Long live the king

Citation

Schwartz, D.G. (2002), "Long live the king", Internet Research, Vol. 12 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.2002.17212caa.001

Long live the king

Long live the king

If content is king in the Internet court, then content analysis must be the newest form of royal council. The importance of content analysis and content management extends on down from the largest of publishers to the smallest of hobbyist sites. If there is a common theme among the papers of this issue of Internet Research, it is content.

Starting at a national portal level, Zahir, Dobing, and Hunter begin with a simple premise: "Just as a magazine's content says something about both those who produce it and those who read it, so does that of a national portal". The analysis they present in "Cross-cultural dimensions of Internet portals" is based on Hofstede's well-established theory of cultural dimensions.

Stockdale and Standing use content analysis in order to understand the decision process involved in selecting electronic marketplace venues and types of participation. Their research results in "A framework for the selection of electronic marketplaces: a content analysis approach". A similar type of content analysis is employed by Ha in "Enhanced television strategy models: a study of TV Web sites". In Ha's article content analysis is applied to a specific media industry sector, rather than to the broader business model of electronic marketplaces.

It is the delivery of content that takes centre stage in Slack and Rowley's paper "Online kiosks: the alternative to mobile technologies for mobile users". As our networks continue their unabated expansion into the wireless world, the importance of our treatment of mobile users begins to rival that of stationary users. Here we are met with new challenges in content selection, delivery, and presentation, that were woefully ill addressed in the first generation of WAP Web sites and delivery platforms. Distributed stationary kiosks have the potential of bridging wired and wireless needs and we can expect the next generation of kiosk deployment to play a key role in keeping mobile users connected.

Teo and Tan's paper "Senior executives' perceptions of business-to-consumer (B2C) online marketing strategies: the case of Singapore" focuses on one of the most specialized and valuable types of corporate content – the brand. Online brand equity, the assets and liabilities linked to a brand on its online embodiment, is examined in terms of its relationship to marketing strategies and customer acquisition.

The final paper in this issue, "Commercial Internet adoption in China: comparing the experience of small, medium and large businesses", is Riquelme's broad study of 248 companies in Shanghai, China. This rare view into one of the fastest growing Internet markets in the world provides important insights, both for those seeking to do business in China, and for those who will be able to apply the Chinese experience in other markets.

David G. Schwartz