May 2012

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3

4

5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20

21

22

23 24 25 26
27 28

29

30 31    

Editor Login


Convener in chief:


David Lazer
(Methodology, Networked Governance)

Editors:


Stanley Wasserman
(Current Trends, Methodology, Social Networks)
Guy Stuart
(Economic Sociology, Finance)
David Gibson
(Social Networks, Interaction, Theory)
Jason Greenberg>
(Networks, Econmic Sociology, Entrepreneurship)
Allan Friedman
(Simulations)
Yu-Ru Lin
(Networks, Visualization)
Sklyer Place
(Networks, Decisionmaking)
Sune Lehmann
(Complex Networks, Computational Social Science, Statistics)
Jukka-Pekka Onnela
(Methodology, Social Networks, Technology)
Nathan Eagle
(Technology, Social Computing, Powerlaws, Current Trends)
Ben Waber
(Technology, Social Computing) Ines Mergel
(Knowledge Sharing, Social Computing, Social Software, Government 20)
Maria Binz-Scharf
(Qualitative Methodology, Knowledge Sharing, eGovernment)
Sebastian Schorf
(Social Interaction, Cultural Interaction)
Alexander Schellong
(Admin, eGovernment, Government 20, Citizen Relationship Management)

Categories

Archives

Recent Entries

Recent Comments



Notification

Enter e-mail to subscribe:
Powered by
Movable Type 4.24-en

Syndicate this site (XML)



View Blog Stats

Blog Directory & Search engine
Academics Blog Top Sites

globe_blogs.gif
Blog Flux Local - Massachusetts
Blog Flux Directory

« Government Social Software - SNS in Japan Part III: Some observations | Main | Mobile Phones in the Developing World »

22 January 2007

Why do user communities work?

Newschoolers.com, skibuilders.com, or the Skiers Union are online communities of freestyle ski enthusiasts. In my research, I attempt to address the question why and how such online communities or online social networks work.

More precisely, I examine an important aspect of user communities – that is its members’ involvement in information sharing activities. I draw on previous research in the field of information sharing in social networks and I take a closer look at the following research question: "Why are some community members more actively sharing information than others?".

I build hypotheses and test them with data from a survey instrument, which I administered in the newschoolers.com community. I find that members with higher social status are more actively sharing community-relevant information than others. I also find that status is the result of a member’s embeddedness in and his experience with the user community.

In summary, my results contribute to the literature on user communities by illuminating the individual level determinants of voluntary information exchange. I also discuss the implications for further research in this field.

A working paper version of this paper is available upon request from the author of this blog entry.

Posted by Thomas Langenberg at January 22, 2007 3:00 AM