Retaining and Exploring Digital Traces

The present work rests and elaborates on the assumption that social technologies are increasingly turned into computer-mediated virtual settlements, thereby allowing the excavation of a variety of enacted cyber-phenomena such as ad hoc online ensembles, informal social networks and virtual communities, on the grounds of “digital” traces or remains. In this vein, the authors motivate and present a method for virtual excavations that is tightly coupled to a transformational technology such as knowledge visualization. The analytical and explanatory value of the method is assessed using two case studies addressing representative genres of social technologies, namely web sites augmented with social plug-ins and social networking services. Analysis reveals intrinsic aspects of “digital” traces and remains, the form they take in today’s social web and the means through which they can be excavated and transformed to useful information. It turns out that such virtual excavations, when organized and conducted carefully, can be of benefit to enterprises, service organizations and public sector institutions. In addition, their tight coupling with knowledge visualization eliminates extensive data analysis as much of this work can be done using the visualization. On the other hand, and depending on the size of digital trace data, the choice of visualizations and the underlying toolkit are of paramount importance.

Understanding Users’ Continuance of Facebook

The purpose of this study is to develop an integrated model designed to examine users’ continuance of Facebook based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), the expectation disconfirmation model (EDM), and flow theory. Empirical data collected from 482 users who have experience with Facebook are subjected to structural equation modeling based on the proposed research model. Results show that users’ continuance intention of Facebook is determined by social influence, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, flow experience, and satisfaction. Satisfaction is significantly affected by flow experience and disconfirmation. Results also suggest that effort expectancy is positively related to flow experience. Based on the findings, managerial implications are discussed in this paper and directions for future research are also highlighted.

Enterprise 2.0 Management Challenges

The nature of the enterprise and the way people work is changing rapidly. The enabling power and competitive advantage of new social and participative technologies will benefit those that recognize the way work is changing. Web 2.0, the “second phase” of the Web, is the foundation of a new and improved Enterprise 2.0. Enterprise 2.0 provides, through a web of interconnected applications, services, and devices, the capabilities for enterprise employees and vendors to be more competitive and productive and for enterprise customers to be more engaged and loyal by accessing the right information from the right people at the right time. This paper describes Enterprise 2.0 management challenges and issues identified by Chief Information Officers, which include the unauthorized use of services and technologies, the integration of a myriad of technologies and capabilities, and the potential compliance and security implications. The authors have proposed a conceptual framework that explores the relationships of three Enterprise 2.0 dimensions – technology, its use, and how resulting user-generated content may lead to business value – with management implications affecting IT culture and policies within the enterprise. This paper provides observations and suggestions for future research.

Unfolding the Diminishing Image Control in Online Self Presentation

As the young generations grow up using applications like Facebook and as fans of social networking technologies, understanding the presentations of self in a virtual community becomes a worthwhile topic to be addressed. Drawing on the theory of dramaturgical theory (Goffman, 1959), this interpretive research was conducted to observe the self presentation of the participants in a virtual community to analyze their online behaviors and interactions. The observations found that only in the early stage of interaction, people can have a high degree of control over the ideal images creation; however, the clues to reveal actual images are accumulated over time and across cyberspaces. This research suggested that personal control over image delivery in a virtual community weakens over time, which challenged the assumption made by prior literature regarding how people have greater control in creating ideal images in the virtual community. The findings of this research could provide insight for people who use virtual community to search for credible personal information or to build ideal images. Besides, this research suggested that although Internet technologies facilitate access to a rich source of information, the convenience in information acquisition and verification comes at the expense of personal privacy.

Identifying Opinion Leaders for Marketing by Analyzing Online Social Networks

Recently, the impact of social networks in customer buying decision is rapidly increasing due to effectiveness in shaping public opinion. This paper helps marketers analyze social network’s members based on different characteristics and choose the best method for identifying influential people among them. Then, marketers can use these influential people as seeds to market products/services. Considering the importance of opinion leadership in social networks a comprehensive overview of existing literature has been done. Studies show, different titles (such as opinion leaders, influential people, market mavens and key players) are used to refer to the influential group in social networks whom we know as opinion leaders. The study shows all the properties presented for opinion leaders in the form of different titles are classified into three general categories including structural, relational and personal characteristics and based on studying opinion leader identification methods; appropriate parameters are extracted in a comprehensive chart to evaluate and compare these methods accurately.

