Abstract
Without the "guidance" of traditional marketing campaigns, how do consumers find "good" usergenerated- content online? Recently, websites have begun to present content through combined product and social networks, linked by hyperlinks. We focus on the role of this dual network structure in facilitating ill-defined exploration of the content space. We first analyze the YouTube.com and show that user pages have unique structural properties and act as content brokers in the dual network. Using simulation analysis we show that random rewiring of the product network cannot replicate the brokering effect of the self-organizing social network. Finally, we introduce an experiment in which consumers browse a YouTube-based website that offers video recommendations through different networks. Using survival analysis we show that the dual network structure leads to faster access to “good” content and to overall higher satisfaction. Our work suggests that integrating a selforganizing social network with product networks significantly improves content exploration.
Recommended Citation
Goldenberg, Jacob; Oestreicher-Singer, Gal; and Reichman, Shachar, "THE QUEST FOR CONTENT: THE INTEGRATION OF PRODUCT NETWORKS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS IN ONLINE CONTENT EXPLORATION" (2010). ICIS 2010 Proceedings. 90.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2010_submissions/90