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CHI
2004
ACM

Think different: increasing online community participation using uniqueness and group dissimilarity

14 years 4 months ago
Think different: increasing online community participation using uniqueness and group dissimilarity
Online communities can help people form productive relationships. Unfortunately, this potential is not always fulfilled: many communities fail, and designers don't have a solid understanding of why. We know community activity begets activity. The trick, however, is to inspire participation in the first place. Social theories suggest methods to spark positive community participation. We carried out a field experiment that tested two such theories. We formed discussion communities around an existing movie recommendation web site, manipulating two factors: (1) similarity--we controlled how similar group members' movie ratings were; and (2) uniqueness--we told members how their movie ratings (with respect to a discussion topic) were unique within the group. Both factors positively influenced participation. The results offer a practical success story in applying social science theory to the design of online communities. Categories & Subject Descriptors: H.5.3 [Information Int...
Pamela J. Ludford, Dan Cosley, Dan Frankowski, Lor
Added 01 Dec 2009
Updated 01 Dec 2009
Type Conference
Year 2004
Where CHI
Authors Pamela J. Ludford, Dan Cosley, Dan Frankowski, Loren G. Terveen
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