Timo Beck
Web 2.0: User-Generated Content in Online Communties - A theoretical and empirical
investigation of its Determinants
ISBN: 978-3-8366-0492-5
Druck Diplomica® Verlag GmbH, Hamburg, 2007
Zugl. COLOGNE BUSINESS SCHOOL - International campus, Köln, Deutschland,
Bachelorarbeit, 2007
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those people who have helped me writing this
bachelor's thesis. Without their support and help I would not have been able
to accomplish this task.
First of all, special thanks goes to my advisor, Prof. Dr. Klemens Skibicki,
who gave me precious feedback and advice. Next, I would like to thank those
students from the Cologne Business School who supported me in the
observation of the discussion forums and thus helped me to make my study
more representative. Last but not least I would like to thank my family and
friends who have always supported me.
"The second Internet goldrush is in full swing, and this time it's all
about real people, creating, editing and showcasing their own
lives and opinions" (Lanchester 2006).
Table of Contents
V
Table of Contents
Index of Tables and Figures... VII
Introduction ... 1
1 Online
Communities ... 5
1.1 Introduction... 5
1.2
What Is an Online Community? ... 5
1.3
A Typology of Online Communities... 8
1.4
Features of Online Communities ... 12
1.4.1 Discussion
Forums and Sub-Groups... 13
1.4.2 User
Profiles... 16
1.5 Conclusion... 18
2 User-Generated
Content... 19
2.1 Introduction... 19
2.2
What Is User-Generated Content? ... 19
2.3
Why Is User-Generated Content Important? ... 20
2.4
Determinants of User-Generated Content Production ... 21
2.4.1 Group
Size ... 22
2.4.1.1 Critical
Mass Theory ... 22
2.4.1.2 Information
Overload Theory ... 24
2.4.1.3 Social Loafing ... 26
2.4.1.4 Common Ground ... 30
2.4.2 Topic
and
Purpose ... 32
2.4.3 Usability... 35
2.4.4 Member
Characteristics... 37
2.4.5 Trust
And
Security ... 40
Table of Contents
VI
2.4.6
Membership Life Cycle and the Factor Time...43
2.4.7 Incentives...44
2.5 Participation
Inequalities and Lurkers...47
2.6 Conclusion ...53
3 The
Study ...54
3.1 Introduction ...54
3.2
Defining and Measuring Activity ...56
3.3 Methodology...59
3.3.1 Data
Collection...59
3.3.2
Period of Observation ...60
3.3.3
Objects of Investigation...60
3.4
Results of the Empirical Study ...63
3.5
Discussion of the Results ...67
3.5.1 Hypothesis 1 ...67
3.5.2 Hypothesis 2 ...70
3.5.3 Hypothesis 3 ...73
3.5.4 Hypothesis 4 ...77
3.5.5 Other
aspects...79
3.6 Limitations ...80
4 Conclusion...81
4.1
Findings of this Thesis...81
4.2
Suggestions for Further Research...83
References... IX
Appendices
Index of Tables and Figures
VII
Index of Tables and Figures
Table I: Community Types, Hagel & Armstrong 1997, p. 118ff ... 9
Table II: Community Types, Brunold et al. 2000, p.30ff ... 10
Figure I: Community Types, Markus 2002 ... 11
Figure II: Discussion Forum at studivz.net, last cited 02/12/2007 ... 14
Figure III: Community Management Group at xing.com... 15
Figure IV: User Profile at studivz.net... 17
Figure V: Nonlinear Feedback Loop, Jones et al. 2002, p. 2 ... 26
Table III: Reasons why lurkers lurk, Preece & Nonnecke 2004, p. 41 ... 51
Figure VI: Determinants of User-Generated Content Production... 54
Table IV: Framework for measuring activity... 56
Table V: Model for measuring user-generated content production ... 59
Table VI: Observed communities and sub-groups ... 63
Table VII: Results of the observation ... 66
Figure VII: Critical Mass I... 68
Figure VIII: Critical Mass II... 69
Figure IX: 3 largest Groups... 71
Figure X: Membership Size and Content Production ... 72
Figure XI: Different Topics I ... 74
Figure XII: Different Topics II ... 74
Figure XIII: Communities and Sub-Groups ... 78
Introduction
1
Introduction
Background the Importance of the Topic
The number of Internet users is steadily growing. Currently, 55% of all
Germans go online on a regular basis compared to 28% in 2001 and there
is no end in sight to this upward trend (BMWT 2006). Today's young people
are growing up with the Internet and the Internet is growing up with them. It is
evolving: the term for what is happening now in cyberspace is "Web 2.0", an
expression coined at a conference in 2004 by the web-business mogul Tim
O'Reilly, to describe a new evolutionary phase of the Internet. The phrase is
shorthand for the second Internet boom, which now follows the one that
ended in late 2001 with the biggest destruction of investors' capital in history.
