Friday, October 16, 2009
What Value do Users Derive from Social Networking Applications?
Original Source: What Value do Users Derive from Social Networking applications by Larry Neale and Rebekah Russell-Bennett
Facebook has come a long way since it was first introduced as a networking site for high school and university students. Since the introduction of Facebook platform and Facebook Markup language (FML), we can witness thousands of applications being built in Facebook by developers. Neale and Russell-Bennett in this research article investigates the value users derive from 'cool' Facebook applications, and explores the features that either encourage or discourage users to recommend applications to their friends.
The authors adapt the experiential view of value rather than traditional view of value as cost and benefit analysis for their research. They believe that Social Networking value is not evaluated with currency but with time and money. Therefore, they adapt the experiential value concept of Holbrook(2004;1994) and Sheth et al(1991) to categorize four types of value generated by Facebook applications; emotional, functional, social and altruistic (humane).
The authors adapt the experiential view of value rather than traditional view of value as cost and benefit analysis for their research. They believe that Social Networking value is not evaluated with currency but with time and money. Therefore, they adapt the experiential value concept of Holbrook(2004;1994) and Sheth et al(1991) to categorize four types of value generated by Facebook applications; emotional, functional, social and altruistic (humane).
- Emotional: Pleasure, fantasy or fun gained by using an application.
- Functional: measured by performance and technical features.
- Social: generated by connections with other people enabled by using the application.
- altruistic(humane): obtained by helping others or society.
The authors also explore "Cool" in terms of Facebook application. Dutch researcher Carl Rohde describes cool in product terms as "inspiring and attractive, providing empowerment" to the user. In SNS such as Facebook and MySpace cool applications are mostly recommended and passed over to friends in network than the un cool ones which are ignored and not passed over.
Having defined "Cool" and value of Social Networking Sites, the authors conduct survey on their two questions. For their first question what value is created by a ‘cool’ application?’, the following theme emerged:
Having defined "Cool" and value of Social Networking Sites, the authors conduct survey on their two questions. For their first question what value is created by a ‘cool’ application?’, the following theme emerged:
- the ability of the application to facilitate self–expression of interests,values or personality.
- the ability to facilitate competition/comparison with others and novelty/rarity.
For their second question, three different types of features were found to have influenced users to encourage or discourage recommending and application: Symmetrical, Polar, Uni-directional.
Neale and Russell-Bennett conclude by saying that even though functionality of an application plays an important role, it alone cannot make an application a success. It must be combined with either social or emotional value to create significant 'coolness'.
Neale and Russell-Bennett conclude by saying that even though functionality of an application plays an important role, it alone cannot make an application a success. It must be combined with either social or emotional value to create significant 'coolness'.
// posted by Sumit @ 3:23 PM 
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