarily applicable for B2C and C2C e-commerce, is a very effective approach because it enables customers to generate content in an interactive way. Active user participation and collaboration within the whole online shopping sphere clearly leads to more customer satisfaction. This paper demonstrates how vendors and site owners should upgrade their conventional online stores with interactive collaboration tools to achieve requirements of a state-of-the-art social commerce environment. Based on a designed social shopping framework, essential tools and elements were identified, categorized and described. Summarized in an image map, affected areas of the social commerce framework as well as the main categories of interactive collaboration tools are illustrated

Social Online Shopping: Neue Formen der Interaktion und Kollaboration im Electronic Commerce der Zukunft

Der große Erfolg von etablierten Social Web Services wie Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia oder YouTube führte innerhalb der letzten Jahre zu einer massiven Transformation im gesamten Web. Bedingt durch den verstärkten Einsatz von interaktiven und kollaborativen Elementen entwickelte sich parallel dazu der Internetuser von einem passiven Informationskonsumenten zu einem aktiven Inhaltsdistributor. Der anhaltende Trend zur Integration von Social Web Funktionalitäten beinflusst auch maßgeblich die aktuellen Entwicklungen im B2C und C2C Electronic Commerce. Innovative Konzepte im Bereich des Social Online Shopping ermöglichen dem Konsumenten aktive Partizipation und Kommunikation innerhalb interaktiv vernetzter Shopping-Plattformen. Dieser Beitrag veranschaulicht ein innovatives Rahmenwerk für Social Online Shopping-Anwendungen. Die Grundlage für das hier vorgestellte Design bildete eine Analyse von 100 etablierten Services, wobei ein besonderer Schwerpunkt auf vielfältige Integrationsmöglichkeiten und leichte Skalierbarkeit des Modells gelegt wurde. Abschließend werden identifizierte Kernfunktionalitäten, erfolgsversprechende Erlösmodelle und signifikante Metadaten, abgeleitet aus den analysierten Services, präsentiert

Consumer Centric Communities: Integrating Community Based Features into Online Shops

As a consequence of highly dynamic online markets and a strong competition one of the most important issues for online retailers is to strengthen customer loyalty and satisfaction. To achieve this goal, online shops implement new features which enable an intensive integration of all target groups. In addition the whole web is changing form a passive information spot to an interactive place where users can communicate and create their own content, summarized by the term &quot;social web&quot;. Blogs, social networks or user generated media platforms demonstrate the broad range of such social sites. According to these phenomenons, classic e-shops are changing more and more to functional-rich communities with a strong consumer focus. This paper illustrates a model of a consumer centric community (CCC) which allows customers to collaborate within a social commerce environment. The developed model could be taken as basis for an adaption of existing e-stores or completely new shopping concepts. Especially for online vendors and owners of shopping communities the presented model will be relevant to target the demands of the &quot;consumer 2.0&quot;, an active customer who wants to collaborate in a community-like shopping environment

Social Commerce: Neue Technologien, innovative Geschäftsmodelle und aktuelle Rechtsfragen im E Commerce

Bedingt durch neue Technologien und Funktionalitäten avancierte der User in den letzten Jahren vom passiven Informationskonsumenten zum aktiven Inhaltslieferanten innerhalb der gesamten Websphäre. Diese Evolution, aber auch die dadurch entstandenen Webanwendungen, werden mit dem Begriff &quot;Web 2.0&quot; umschrieben. Im Bereich des E-Commerce bedeutet dies die verstärkte Integration der Nutzer bzw. Konsumenten in bereits bestehende Online Shops und die Konzeption von innovativen Geschäftsmodellen. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt die Grundzüge des Social Commerce und liefert aktuelle Trends, welche aus einer empirischen Untersuchung solch neuartiger Verkaufsmodelle resultieren. Zudem werden rechtliche Aspekte, die im Kontext des Social Web relevant sind, anhand von aktuellen Fallbeispielen erörtert