The Effects of Rewarding User Engagement: The Case of Facebook Apps

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Claussen, Jorg; Kretschmer, Tobias; Mayrhofer, Philip
• 署名单位: Copenhagen Business School; University of Munich; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
• 刊物名称: INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7047
• DOI: 10.1287/isre.1120.0467
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 186-200
• 关键词: competition; INFORMATION; internet; identification; networks

摘要

We study the market for apps on Facebook, the dominant social networking platform, and make use of a rule change by Facebook by which highly engaging apps were rewarded with further opportunities to engage users. The rule change led to new applications with significantly higher user ratings being developed. Moreover, user ratings became more important drivers of app success. Other drivers of app success are also affected by the rule change; sheer network size became a less important driver for app success, update frequency benefitted apps more in staying successful, and active users of Facebook apps declined less rapidly with age. Our results show that social media channels do not necessarily have to be managed through hard exclusion of participants but can also be steered through softer changes in reward and incentive systems.