Abstract
Although people increasingly rely on online services to maintain their relationships, we know relatively little about what drives their use. To address this, I analyze data from a social networking site that started charging its users for an app that populates their e-mail address books with updated contact information. I find that purchase rates of the app were higher for users with large, structurally diverse networks – which contain several distinct social groups. Moreover, personal ties (i.e., family members and friends) increased purchase rates more than professional ties. I attribute the first effect to the difficulty of obtaining information about a large, diverse social network, which the app reduces, and the second effect to the regularity with which people use information about their personal ties.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 660-674 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology |
Volume | 69 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2018 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Information Systems
- Computer Networks and Communications
- Information Systems and Management
- Library and Information Sciences