The bursting of the so-called dotcom bubble 6 years ago marked a turning
point for the web. At that time, many people concluded that the Internet was
over-hyped (O'Reilly 2005). Bubbles and the subsequent shakeouts,
however, appear to be a common feature of all technological revolutions.
They have always marked the point at which real success stories developed
their full scope and showed their strength (e.g. Perez 2002).
The defining feature of the current evolutionary phase of the web is that
established companies are giving huge amounts of money to start-ups which
have three things in common: they have grown from nowhere with
astonishing speed; they often have no revenue stream to speak of; and most
of their content is produced by their users (Hüsing 2006). Google paid
$ 1.65bn for the acquisition of Youtube, Rupert Murdochs's News Corp.
bought Myspace for $ 580m, and Holzbrinck fully took over Studivz.net for
about 85m, to give just a few examples of recent "Web 2.0 deals".
Consequently, many people are asking a legitimate question: What makes
Introduction
2
these so-called online communities so valuable? The answer to this question
may be surprising to many people: The deployed technologies are more or
less the same as 6 years ago, but what all these new sites share is a new
approach to creating things: "user-generated content", in the jargon. The
Internet is no longer about corporations telling users what to do, think or buy;
it is about the content people create themselves. Participation, not publishing,
is the keyword (O'Reilly 2005). In online communities people's private lives
and experiences dominate conversations: sex, destinies, misfortune and
luck, holidays, pets, sports, music, and lots of everyday life.
More people use the Internet to participate in online communities than to
make purchase transactions. 84% of Internet users have contacted or
participated in a community, and the growth in membership size and usage is
expected to continue (Porter 2004, p. 2).
This development is particularly interesting for corporations which have
noticed the importance and potential of the "do-it-yourself Web" as both a
strategic marketing tool and a source of valuable information about consumer
preferences and opinions. Tomorrow's consumers will no longer be
interested in what companies say about their products and services, they will
rely on opinions of other "normal" people. Chris Anderson, chief editor of
Wired Magazine, states: "Your brand is what Google says about it. Not what
you say about it".
One could ask if such a development leads to a loss of control and efficiency
of marketing and market research. But according to Ralf Heller, CEO of the
Virtual Identity AG, Web 2.0 only uncovers the long-prevailing reality of
product communication and research. Managers should make use of those
new possibilities instead of being afraid of them (Zunke 2006).
Corporations which have spent huge amounts of money on questionable
Introduction
3
market research projects in the past can get even better information for free
in the future, as consumers and interested users exchange experiences and
opinions about brands and products in online discussion forums anyway. As
a result, marketing activities and product offers can be perfectly customized
by gathering, processing and analyzing information about consumer
preferences it remains to be seen which companies will exploit these new
opportunities and which will not.
Problem Statement and Disposition of this Paper
Although the importance and the possible benefits of user-generated content
have recently become clear to many companies and community operators,
very little is known about the factors that influence the content production.
Often online communities fail because participation drops to zero and
nobody knows why.
In order to maximize the participation level of users and, thereby, the benefits
that can be drawn from their contributions, it is important to examine what
drives people to produce content. Therefore, this thesis aims to identify the
most important factors that influence the level of user-generated content
production in online communities. More specifically, a comprehensive
conceptual framework of the relevant determinants will be proposed and
tested. The results are supposed to serve as a guideline for researchers and
community operators in the future. The author will restrict himself to
examining the quantity of content that is produced by users in online
community discussion forums
1
.
In part one of this thesis a definition, a typology and the most important
features of online communities will be presented in order to create a common
1
a rationale for this restriction will be presented in part 3.2 of this paper
Introduction
4
background for further explanations.
The second part is concerned with the concept of user-generated content.
After defining the term, the factors that might have an influence on the level
of user-generated content production will be identified. On this basis, the
author will propose an initial conceptual framework of the relevant
determinants. Moreover, various research hypotheses, which shall be tested
in the empirical part of this thesis, will be developed.
Part three is dedicated to a large empirical study a one-week observation of
385 discussion forums of 50 online communities and sub-groups. It starts
with a description of the procedure, followed by the presentation of the
results, their analysis against the background of the research hypotheses,
and the limitations of the study.
