• Commercial Web site links.

      Thelwall, Mike (MCB UP Ltd, 2001)
      Every hyperlink pointing at a Web site is a potential source of new visitors, especially one near the top of a results page from a popular search engine. The order of the links in a search results page is often decided upon by an algorithm that takes into account the number and quality of links to all matching pages. The number of standard links targeted at a site is therefore doubly important, yet little research has touched on the actual interlinkage between business Web sites, which numerically dominate the Web. Discusses business use of the Web and related search engine design issues as well as research on general and academic links before reporting on a survey of the links published by a relatively random collection of business Web sites. The results indicate that around 66 percent of Web sites do carry external links, most of which are targeted at a specific purpose, but that about 17 percent publish general links, with implications for those designing and marketing Web sites.
    • Word of mouth as a promotional tool for turbulent markets.

      Mason, Roger B. (Informaworld: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2008)
      Word-of-mouth advertising involves activities to encourage consumers to talk about a product or company to friends and neighbours, setting in motion a chain of communication that could spread through a whole market. Each activity, itself small and relatively unimportant, could escalate through word of mouth to create strong, positive brand images and beliefs. A major characteristic of chaos theory, sensitive dependence on initial conditions (the butterfly effect) is at work in word of mouth. This paper reviews word of mouth literature from a chaos/complexity theory perspective. Using a multiple case study approach, the significance of word of mouth in turbulent markets is assessed. It was found that more successful companies tended to use word of mouth proactively, and that it is an effective marketing tool for turbulent environments. Furthermore, chaos theory is shown as a good lens through which to view word of mouth. This paper is important because word of mouth has had little attention from the academic community, with the exception of electronic or Internet based word of mouth. Furthermore, it suggests an academic theory to underpin word of mouth that has not been considered before. In addition, it is important because, in South Africa and possibly in other under-developed and developing countries, word of mouth is critical to marketing to less sophisticated or literate markets.