Zoomerang has over 2 million registered individuals (referred to as Zoompanel). Zoomerang profiles its panelists on over 500 attributes and provides incentives to the panelists for their participation in surveys. Zoomerang (2009) reports that their panelists represent the U.S. census. In fact, they claim that their random selection of panelists would provide a nationally representative sample as opposed to a random convenience sample.

For the past two decades notions of "cumulative tradition" and "reference disciplines" have been a significant part of the introspective debates on the IS field. We provide an 1 Detmar Straub was the accepting senior editor. This paper was submitted on June 5, 2004, and went through three revisions. 2 We are indebted to Detmar Straub, and three anonymous reviewers for their many insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Grover et al./ The Evolution and State of IS exploratory test on these notions using sociometric analysis. In doing so, we extend the work of Culnan and Swanson originally carried out about 25 years ago. By using the concept of a "work point" and "reference points" to identify where an IS article is published and the extent to which it draws from or contributes to other disciplines, we can position research in the IS field. First, a quantitative analysis of over 72,600 citations spread across 1406 IS articles in 16 journals over the period 1990-2003 reveals a distinct trend toward a cumulative tradition, a changing mix of reference disciplines, and a two-way relationship between IS and some of the more mature disciplines. Second, post-hoc content analysis provides a glimpse of how IS work is being utilized by other disciplines. Overall, our analysis indicates that IS is taking up a more socio-technical persona, building upon its own knowledge base, and repaying its debts by contributing to other disciplines. We interpret the movement towards building a cumulative tradition, and informing work in other disciplines as positive, as we strive toward being part of an intellectual network and establish centrality in areas that matter to us most.Varun Grover is the William S. Lee (Duke Energy) Distinguished Professor of IS in the Department of Management, Clemson University. Previously he was a BP Foundation Fellow and Professor of Information Systems at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Grover has published extensively in the IS field, with three books and over 150 publications in refereed journals. His current research focuses on the impact and effectiveness of IS at the organizational and market levels. A number of recent articles have ranked him among the top five researchers based on publications in top IS journals over the past decade.He is currently serving as Senior Editor for MIS Quarterly, JAIS and Database and as Associate Editor for the Journal of MIS, Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of E-Commerce, and numerous others. Dr. Grover has also received recognitions for his research from the Decision Sciences Institute, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, AIS and Anbar Intelligence, and is the recipient of a number of teaching awards for courses taught at the MBA and doctoral levels.

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Price dispersion reflects the differences in prices for identical products. While in physical markets such dispersion is prevalent due to high search costs, many researchers argue that search costs and price dispersion will be much lower in electronic markets (e-markets). Empirical evidence does not support this contention, and researchers have studied search costs, market factors, and service-quality factors to explain this dispersion. Previous research has largely assumed that more information is better. By ignoring the dark side of information, we argue that only a partial understanding of price dispersion is possible. In this article, information overload and equivocality are studied as two dark attributes of information that lead sellers to different pricing decisions in e-markets. Hypotheses relating these attributes to price dispersion are supported through analysis of 161 product markets. This work opens up new avenues in the study of e-markets and discusses the implications of these findings for research and practice on consumer and seller decisions.