In part four some final conclusions, which summarize the main findings of this
thesis, will be presented. Moreover, the author will give suggestions for
further research.
Online Communities
5
1 Online
Communities
1.1 Introduction
In this part of the paper, a definition, a typology, and the most important
features of online communities will be presented. It is important to have an
idea of how online communities are build-up and how they work in order to
create a common background for my further explanations on user-generated
content.
1.2 What Is an Online Community?
The term "online community", which is synonymously used in literature with
the terms "virtual community", "cybersociety" or "community", means different
things to different people and there is no widely accepted definition (Preece
2000, p.8). Due to the strong multidisciplinary interest that this topic inspires,
most existing definitions reflect a disciplinary perspective. Sociologists focus
on networks of social relations and characteristics such as group size (e.g.
Wellman 1997). Technology-oriented definitions distinguish between different
developing- and supporting software of online communities (e.g. Mercer
2006; Seufert et al. 2002), and commercial-oriented definitions are mainly
concerned with the business- or revenue model (e.g. Hagel & Armstrong
1997; McWilliams 2000). Therefore, finding a suitable definition of online
communities that everyone can agree with is a difficult task.
In his 1994 book, the Internet guru Howard Rheingold coined a definition of
online communities, which fully captures the essence of this phenomenon,
and is as applicable now as in 1994. Due to its multidisciplinary character, it
seems appropriate to impart an initial understanding of the term.
In online communities, we chat and argue, engage in intellectual
Online Communities
6
discourse, perform acts of commerce, exchange knowledge, share
emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find
friends and lose them, play games and metagames, flirt...We do
everything people do when people get together, but we do it with words
on computer screens, leaving our bodies behind...our identities
commingle and interact electronically, independent of local time or
location (Rheingold 1994, p.58).
In this definition, Rheingold describes the activities in which members
engage, their reasons for this engagement, and the way they communicate.
It provides a good basis for an initial understanding of online communities but
due its philosophical and unstructured nature, it may be inappropriate for
scientific purposes.
In 2000, Jennifer Preece developed a working definition of online
communities, which is widely accepted today. It is broad enough to apply to a
range of different communities and embraces key components of definitions
put forth in existing literature. According to Preece, four elements are
common to all successful online communities (Preece 2000, p.10). In the
following, those elements will be listed and discussed in detail:
· People, who interact socially as they strive to satisfy their own needs
or perform special roles, such as leading or moderating.
· A shared purpose, such as interest, need, information exchange, or
service that provides a reason for the community.
· Policies, in the form of tacit assumptions, rituals, protocols, rules, and
laws that guide people's interactions
· Computer systems, to support and mediate social interactions and
facilitate a sense of togetherness
Online Communities
7
People or members, who develop new ideas and continually changing
content, build the heart of any online community and make it unique (e.g.
Preece 2000, p.82; Döring 1999, p. 395; Hagel & Armstrong 1997, p. 9). The
interaction between members increases their commitment to the group and is
therefore a crucial prerequisite for the long-term success of an online
community (Brunold et al. 2000, p. 24). According to Thiedke (2000, p. 37),
the "we"-feeling, the feeling that you belong together as a group, is one of the
most important attributes of a community, online as well as offline.
In computer-mediated communication people can interact anonymously
without physical contact or revealing their real names, which is a key
difference to face-to-face communication.
A common and clearly defined purpose is another crucial factor for an online
community in order to retain existing members and attract new ones (e.g.
Preece 2000, p.80; Abras et al. 2003). "A successful community serves a
clear purpose in the lives of its members (...), articulating your purpose up
front will help you focus your thinking and create a coherent, compelling, and
successful Web community." (Kim 2000, p. 1). The purpose attribute is
analogous to the concept of discourse focus, the topic that forms the basis of
interaction in an online community (Jones and Rafaeli 2000, p. 218)
An online community needs certain rules or policies that direct and improve
the community life and the interactions between members (e.g. Freyermuth
2002; Kim 2000). According to Preece, policies are needed to determine the
requirements for joining a community, the style of communication among
participants, the accepted conduct, and repercussions for non-conformance
(Preece 2000, p. 94).
As we talk about computer-meditated communication, the underlying
software or user-interface of an online community is a prerequisite for the
Online Communities
8
other aspects and should support all facets of community life (e.g. Dumas &
Redish 1999; Preece et al. 2001).
