Title: Adapting a social process for business purposes through technology mediation

Authors: Nick V. Flor

Addresses: Anderson Schools of Management, University of New Mexico, MSC05 3090 Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA

Abstract: People are engaged in a number of common everyday activities that appear to have no business utility. However, by mediating these processes with technology, it is possible to adapt them for business purposes. This paper presents a case study of a novel, virtually no-cost, yet effective online advertising mechanism used for the past four years in a special kind of business website known as a programmable autonomous business. Using representational analysis techniques, which are based on the theoretical framework of distributed cognition, I show how this online advertising mechanism actually disguises an adaptation of a relatively mundane social process – gossiping – in which individuals naturally share information with a large number of friends and associates. I end by proposing a framework for how to identify and adapt social processes for advertising purposes by mediating them with technology.

Keywords: applied cognitive science; distributed cognition; social process adaptation; programmable autonomous businesses; technology mediation; online advertising; internet advertising; business websites; representational analysis; gossiping; information sharing; web advertising.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2005.007508

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2005 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.126 - 142

Published online: 30 Jul 2005 *

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