Is the Web ready for HTTP/2 Server Push?

HTTP/2 supersedes HTTP/1.1 to tackle the performance challenges of the modern Web. A highly anticipated feature is Server Push, enabling servers to send data without explicit client requests, thus potentially saving time. Although guidelines on how to use Server Push emerged, measurements have shown that it can easily be used in a suboptimal way and hurt instead of improving performance. We thus tackle the question if the current Web can make better use of Server Push. First, we enable real-world websites to be replayed in a testbed to study the effects of different Server Push strategies. Using this, we next revisit proposed guidelines to grasp their performance impact. Finally, based on our results, we propose a novel strategy using an alternative server scheduler that enables to interleave resources. This improves the visual progress for some websites, with minor modifications to the deployment. Still, our results highlight the limits of Server Push: a deep understanding of web engineering is required to make optimal use of it, and not every site will benefit.Comment: More information available at https://push.netray.i

Reducing perceived deceptiveness of e-commerce product recommendation agents: An empirical examination of the relative impact of transparency and verifiability and the moderating role of gender

Product Recommendations Agents (PRAs) are software applications that augment consumers’ purchasing decisions by offering product recommendations based on consumers’ preferences that are elicited either explicitly or implicitly. The underlying premise of PRAs is often grounded on the assumption that PRAs seek to optimize consumers’ utility with the recommendations provided. However, since a majority of commercial PRAs are implemented by parties with vested interests in product sales, it is highly probable that recommendations are biased in favor of their providers and do not reflect consumers’ interests. This in turn may possibly induce a deceptiveness perception among consumers. As such, this study theorizes and empirically demonstrates that the induction of IT-mediated components in PRAs, which induce high levels of perceived transparency and perceived verifiability, could be useful in mitigating consumers’ perceived deceptiveness of PRAs. This study also explores the moderating role of gender in the relationship between transparency/verifiability perception and deceptiveness perception

An Empirical Investigation of Factors Instigating, Impelling, and Inhibiting Cyber-Bullying Behavior

The Internet has provided a fertile ground for cyber-bullying, defined as bullying through the use of electronic media (such as computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices). Rising incidents of and tragedies from cyber-bullying have alerted researchers, educators, government officials, and parents to the severe consequence of this new form of bullying. Adopting the I3 Theory as the theoretical lens, this study aims to examine the driving and suppressing forces of bullying behavior in the cyber-space. Results from a survey of university students show that while impelling forces can increase individuals’ tendency to perpetrate cyber-bullying behavior when they are instigated, inhibiting forces will represses their aggressive urge and lower their propensity to cyber-bully. Our findings not only validate the I3 Theory in the context of cyber-bullying but also provide valuable insights to educators, government officials, and parents in their effort to tackle cyber-bullying

“Experience First”: Investigating Co-creation Experience in Social Product Development Networks

Social product development (SPD) is a network-based innovation model in which firms or platforms use social mechanisms and social technologies to mobilize organizationally independent individuals––co-creators––to co-create new products. SPD networks require the maintenance of external participation across the innovation cycle to survive competition and thrive in the innovation sector. While prior research suggests that the viability, survivability, and productivity of social networks generally depend on user experience, we have limited evidence on the particular role of user experience in the context of SPD networks. Responding to this need, we introduce a conceptual model to theorize and operationalize co-creation experience in SPD networks. Through validating the proposed model, we demonstrate why co-creation experience is critical for predicting co-creators’ behavioral intentions and maintaining their actual contribution. Finally, we explore the theoretical and practical implications of the results. Future studies can leverage the findings to better capture co-creation experience and contribute to designing successful SPD networks

Taking Open Innovation to the Next Level: A Conceptual Model of Social Product Development (SPD)

The initial success of open business models is encouraging many organizations to implement their own co-innovation networks. Social product development, or SPD, represents a new business model enabled by social technology platforms. It extends collaboration beyond customer-involvement models to socially-engaged individual actors in the ideation and development of new products. The increasing adoption necessitates developing a framework to help researchers clearly understand and practitioners effectively design the SPD platforms. This paper develops a conceptual model for SPD and illustrates the validity of the model via a case study on a particular SPD platform, focusing on its business model, network governance, and key processes and design features. The proposed model is sufficiently general yet grounded in the phenomenon to guide future research on socially-enabled innovation and SPD networks in particular

Leveraging Program Analysis to Reduce User-Perceived Latency in Mobile Applications

Reducing network latency in mobile applications is an effective way of improving the mobile user experience and has tangible economic benefits. This paper presents PALOMA, a novel client-centric technique for reducing the network latency by prefetching HTTP requests in Android apps. Our work leverages string analysis and callback control-flow analysis to automatically instrument apps using PALOMA's rigorous formulation of scenarios that address "what" and "when" to prefetch. PALOMA has been shown to incur significant runtime savings (several hundred milliseconds per prefetchable HTTP request), both when applied on a reusable evaluation benchmark we have developed and on real applicationsComment: ICSE 201

Introduction to Access (or Sharing) Economy Minitrack

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