Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Business Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Business

The Social Media Industry: Where Is It Heading?, Yanli Zhang, Huy Will Nguyen, Young Hoon Jung, Isabelle Yi Ren Jan 2023

The Social Media Industry: Where Is It Heading?, Yanli Zhang, Huy Will Nguyen, Young Hoon Jung, Isabelle Yi Ren

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The social media industry has entered a new stage with intensifying competition and heightened uncertainty about future directions. The purpose of this paper is to provide analyses of the current challenges and to identify industry-wide trends that may offer a roadmap for the future. This study identified five major trends in the current social media industry: 1) content is king, and that content is moving to visual; 2) artificial intelligence is key to competitive advantage; 3) network effects still matter, but business model innovation can overcome that barrier; 4) the need to broaden revenue sources; and 5) the strive for …


A Qualitative Assessment Of Yelp.Com Users’ Motivations To Submit And Read Restaurant Reviews, Anish Parikh, Carl Behnke, Doug Nelson, Mihaela Vorvoreanu, Barbara Almanza Jan 2015

A Qualitative Assessment Of Yelp.Com Users’ Motivations To Submit And Read Restaurant Reviews, Anish Parikh, Carl Behnke, Doug Nelson, Mihaela Vorvoreanu, Barbara Almanza

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article presents a thematic analysis of Yelp.com users’ motivations to read and articulate user-generated reviews. This study’s purpose was to identify factors of usage, trust, influence, and contribution of restaurant reviews on Yelp.com. This study found that information search reduction and community membership were the greatest factors encouraging Yelp.com use. Respondents reported trusting Yelp.com due to the community aspects of the website and felt they were able to sort out biased reviews easily. Lastly, the primary reasons for contributing reviews to Yelp.com were altruistic in nature, for example, helping other users make good purchase decisions and rewarding good businesses.