Deck 11: Social Networks, Auctions, and Portals

Question 1

Portals are among the most frequently visited types of sites on the Web.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Most of today's well-known portals began as search engines.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Social network participation is one of the most common usages of the Internet.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The value of portals to advertisers and content owners is primarily a function of the size of the audience the portal reaches and the length of time visitors stay on the site.

Question 5

In C2C auctions, a business owns or controls assets and uses dynamic pricing to establish the price.

Question 6

In a Dutch-Internet auction, the highest price wins.

Question 7

The average user spends more time on Google+ than on Facebook.

Question 8

A Web site designed to give parents of home-schooled children a common discussion area would be classified as a(n):

A) interest-based social network.
B) affinity community.
C) practice network.
D) sponsored community.

Question 9

Sponsored community sites may be created by government, non-profit, or for-profit organizations.

Question 10

Which of the following is a community of members who self-identify with a demographic or geographic category?

A) practice network
B) sponsored community
C) affinity community
D) interest-based social network

Question 11

Auction prices are always lower than prices in fixed priced markets.

Question 12

Priceline's auctions are seller-biased.

Question 13

Which of the following was a primary feature of early online communities?

A) chat
B) network discovery
C) widgets
D) message boards

Question 14

One of the first online virtual communities was:

A) The Well.
B) Myspace.
C) AOL.
D) Salon.com.

Question 15

Revenue per customer decreases as the audience focus of a portal moves from general audience to a more focused and targeted audience.

Question 16

According to the Internet Complaint Center (IC3), Internet auction fraud is the most commonly reported offense, generating over 25 percent of all complaints.

Question 17

iVillage.com is an example of a(n):

A) interest-based social network.
B) affinity community.
C) sponsored community.
D) practice network.

Question 18

Closed bidding permits price discrimination without offending buyers.

Question 19

Consumers in auctions are driven solely by value maximization.

Question 20

Keeping bid increments low increases the number of bidders and the frequency of their bids.

Question 21

Which of the following is not a true statement?

A) Auctions create market efficiency.
B) Auctions eliminate inter-market price differences.
C) The Internet has increased the liquidity of traditional auctions.
D) Auctions make it more difficult for merchants to engage in price discrimination.

Question 22

When there are few sellers but many buyers, a market will typically be:

A) neutral (dominated by negotiation).
B) seller-biased.
C) buyer-biased.
D) neutral, in the manner of a stock exchange.

Question 23

All of the following are solutions to the problem of high monitoring costs except:

A) seller rating systems.
B) watch lists.
C) proxy bidding.
D) fixed pricing.

Question 24

Facebook is an example of a(n):

A) interest-based social network.
B) affinity community/social network.
C) general community/social network.
D) practice network.

Question 25

In 2011, the total worth of goods sold on eBay was approximately ________.

A) $68 million
B) $680 billion
C) $6.8 billion
D) $68 billion

Question 26

Which social network functionality allows users to create Web pages that describe themselves?

A) friends network
B) profiles
C) storage
D) membership management tools

Question 27

________ pricing adjusts prices based on the location of the consumer.

A) Personalization
B) Utilization
C) Trigger
D) Fixed

Question 28

Adjusting the annual cost of automobile insurance based on mileage driven is an example of ________ pricing.

A) personalization
B) trigger
C) utilization
D) fixed

Question 29

All of the following statements about social networks are true except:

A) Yahoo visitors spend more than twice as much time on Yahoo as Facebook visitors spend on Facebook.
B) Much more is spent on advertising on portals than on social networks.
C) Facebook's share of the total social market is declining.
D) The response to display ads on Facebook is lower than on portal sites.

Question 30

In ________ pricing, customers change their offers to buy based on both their perceptions of the seller's desire to sell and their own need for the product.

A) trigger
B) personalization
C) utilization
D) dynamic

Question 31

A market that has many sellers and one or few buyers is likely to be:

A) market neutral.
B) seller-biased.
C) buyer-biased.
D) both seller- and buyer-biased.

Question 32

All of the following have the quality of neutrality except:

A) one-on-one negotiations.
B) stock exchanges.
C) barter markets.
D) reverse auctions.

Question 33

All of the following are benefits of auctions except:

A) more efficient price discovery.
B) lower transaction costs.
C) decreased price transparency.
D) increased market efficiency.

Question 34

Which of the following is an example of a specialized auction site?

A) eBay
B) uBid
C) BidZ
D) eBid

Question 35

All of the following statements are true except:

A) The market leader in C2C auctions is Craigslist.
B) Auctions constituted a significant part of B2B e-commerce in 2012.
C) Over a third of procurement officers use auctions to procure goods.
D) In B2C auctions, established merchants offer items for sale using dynamic pricing techniques.

Question 36

The fact that participating in an Internet auction means that you will need to purchase a computer, learn to use it, and pay for Internet access, is an example of ________ costs.

A) equipment
B) fulfillment
C) delayed consumption
D) monitoring

Question 37

Which of the following allows the consumer to enter a maximum price and the auction software automatically bids up the goods to that maximum price in small increments?

A) watch lists
B) proxy bidding
C) sealed bidding
D) price matching

Question 38

Which of the following is not a risk or cost of Internet auctions?

A) delayed consumption costs
B) equipment costs
C) price transparency
D) trust risks

Question 39

Which of the following types of dynamic pricing adjusts prices based on the merchant's estimate of how much the customer truly values the product?

A) personalization
B) trigger
C) utilization
D) fixed

Question 40

Which social network functionality allows users to easily post messages to the entire community?

A) message board
B) chat
C) instant messaging
D) e-mail

Question 41

Which of the following is not a characteristic of a Japanese auction?

