"Your action is needed": The effect of website-initiated participation on user contributions to content websites

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Contemporary content websites rely on users' social participation and payments. While previous research focused only on implicit encouragement to participate, we study website-initiated participation (explicit Call to Actions that require users' attention) and its relation to users' contributions. Our study, conducted on a high quality video content website, shows that users who are given such calls donate more money to the website compared with users who are not exposed to them. We also show that even one prompt is enough to increase users' likelihood of voluntarily engaging with the website. Moreover, we show that the sequence of participatory actions is crucial; when the actions are given in increasing order of effort, users tend to donate and participate more than when actions are not. We extend our results by presenting a heterogeneity analysis that shows connection between the number of videos watched by the user and its susceptibility to website-initiated participation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2015 International Conference on Information Systems
Subtitle of host publicationExploring the Information Frontier, ICIS 2015
PublisherAssociation for Information Systems
ISBN (Print)9780996683111
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
Event2015 International Conference on Information Systems: Exploring the Information Frontier, ICIS 2015 - Fort Worth, United States
Duration: 13 Dec 201516 Dec 2015

Publication series

Name2015 International Conference on Information Systems: Exploring the Information Frontier, ICIS 2015

Conference

Conference2015 International Conference on Information Systems: Exploring the Information Frontier, ICIS 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityFort Worth
Period13/12/1516/12/15

Keywords

  • Business models
  • Content websites
  • Donation
  • Freemium
  • Ladder of participation
  • Social video

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