Talk:Word of mouth

cleanup for bias

This article seems to have been edited with significant bias - a majority of recent edits have originated from anonymous users. A section is called "Illegal examples" and has been vandalized to specifically bias the article (who has ever been charged by some law enforcement agency with "illegal word of mouth marketing practices??") Will provide cleanup and broader citations. +++DeepDishChicago (talk) 04:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Similarly, I've deleted the hotmail example. The hotmail case was neither unsuccessful (it contributed to hotmail's sale for circa $450 million) nor illegal (at a time when e-mail was expensive, hotmail offered the first free e-mail service in exchange for tacking on one-line ads). Wikiant (talk) 11:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the comment that this page has been significantly stripped and biased. Word of mouth is a large field now taught at dozens of universities, the subject of many books, etc. There has been substantial public discussion of the ethics involved (pro and con). All of this has been deleted in favor of negatively biased text that removes most objective information sources. All that is left is self-promotional links. I can provide detail as to who is behind this. Sernovitz (talk) 03:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Self-contradiction

"Word of mouth is the passing of information by verbal means" ...and few lines below... "Word of mouth is typically considered a spoken communication, although web dialogue, such as blogs, message boards and emails are often now included in the definition." It contradicts itself, so I hope someone can put a better version. I would if my English was a bit better. --logixoul 09:12, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Verbal can refer to any communication using words, although it is sometimes used to mean only spoken (oral) communication. I don't think there is a contradiction, since the meaning should be clear from the context. Wmahan. 17:26, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Umm, I thought verbal was used always in this sense... I've just learned something new =) --logixoul 19:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't that definition include all communication involving languages? This would mean primary sources are word of mouth. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Kuchuikomi

That Japanese section really needs to be cleaned up by someone who is familiar with the topic. icydid 16:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I decided to Be Bold and simply chucked the whole thing. -- pne (talk) 14:22, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Word of mouth/Word of mouth marketing merger

"Merge Word of mouth marketing" into "Word of mouth". Word of mouth is a cultural phenomenon and Word of mouth marketing is a specific advertising technique that makes use of it. So "Word of mouth marketing" is a subset of "Word of mouth" and should be merged as such. Fountains of Bryn Mawr 16:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems to me there should be a firm distinction between the natural phenomenon and WOMM; article restructured to help preserve this. Probably needs more attention in the references section to link to non-marketing-oriented information.--OtisTDog 14:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)