Web 3. 0: consumer online behavior and emerging opportunities for businesses

The aim of this work is to describe and analyze in depth how new media have strongly affected consumer behavior theorization, considering the potential of adopting these technology for marketing and communication purposes. First of all, a description of the new internet environment called “web 3. 0” will be presented. In this section, i will report an overview of the main characteristics of web 3. 0 environment, pointing out how new technologies have developed during past years and how important are new media for businesses. I will also present a brief description of social networking sites with definitions and classification in order to show differences among several platforms. Further, a discussion about various advantages on using social networks for business will be presented, particularly focusing on how these tools can positively affect an enterprise. in the second section, i will be discuss how classic consumer behavior models do not reflect actual consumer behavior in web 3. 0 environment. For this reason, recent contributions and findings on consumer behavior will be presented, in order to push consumer behavior theorization toward a “new paradigm”. Several aspects will be analyzed in this section, including motivation in using main new media, consumer online activities, consumer online decision process and social influence in web 3. 0. In the third section, emerging opportunities and practices for businesses will be considered. Starting from the significant impact of new media, enterprises are figuring out new ways to exploit advantages provided by new technologies. Four main emerging practices in business 3. 0 environment will be examined, including community managers, crowdsourcing activities, online brand communities and online recruitment process