Impact of Blogs on Sales Revenue

In this study, blog data were collected and network parameters were captured to represent three common measurements of online Word-Of-Mouth: intensity, influence level, and dispersion. These parameters were then analyzed using a General Estimating Equation (GEE) model to test their effects on average weekly movie box office receipts. Findings indicated that all three parameters were significant in the model. The aggregated degree, representing WOM intensity, was positively significant, which was consistent with results from extant research. Further, diameter of a network, representing WOM dispersion, was observed to be positively significant, which validated the importance of spreading WOM as far as possible. Counter-intuitively, the aggregated size node, representing WOM influence level, was ascertained to be negatively significant, which might be explained by the possible negative stance from opinion leaders with high influence level. Applying network analysis methodology to blog entries, the present work differentiated itself from extant WOM literature that has focused chiefly on content analysis. The findings also provided managerial insights to companies interested in utilizing blogs as online WOM for marketing initiatives and implications for future research.

Social Shopping Development and Perspectives

“Social shopping” (or social commerce), combining shopping and social networking, is an application of Web 2.0 in electronic commerce to benefit from users’ social networks. This paper explores the development of the emergent “social shopping” and related perspectives. It incorporates comparisons between social shopping marketing and search engine marketing. For example, search engine marketing assumes shoppers are certain of their shopping goal; social shopping marketing assumes shoppers are uncertain of their shopping goals and gather shopping ideas from their peers. In this paper, the challenges in social shopping development are identified, including governing shopper communities and retrieving content from social networking sites. The author concludes that social shopping and e-commerce are not dichotomous concepts. Social shopping can be an evolutionary concept, meaning a singular EC site advancing with social networking functions, or a synergistic concept, meaning EC sites connecting with the other social networking sites to form strategic alliance.

Peer-to-Peer Service Quality in Virtual Communities

Virtual communities are an increasingly popular way to conduct business over the Internet. However, from the service provider’s point of view they pose special challenges. In particular, unless the provider itself engages in content or service provision, the service relies entirely on its members for provision of services. The members should thus be seen as resources for service provision. This type of networked service production system implies challenges in terms of service quality management and, subsequently, value creation for community members. This paper explores these issues by revisiting service marketing and service operations literature on service quality. Analysis of the literature indicates that firms facilitating virtual communities need to ensure the quality of their service by not only ensuring technical quality but also by nurturing the social aspects of the community that have an impact on the willingness of community members to provide service to each other.

Virtual Research Conferences

Research conferences provide an important platform for idea exchange and validation as well as for social networking and talent hunt. Online social networks and collaborative web tools can make conferences budget friendly for sponsors, flexible for attendees, and environment friendly for the society without loss of effectiveness. While many conferences have adopted such tools during pre and post conferencing stages, their use during actual meeting hours is very limited. This paper deliberates on the current and potential use of such technologies on various stages of a conference. It then presents the case of a pure virtual conference in comparison with a face to face conference with an aim to analyze the immediate benefits that virtual conferencing brings for organizers and participants. Perceived deterrents and potential benefits for various stakeholders are discussed. Suggestions are made for educational institutions to review their norms for conference sponsorships.

Evolution of Trust and Formation of Preference Clusters in Distributed Networked Structure

Distributed network researchers are trying to address one important issue concerning networked structures and how the network came into existence, i.e., dynamics of network evolution. From the knowledge of social science it is observed that trust is one such metric that evolves with the network particularly where human interaction is involved. This work presents a “trust” model of the authors’ studies and its various properties. In virtual (and “real”) communities (chat rooms, blogs, etc.) behavioral segregation over time is observed. Differences in identities of interacting agents result in evolution of various degrees of “trust” (and “distrust”) among them over a period of time. This process ultimately leads to emergence of self-segregation in behavioral kinetics and results in formation of preference clusters.