Competing with Superstars: Does Exclusive Third-Party Content Discourage Complementary Innovation?

We study how the introduction of exclusive third-party applications affects competing complementors’ innovation strategies in platform ecosystems. In this study, we exploit the exclusive entry of Super Mario Run into the complementary app market of Apple’s iOS App Store in Autumn 2016 as a quasi-experiment. We collect monthly time-series data throughout the observation period. We find that complementors show heterogeneous innovation behavior after the entry. First, we demonstrate that affected complementors with a similar market position as the entrant follow a competition strategy for update releases in the affected niche market. Complementors who do not hold a similar market position reduce the number of updates for existing products in the affected niche market following a differentiation strategy. Finally, independent of the complementor’s market position, affected complementors follow a differentiation strategy for new app releases, increasing the number of new app releases in other categories

The Influence of User Feedback on Complementary Innovation in Platform Ecosystems: NLP Evidence on the Value of Multihoming

We study how user feedback affects innovation of multihomed applications within and across platform ecosystems. Therefore, we conduct a quantitative NLP based case study. Our sample consists of 10 multihomed applications with more than 325,000 user reviews on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform between January and March 2021. We analyze how user reviews translate into functional feature releases of the selected applications within and across platforms. We report three findings. First, we find that about 61% of the functional feature improvements on both platforms were previously demanded by users in the form of user feedback. Second, we show that user feedback of iOS users is more likely to be incorporated compared to Android users’ feedback. Finally, we observe that about 10% of feature releases are inspired by cross-platform feedback, providing initial evidence that user feedback from multihoming applications might stimulate cross-platform innovation and enhance the applications’ quality and innovativeness

App Superstars: Are High-Status Complementors a Sustained Source of Innovation in Platform Ecosystems?

Previous research has argued that fostering superstar systems in platform ecosystems promotes innovation due to complementors™ intense competition for few high-status positions. However, the ex post innovation consequences of superstar systems have gener

Supervised Obesity Reduction Trial for AF ablation patients: from the SORT-AF trial

Aims Weight management seems to be beneficial for obese atrial fibrillation (AF) patients; however, randomized data are sparse. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the influence of weight reduction on AF ablation outcomes. Methods and results SORT-AF is an investigator-sponsored, prospective, randomized, multicentre, and clinical trial. Patients with symptomatic AF (paroxysmal or persistent) and body mass index (BMI) 30-40 kg/m(2) underwent AF ablation and were randomized to either weight-reduction (group 1) or usual care (group 2), after sleep-apnoea-screening and loop recorder (ILR) implantation. The primary endpoint was defined as AF burden between 3 and 12 months after AF ablation. Overall, 133 patients (60 +/- 10 years, 57% persistent AF) were randomized to group 1 (n = 67) and group 2 (n =66), respectively. Complications after AF-ablation were rare (one stroke and no tamponade). The intervention led to a significant reduction of BMI (34.9 +/- 2.6-33.4 +/- 3.6) in group 1 compared to a stable BMI in group 2 (P <0.001). Atrial fibrillation burden after ablation decreased significantly (P < 0 .001), with no significant difference regarding the primary endpoint between the groups (P = 0 .815, odds ratio: 1.143, confidence interval: 0.369-3.613). Further analyses showed a significant correlation between BMI and AF recurrence for patients with persistent AF compared with paroxysmal AF patients (P = 0.032). Conclusion The SORT-AF study shows that AF ablation is safe and successful in obese patients using continuous monitoring via ILR. Although the primary endpoint of AF burden after ablation did not differ between the two groups, the effects of weight toss and improvement of exercise activity were beneficial for obese patients with persistent AF demonstrating the relevance of life-style management as an important adjunct to AF ablation in this setting