A) public ascending price auction
B) seller bias
C) multiple units
D) highest bidder wins at a price just above second highest bid

Question 42

A(n) ________, in which the highest bidder wins, is the most common form of auction.

A) Dutch Internet auction
B) Japanese auction
C) English auction
D) reverse auction

Question 43

________ is the tendency to gravitate toward, and bid for, auction listings with one or more existing bids.

A) Group buying
B) Winner's regret
C) Herd behavior
D) Bid rigging

Question 44

Elance.com is an example of a(n):

A) demand aggregator.
B) auction aggregator.
C) auction solution provider.
D) professional service auction.

Question 45

Which of the following is not a characteristic of a reverse auction?

A) seller bias
B) descending prices
C) similar to sealed bid auctions
D) winning bid is lowest-price provider

Question 46

Which of the following involves e-mailing another seller's bidders and offering the same product for less?

A) transaction interception
B) bid siphoning
C) shill bidding
D) persistent bidding

Question 47

The stock market is an example of a(n):

A) English auction.
B) group buying auction.
C) Dutch auction.
D) double auction.

Question 48

Which of the following types of auctions offers a neutral marketplace, without buyer or seller bias?

A) sealed bid market
B) English auction
C) double auction
D) name your own price auction

Question 49

Which of the following is a common problem in sealed bid markets?

A) bid rigging
B) discriminatory pricing
C) persistent bidding
D) seller nonperformance

Question 50

All of the following types of auctions have a buyer bias except:

A) English auction.
B) sealed bid market.
C) name your own price auction.
D) group buying.

Question 51

The profit a seller makes at auction is a function of all of the following except:

A) arrival rate.
B) auction length.
C) the number of units for auction.
D) bid increments.

Question 52

All of the following types of auctions involve single units except:

A) English auction.
B) Dutch-Internet.
C) Japanese auction.
D) Vickrey auction.

Question 53

Which of the following is not one of the three defining characteristics of a portal?

A) commerce
B) content
C) auctions
D) navigation of the Web

Question 54

All of the following types of auctions have a seller bias except:

A) double auction.
B) Dutch-traditional.
C) Yankee auction-Internet.
D) Dutch-Internet.

Question 55

When sellers agree informally or formally to set floor prices below which they will not sell on auction items, this is known as:

A) discriminatory pricing.
B) price matching.
C) bid rigging.
D) the uniform pricing rule.

Question 56

Threatening negative feedback in return for a benefit is an example of:

A) feedback extortion.
B) offensive shill feedback.
C) defensive shill feedback.
D) sending spam.

Question 57

Which of the following is not one of the top factors a business should consider when planning an Internet auction?

A) type of product
B) type of auction
C) location of auction
D) bid increments

Question 58

Which of the following involves a concern that one will never know how much the ultimate winner might have paid, or the true value to the final winner?

A) herd behavior
B) winner's regret
C) seller's lament
D) loser's lament

Question 59

Priceline.com is an example of a(n):

A) English auction.
B) Dutch auction.
C) group buying auction.
D) name your own price auction.

Question 60

All of the following are situations in which markets fail to produce socially desirable outcomes except:

A) information asymmetry.
B) monopoly power.
C) externalities.
D) network effects.

Question 61

________ refers to the feeling that one has paid too high a price for an item won at auction.

Question 62

Howard Rheingold, one of The Well's early participants, coined the term ________ to refer to "cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace."

Question 63

If an auction uses a(n) ________, there will be multiple winners and they all will pay the same price.

Question 64

A(n) ________ offer members focused discussion groups, help, information, and knowledge related to an area of shared practice.

Question 65

Which of the following statements illustrates the network effects that portals are subject to?

A) Specialized vertical market portals attract only 2-10 percent of the audience, while a few large megaportals garner most of the market.
B) The value of the portal to advertisers and consumers increases geometrically as reach increases.
C) The greater the amount of content provided by a portal, the greater its value to the community.
D) The greater number of portals available, the greater the potential audience for each.

Question 66

________ refers to the use of secondary user IDs or bidders who have no actual intention to buy to artificially raise the price of an item.

Question 67

The world's leading portal/search engine site, in terms of unique visitors, is:

A) Yahoo.
B) MSN/Bing.
C) AOL.
D) Google.

Question 68

________ pricing first appeared in the nineteenth century with the development of mass national markets and retail stores that could sell to a national audience.

Question 69

________ portals, such as Yahoo, attempt to attract a very large audience and then retain the audience on-site by providing in-depth vertical content channels.

Question 70

The time spent watching and reviewing auction bids is a part of ________ costs.

Question 71

E-mailing buyers to warn them away from a seller is a type of auction fraud known as ________.

Question 72

Which of the following is not one of the typical portal revenue sources?

A) commissions on sales
B) subscription fees
C) tenancy deals
D) referral fees

Question 73

MSN is an example of a:

A) general purpose portal.
B) vertical market portal based on affinity group.
C) vertical market portal based on focused content.
D) focused content search engine.

Question 74

________ are markets in which prices are variable and based on the competition among participants who are buying or selling the products.

Question 75

Portals compete with one another on:

A) search engine speed and results.
B) reach and unique visitors.
C) unique visitors and search engine speed.
D) reach and depth.

Question 76

A(n) ________ facilitates group buying of products at dynamically adjusted discount prices based on high-volume purchases.

Question 77

________ help employees navigate to the firm's human resource and corporate content such as corporate news and announcements.

Question 78

________ is defined in the text as the average of prices for that product or service in a variety of dynamic and fixed-price markets around the world.

Question 79

________ permit the consumer to monitor specific auctions of interest, requiring the consumer to pay close attention only in the last few minutes of bidding.

Question 80

The term ________ refers to the advantages conferred the larger an auction site becomes in terms of visitors and products for sale.