| 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)
Allan Friedman
(Simulations)
Nathan Eagle
(Technology, Social Computing, Powerlaws, Current Trends)
Ben Waber
(Technology, Social Computing) Ines Mergel
(Knowledge Sharing, Social Computing, Social Software, Current Trends)
Maria Binz-Scharf
(Qualitative Methodology, Knowledge Sharing, eGovernment)
Alexander Schellong
(Admin, eGovernment, Citizen Relationship Management)
Categories
Archives
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
Recent Entries
- Next steps for the Obama network...
- Social Media vs. Knowledge Management
- Pentland on Honest Signals on November 24
- 311: The Next Wave" - Harvard online event 11/13/08
- How Obama won: Conversion or mobilization?
- Fun with numbers: did Obama redraw the political map?
- manipulation of intrade
Recent Comments
- Re: Why do user communities work?
By: Syed Balkhi
Date: Jan 26, 2007 5:38 AM
Notification
« 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
-
.
- Business (3) .
- Citizen Relationship Management (17) .
- Commentary (7) .
- Complexity (2) .
- Current Trends (47) .
- eGovernment (21) .
- Events/Announcements (72) .
- Innovation (14) .
- Internet (18) .
- Knowledge Sharing (20) .
- Methodology (32) .
- Networked Governance (18) .
- Networks in political science (5) .
- PNG Working Paper Series (6) .
- Powerlaws (4) .
- Reviews (2) .
- Simulations (1) .
- Small group networks (3) .
- Small Worlds (2) .
- SN in the news (72) .
- Social Capital (3) .
- Social Computing (12) .
- Social Finance (1) .
- Social Networking Platforms (11) .
- Social Psychology (2) .
- Social Software (25) .
- Societal Networks (40) .
- Technology (35)