Firms communicate with consumers through direct channels and indirectly via social networks. Successful customer engagement requires an in-depth understanding of the coexistence and interaction of these communications and the underlying drivers of their effects. In this study, we investigate the...

The authors study users’ click behavior on organic and sponsored links after a keyword search at a search engine. Using a dataset obtained from a search engine, they analyze over 1.5 million user searches for multiple keywords over the span of one month. They find that consumers’ click...

Peer-to-peer (P2P) services allow users to share networked resources, notably bandwidth and content, from the edges of the network. These services have been popularized because of file sharing – particularly the sharing of unlicensed copyrighted files. However, content owners are increasingly...

Both theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that in markets withstandards competition, strong network effects can make the strong growstronger and, in some circumstances, even 'tip' the market towards asingle, winner-take-all standard. We theorize that in the presence oflow cost conversion...

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are a vital component of the Internet’s content delivery value chain, servicing nearly a third of the Internet’s most popular content sites. However, in spite of their strategic importance little is known about the optimal pricing policies or adoption drivers...

Recent IT research has analyzed how the performance of IT-enabled markets may differ from conventional markets. This literature has made two unexpected empirical findings. First, ITenabled markets for commodity goods exhibit significant price dispersion. Second, well-known retailers in these...

As the Internet develops into a robust channel for commerce, it will be important to understand the characteristics of electronic markets. Businesses, consumers, government regulators, and academic researchers face a variety of questions when analyzing these nascent markets. Will electronic...

Theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that in many markets with standards competition, network effects make the strong grow stronger and can “tip” the market toward a single, winner-take-all standard. We hypothesize, however, that this sort of standards-induced market dominance may be...

In spite of industry concerns, prior work has shown that Internet used book markets do not significantly cannibalize new book sales. In this research note we analyze similar data from markets for CDs and DVDs, goods that because of their digital characteristics may be more susceptible to...