1.3 A Typology of Online Communities
As with the definition of online communities, there is no single, widely
accepted typology of online communities, due to the high diversity of
dimensions used to categorize them. Researchers often typify online
communities based on one or a few variables that are of importance to their
scientific discipline. Furthermore, a differentiation and classification becomes
more and more difficult as the number and complexity of online communities
is steadily increasing (Porter 2004, p. 3f).
In their 1997 book, Hagel and Armstrong differentiate between three types of
consumer-focused communities and four types of business-to-business or
business-focused communities (Hagel & Armstrong 1997, p. 118ff). The latter
will not be subject to further examination in this paper, because B-to-B
communities have essentially different prerequisites, characteristics, and
objectives.
Online Communities
9
Hagel and Armstrong's consumer-focused communities are categorized as
geographic-, demographic-, and topical communities. The following table
gives a short definition of each of the three types, including examples of well-
fitting, German-speaking online communities:
Community Type
Characteristics
Geographic
Formed around a physical location
that members have a common
interest in (www.koeln.eins.de)
Demographic
Focus on gender, life stage,
profession, or ethnic origin
(www.studivz.net)
Topical
Focus on topics of interest such as
hobbies, leisure activities, politics or
spiritual beliefs (www.fressnapf.de)
Table I: Community Types, Hagel & Armstrong 1997, p. 118ff
Amy Jo Kim added a fourth community type: activity-based communities,
which are characterized by "shared activities, like shopping, investigating,
playing games, or making music" (Kim 2000, p. 5). This further categorization
is not essential, as Hagel and Armstrong included such activities into the
topical community type.
Brunold, Merz and Wagner distinguish between three different motives to join
an online community and use those motives to characterize the online
community type: information exchange, common activities, and buying and
selling. Furthermore, they introduced 7 special forms of online communities
such as Instant Messaging Systems (e.g. ICQ, MSN etc.), which will not be
taken into account in this study (for a review: Brunold et al. 2000, p. 30ff).
The following table shows the three motives with some characteristics of
Online Communities
10
online communities that fit those motives and gives typical examples of
German-speaking online communities:
Motives
Some Characteristics
Information Exchange
Same age-group, local or regional
concentration, same interests,
communities of practice, exchange of
product related information etc.
(www.xing.com)
Common Activities
Gaming communities, e-learning
communities etc. (www.gaming-
networks.net)
Buying and Selling
Group Buying, Online auctions etc.
(www.ebay.de)
Table II: Community Types, Brunold et al. 2000, p.30ff
In practice, there are many hybrids of the community types and motives that
were presented above. Communities for information exchange or common
activities often have a geographical-, demographic-, or topical background
(hybrids of both schemes) or an online community can integrate exchange of
information with buying and selling (hybrid within on scheme).
Online Communities
11
Markus suggests another approach for classifying online communities. His
scheme has recently gained in importance and many modern researchers
make use of it (e.g. Porter 2004). At the top level of the structure, a
distinction is made between social-, professional-, and commercial
communities. These types can be broken down further:
Figure I: Community Types, Markus 2002
Markus states that social communities "(...) are the original community type
from which all other community types have evolved". Most online
communities that exist today, belong to the social category (Markus 2002).
The classification scheme of Markus is more concise, comprehensive, and
contemporary than the typologies of Hagel and Armstrong or Brunold, Merz
and Wagner. Nevertheless, no existing approach is all-embracing, as new
online communities that cannot be categorized unambiguously and do not
clearly fit into a scheme are born every day.
Online Communities
12
1.4 Features of Online Communities
Online communities can be very different in their composition and often
integrate various elements, leading to a high level of complexity. Which
features or functions make up an online community is very much dependant
on its supporting software, type, target group, and purpose (Kim 2000, p.
28ff). Another crucial point, besides the composition and variety of features,
is the quality of the features they should be based on software with good
usability attributes. According to Dumas and Redish, "usability means that
people who use the product can do so quickly and easily to accomplish their
own tasks" (Dumas & Redish 1999, p. 4). Therefore, the supporting software
of online communities has to fulfill criterions such as consistency,
controllability, and predictability (for a review: Lazar & Preece 2002, p. 8f).
Usability will be discussed in part 2.2.3 of this thesis, in more detail.
Brunold, Merz and Wagner identified four elements that are common to most
online communites:
· eCommerce, e.g. shops,
· eContent, e.g. newsticker,
· eService, e.g. search engines, and
· eCommunity computer-mediated communication systems, e.g.
discussion forums or chats.
One or more of those elements can be integrated into an online community,
whereas the eCommunity functions are most important (Brunold et al. 2000,
p. 88ff): Features that enable and facilitate the communication between
members are essential, because user-generated content "(...) is perhaps the
single most empowering element of an online community" (Hagel and
Armstrong 1997, p. 9).
