Tom Novak's Blog - UCR Sloan Center for Internet Retailing

It's All Smart at CES 2012!

Just returned from 3 days at CES 2012. I've uploaded an album of photos I took at CES - check it out!

I was last at the Consumer Electronics Show two years ago, in 2010. The word back then in 2010 was "3D" - everything was all about 3D TV. Not anymore. The word in 2012 is "smart". Everything is smart. TVs are smart, interfaces are smart, apps are smart, health and fitness devices are smart - even…

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Added by Tom Novak on January 14, 2012 at 10:00pm — No Comments

Quality of Virtual Life - Novak (forthcoming 2012)

Novak, Thomas P. "Quality of Virtual Life (QOVL)" Draft of chapter to appear in TRANSFORMATIVE CONSUMER RESEARCH FOR PERSONAL AND COLLECTIVE WELL-BEING, David Glen Mick, Simone Pettigrew, Cornelia Pechmann, Julie Ozanne, eds., New York: Taylor and Francis, 2012

This chapter begins with an overview of virtual worlds and people’s motivations for using them. As Second Life is currently the dominant example of a fully realized virtual world, many of our examples are based upon Second… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on September 30, 2009 at 5:30pm — No Comments

The Heartbreak of MobileMe: Problems Not Solutions

Every now and then an application comes along that sounds too good to be true. You read the negative reviews that say "don't go there." But, it sounds so cool you have to try it anyway...

MobileMe, in theory, allows you to sync your iPhone with your Outlook calendar on multiple windows or mac machines. In addition, using the MobileMe web interface, you can also access your calendar and contacts from a good looking Web interface to the MobileMe "cloud" out there on the Web. Sounds… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on November 3, 2008 at 7:00pm — 2 Comments

Working paper - Hoffman and Novak (May 2008)

Hoffman, Donna L. and Thomas P. Novak, “Flow Online: Lessons Learned and Future Prospects” (May 28, 2008). Download pdf.

Abstract. Although the flow construct has been widely studied over the past decade in marketing and related fields, it has proven to be an elusive construct to measure and model. In this… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on May 28, 2008 at 10:00am — No Comments

eLab City - New Second Life Research Project

eLab City is currently in the planning stages. Construction to begin late 2007.

eLab City will be a two-island sim in Second Life. It is being developed by the University of California, Riverside, Sloan Center for Internet Retailing, for the purpose of studying consumer behavior in virtual worlds. eLab City will be a “live-work-play” community, providing a working laboratory and subject pool for academic research. Most academic sims in Second Life are “virtual campuses” oriented to… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on October 23, 2007 at 5:30pm — No Comments

ACR Presentation - Novak (October 2007)

Novak, Thomas P., "Consumer Behavior Research in Second Life: Issues and Approaches," (October 2007).

Presented at the Association for Consumer Research Pre-Conference, "Consumer Online: Ten Years Later," Memphis, TN, October 25, 2007

Download powerpoint sldes (long version of presentation)

Added by Tom Novak on October 23, 2007 at 10:30am — No Comments

eLab eXchange has launched

As mentioned in today's New York Times article, "The Wisdom of Sales Trend Predictions," the eLab eXchange (beta) is open and ready for you to start judging.

The… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on September 16, 2007 at 9:00pm — No Comments

Working paper - Hoffman and Novak (September 2007)

Hoffman, Donna L. and Thomas P. Novak, "Flow Online: Lessons Learned and Future Prospects" (September 14, 2007).

Abstract. Although the flow construct has been widely studied over the past decade in marketing and related fields, it has proven to be an elusive construct to measure and model. In this paper, we first examine two of the most important themes in flow research in the last decade: the conceptualization and measurement of flow in online environments and the marketing… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on September 14, 2007 at 8:00pm — No Comments

Cyberporn Debate Revisited - Sex in Second Life

Mitch Wagner has an excellent new article in Information Week outlining five rules business should follow, with plenty of examples, in order to get the most out of Second Life. I’d like to comment on an issue he raised in his fourth rule, “be smart about keeping out trouble-makers.” In that context, he discusses strategies businesses can take to manage griefers who vandalize commercial… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on August 22, 2007 at 1:30pm — No Comments

2007 Virtual Worlds Fall Conference and Expo

There’s a two day Virtual Worlds Conference in San Jose, CA, October 10-11, that I’ll be checking out. There will be five tracks related to various business aspects of virtual worlds. Looking forward to meeting some interesting people there and hearing the latest ideas!

