Paper Number

2623

Paper Type

short

Description

Despite the importance of social interaction in virtual communities, scant research has investigated the outcomes of social interaction features. Our study aims to investigate the business value of social interaction features in the context of livestreaming platforms. Specifically, we investigate the effect of the activation of topic-based bullet screen mode – an interactive feature which allows the streamers to set a theme or topic for the viewers to send bullet screen comments about. Our results from the regression discontinuity estimation suggest that the activation of the topic-based bullet screen mode yields an immediate decrease in viewers' chat interaction, which challenges the conventional wisdom social interaction features is a panacea for boosting increased user engagement. Nevertheless, we observe a compensatory effect whereby the decrease in chat interaction was accompanied by a surge in gift donations. This counterintuitive finding highlights the intricate interplay between social interaction features, user motivations, and platform affordances.

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13-DataAnalytics

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Dec 11th, 12:00 AM

Turning Chatters into Donators: An Investigation of Topic-Based Bullet Screen Mode on a Livestreaming Platform Short Paper

Despite the importance of social interaction in virtual communities, scant research has investigated the outcomes of social interaction features. Our study aims to investigate the business value of social interaction features in the context of livestreaming platforms. Specifically, we investigate the effect of the activation of topic-based bullet screen mode – an interactive feature which allows the streamers to set a theme or topic for the viewers to send bullet screen comments about. Our results from the regression discontinuity estimation suggest that the activation of the topic-based bullet screen mode yields an immediate decrease in viewers' chat interaction, which challenges the conventional wisdom social interaction features is a panacea for boosting increased user engagement. Nevertheless, we observe a compensatory effect whereby the decrease in chat interaction was accompanied by a surge in gift donations. This counterintuitive finding highlights the intricate interplay between social interaction features, user motivations, and platform affordances.

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