Online Communities
13
Many communication tools with different characteristics are used in online
communities. Two defining attributes are whether the software is
synchronous or asynchronous (e.g. Ellis et al. 1991; Döring 1999).
Synchronous technologies require all participants to be online at the same
time and support real time communication, e.g. in chat rooms. In contrast,
asynchronous technologies, such as discussion forums or private-message
systems, do not require participants to be available simultaneously. Thus,
communication via asynchronous technologies tends to take longer and
participants may respond hours, days or even months later. It gives users
time to reflect before answering, enables fault correction as well as sending
messages any time of day or nights.
It is increasingly common today to find synchronous as well as asynchronous
technologies together on community sites (Preece 2000, p. 135ff).
1.4.1 Discussion Forums and Sub-Groups
The most important communication tools in modern online communities are
chat rooms, discussion forums, private-message systems, and mailing lists,
whereas discussion forums and private messages are most frequently used
in large web communities (e.g. Kim 2000, p. 29ff). Since online discussion
forums will be an integral part of the empirical study in part three of this
thesis, an example and a short description will be presented now:
Discussion forums allow participants to read what others have posted or to
post a message themselves. The newest message usually appears on the
top of the first page of the forum. The nickname of the poster, the posting
date and time, and, if available, a photo of the poster is shown together with
each message.
Online Communities
14
The following figure shows an example of a discussion forum at studivz.net:
Figure II: Discussion Forum at studivz.net, last cited 02/12/2007
Discussion forums support conversations that may happen over a short or a
long period of time and therefore give a "(...) sense of context and history to
a community" (Kim 2000, p. 34). A discussion forum can be embedded in a
sub-group within a community, often referred to as "channels" one online
community may consist of hundreds or thousands of sub-groups, which are
created around a certain topic, with one or many discussion forums each,
e.g. xing.com. Some communities, however, do not offer sub-groups and
provide only one discussion forum for all members, e.g. schwarzekarte.de.
Kim states that the development of sub-groups that attract members, who
share common interests or a common purpose within one online community,
is a natural and desirable process that fosters trust, builds strong
relationships and loyalty among members. A large variety of sub-groups is an
integral part of most successful online communities (Kim 2000, p. 309).
Online Communities
15
Those groups can be either created by the community management (e.g.
Yahoo!GeoCities) or by the members themselves (e.g. studivz.net). In some
cases, members have to make a request that has to be granted by the
operator before a group can be set up (e.g. xing.com).
The following figure shows a group that deals with one specific topic within
xing.com. It consists of 189 members and 4 discussion forums:
Figure III: Community Management Group at xing.com, last cited 02/12/2007
Online Communities
16
1.4.2 User Profiles
Besides the four main elements of online communities that were presented
above, Brunold, Merz and Wagner identified further elements that are used
on many community sites. The most important functions include:
· user profiles,
· rating- and ranking systems,
· search engines, and
· reward systems.
In the following, only user profiles are explained in more detail, as the other
elements will not be subject to closer examination in this paper.
A user profile includes personal data that the member wants to share with
others such as name, age, email address, interests or photos and
sometimes, what they do in the community such as sub-groups that they
belong to, friends within the community, or their activity level (Kim 2000, p.
76ff). In most online communities a user profile consists of compulsory
information that the member has to provide in order to sign-up, such as email
address, name and age, and optional information that the member can
provide, such as interests, hobbies or favorite movies.
If a user posts a question, answer, or comment in a forum of the community,
his name or his personal photo works as hyperlink, leading other users to the
contributor's profile (Leitmeister et al. 2005).
Online Communities
17
The following example shows a user-profile of a member of studivz.net:
Figure IV: User Profile at studivz.net (http://www.studivz.net/press_download.php)
Online Communities
18
1.5 Conclusion
In the above part a variety of approaches for defining and categorizing online
communities were presented and discussed. For the purpose of this paper,
however, it is not necessary to explicitly remember all aspects that were
mentioned. Therefore, it can be concluded that most online communities
consist of (1) people that interact, (2) a shared purpose, (3) common policies,
and (4) computer systems that should facilitate interactions.
There are many ways of categorizing online communities but no existing
approach is all-embracing many communities do not fit into a scheme.
Online communities can provide a wide range of complex features or
functions. As this paper focuses on the production of user-generated content,
it is especially important to have an idea of the different communication tools,
such as discussion forums.