Added by Tom Novak on August 15, 2007 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Wired Gets Second Life Wrong

When I read Frank Rose’s recent article in Wired, “How Madison Avenue is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life,” I felt a distinct sense of déjà vu. I’ve been wandering around in Second Life for the past three months, and what I read in Wired took me back a dozen years ago.

There are many parallels with virtual worlds and the early days of the commercial Web. Back in 1994,… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on August 10, 2007 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment

UCR Sloan Center for Internet Retailing Networking Workshop

The UCR Sloan Center held a research networking workshop on May 3-4, 2007, at the historic Mission Inn in Riverside, California. The workshop was limited to 20 attendees, 13 of whom were asked to prepare thought-provoking 15-minute presentations that dramatically deviate from the usual research talk. Presenters were asked to introduce what they considered to be “the most intereresting under-addressed research question in Internet marketing.”

Goals of the workshop were to bring… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on May 4, 2007 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Student Project - Online Panel Management and Strategies

Lemaster, Julie, “Online Panel Management and Strategies: An Introduction for Managers,” (January 2007).

Abstract. The intention of this paper is to provide an introductory guide to managers who have been asked or have decided it is time to start looking into online market research for their company. The size of the company you work for does not matter, as we will discuss several methods that can be used for any size company or investment level. This paper is for managers who… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on January 27, 2007 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Conjoint Interactive Exercises

By popular demand, the “Conjoint Interactive Exercises” are once again available.

These interactive on-line exercises were developed in 1998 by Tom Novak and programmed by Andy Bass, at Project 2000. These exercises can be used to demonstrate the basic principles of conjoint analysis as used in marketing research.

These interactive exercises were awarded the… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on July 29, 2006 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Why a Blog?

We’ve chosen to set up the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing Web site at the University of California, Riverside, using Wordpress blogging software. Why? From 1994 to 2006, we’ve maintained a series of websites for our research centers - Project 2000, eLab, and the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing - at Vanderbilt University. Tools for implementing these websites ranged from hand-coded html on a Unix server back in 1994, to Frontpage, to… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on July 5, 2006 at 3:30pm — No Comments

eLab Art

Early eLab character art, created by Mike Meredith. Click on each image to view Mike’s original hand sketches.…

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Added by Tom Novak on July 4, 2006 at 3:30pm — 1 Comment

Sloan Center moves to UCR

The Sloan Center for Internet Retailing officially moved to the University of California, Riverside on July 1, 2006. Professors Donna L. Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak, formerly of Vanderbilt University, will co-direct the UCR Sloan Center. The UCR Sloan Center is supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and corporate partners, including founding partners Walmart.com and Lands' End. (Press… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on July 1, 2006 at 4:30pm — No Comments

UCR Marketing is recruiting!

The A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Riverside invites applications for up to four full-time tenure-track faculty positions as Assistant Professor in Marketing to begin July 1, 2007. We seek candidates with highly sophisticated research training who can demonstrate the potential for outstanding accomplishment and scholarly distinction in marketing. Research area is open but preference will be given to candidates with strong methodological training… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on July 1, 2006 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Cyberporn Debate

This material first appeared on the Project 2000 Website in the summer of 1995. Many of the original links have been lost, but we have attempted to archive much of the original content for historical purposes.

The Cyberporn Debate.

Time July 3, 1995 Cyberporn cover.

The July 3, 1995 Time magazine cover story on “Cyberporn” by… Continue

Added by Tom Novak on July 31, 1995 at 1:30pm — No Comments

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