U-commerce: Expanding the universe of marketing

Abstract

This article introduces several new concepts that lay the conceptual foundation for thinking about next-generation marketing based on ubiquitous networks. U-commerce, or Über-commerce, is predicated on the characteristics of network ubiquity, universality, uniqueness, and unison. It is proposed that the keys to managing network-driven firms are the concepts of u-space and attention analysis. The implications for next-generation marketing in the u-space are explored, with a research agenda identified for scholars and managerial implications recognized for practitioners. Copyright © 2002 by Academy of Marketing Science.