11 research outputs found
Social Networks, Personalized Advertising, and Privacy Controls
This paper investigates how internet users' perception of control over
their personal information affects how likely they are to click on
online advertising. The paper uses data from a randomized field
experiment that examined the relative effectiveness of personalizing ad
copy to mesh with existing personal information on a social networking
website. The website gave users more control over their personally
identifiable information in the middle of the field test. The website
did not change how advertisers used anonymous data to target ads. After
this policy change, users were twice as likely to click on personalized
ads. There was no comparable change in the effectiveness of ads that did
not signal that they used private information when targeting. The
increase in effectiveness was larger for ads that used less commonly
available private information to personalize their message. This
suggests that giving users the perception of more control over their
private information can be an effective strategy for
advertising-supported websites
Social Interactions, Network Fluidity and Network Effects
This paper asks how much the strength of network effects depends on the
stability and structure of the underlying social network. I answer this
using extensive microdata on all potential adopters of a firm's internal
video-messaging system and their subsequent video-messaging. This firm's
New York office had to be relocated due to the terrorist attacks of 2001
which lead to a physical re-organization of teams in that city but not
in other comparable cities. I study the consequences of this disruption
for adoption of video-messaging and the size of network effects. I find
evidence that generally network effects are based on direct social
interactions. Potential adopters react to adoption only by people they
wish to communicate with: They are not affected by adoption by other
people. However, when there is a disruption to the social network and
communication patterns become less predictable, users become more
responsive to adoption by a broader group of users
Heterogeneity and the Dynamics of Technology Adoption
This paper analyzes the role of heterogeneity and forward-looking
expectations in the diffusion of network technologies. Using a detailed
dataset on the adoption of a new videoconferencing technology within a
firm, we estimate a structural model of technology adoption and
communications choice. We allow for heterogeneity in network benefits
and adoption costs across agents. We find that ignoring heterogeneity in
the interplay between adoption costs and network effects will
underpredict the size of the steady-state network size by almost 50
percent. We develop a new 'simulated sequence estimator' to measure the
extent to which agents seek diversity in their calling behavior, and
characterize the patterns of communication as a function of geography,
job function, and rank within the firm. We find that agents have
significant welfare gains from having access to a diverse network, and
that a policy of strategically targeting the right subtype for initial
adoption can lead to a faster-growing and larger network than a policy
of uncoordinated or diffuse adoption
Search Engine Advertising: Pricing Ads to Context
Each search term put into a search engine produces a separate set of
results. Correspondingly, each of the sets of ads displayed alongside
the results is priced using a separate auction. We investigate how bids
for these context-based ads depends on the difficulty of making a match.
This contrasts with the existing literature that focuses on the effect
of match quality. We examine advertising prices paid by lawyers for 139
Google search terms in 195 locations. Other things being equal, the
fewer searches there are on a term, the higher the price. To identify a
causal relationship between match-difficulty and prices paid, we exploit
a natural experiment in 'ambulance-chaser' regulations across states.
When lawyers cannot contact a client by mail and matching becomes more
difficult, the relative price per ad click is $0.93 higher. We check the
robustness of this result by performing a falsification test using a
different ambulance-chaser regulation. Our results suggest that prices
are higher for context-based ads when the difficulty of both online and
off-line matching increases. This highlights that a major reason why
search advertising is profitable is because its use of context can
monetize the 'long tail' by reducing friction in the matching process
Decomposing the Congestion Effect and the Cross-Platform Effect in Two-Sided Networks: A Field Experiment
This paper highlights how the provision of information about user
participation can serve as a strategic marketing tool for firms seeking
to grow two-sided exchange networks. A two-sided exchange network is a
business model (such as Ebay or Craiglist) where revenue is generated
from persuading people to buy and sell items through that particular
exchange. It is not immediately clear whether broadcasting information
about the number of sellers will grow further seller participation. On
the one hand, a strong rival presence may dissipate payoff (a
'congestion effect'). On the other hand, a large number of rivals may
signal high buyer demand (a 'cross-platform effect'). We use field
experiment data from a B2B web site that brings together buyers and
sellers of used equipment and real estate. Before each seller made a
posting request, the web site randomized whether to disclose the number
of buyers and/or sellers, and the exact number to disclose. We find that
when presented together with the number of buyers, a larger number of
sellers makes sellers less likely to list their products, indicating a
negative congestion effect. However, when the number of sellers is
presented in isolation, its negative impact on entry is significantly
reduced, indicating a positive cross-platform effect. Higher buyer
search intensity amplifies the moderating role of demand uncertainty.
The results suggest that information on the number of users can be an
effective tool to grow two-sided networks but should be used
strategically. A network can attract more users by advertising dense
competition when demand is not transparent, especially in
search-intensive markets
Heterogeneity and the Dynamics of Technology Adoption
This paper analyzes the role of heterogeneity and forward-looking
expectations in the diffusion of network technologies. Using a detailed
dataset on the adoption of a new videoconferencing technology within a
firm, we estimate a structural model of technology adoption and
communications choice. We allow for heterogeneity in network benefits
and adoption costs across agents. We find that ignoring heterogeneity in
the interplay between adoption costs and network effects will
underpredict the size of the steady-state network size by almost 50
percent. We develop a new 'simulated sequence estimator' to measure the
extent to which agents seek diversity in their calling behavior, and
characterize the patterns of communication as a function of geography,
job function, and rank within the firm. We find that agents have
significant welfare gains from having access to a diverse network, and
that a policy of strategically targeting the right subtype for initial
adoption can lead to a faster-growing and larger network than a policy
of uncoordinated or diffuse adoption
Social Networks, Personalized Advertising, and Privacy Controls
This paper investigates how internet users' perception of control over
their personal information affects how likely they are to click on
online advertising. The paper uses data from a randomized field
experiment that examined the relative effectiveness of personalizing ad
copy to mesh with existing personal information on a social networking
website. The website gave users more control over their personally
identifiable information in the middle of the field test. The website
did not change how advertisers used anonymous data to target ads. After
this policy change, users were twice as likely to click on personalized
ads. There was no comparable change in the effectiveness of ads that did
not signal that they used private information when targeting. The
increase in effectiveness was larger for ads that used less commonly
available private information to personalize their message. This
suggests that giving users the perception of more control over their
private information can be an effective strategy for
advertising-supported websites
Days on Market and Home Sales
In April 2006, the real estate listing service in Massachusetts adopted
a new policy that prohibits home sellers from resetting their property's
'days on market' to zero through relisting. We study the effect of this
new policy on single-family home sales along the Massachusetts-Rhode
Island border, using homes in Rhode Island, which did not change its
policy, as the control group. We find that the policy change leads to a
relative sale price reduction of around 21,500. Sellers respond to
the new policy by reducing the listing price to shorten their property's
days on market
Privacy Protection and Technology Diffusion: The Case of Electronic Medical Records
Some policymakers argue that consumers need legal protection of their
privacy before they adopt interactive technologies. Others contend that
privacy regulations impose costs that deter adoption. We contribute to
this growing debate by quantifying the effect of state privacy
regulation on the diffusion of Electronic Medical Record technology
(EMR). EMR allows medical providers to store and exchange patient
information using computers rather than paper records. Hospitals may not
adopt EMR if patients feel their privacy is not safeguarded by
regulation. Alternatively, privacy protection may inhibit adoption if
hospitals cannot benefit from exchanging patient information with one
another. In the US, medical privacy laws that restrict the ability of
hospitals to disclose patient information vary across time and across
states. We exploit this variation to explore how privacy laws affect
whether hospitals adopt EMR. Our results suggest that inhibition of
EMR's network benefits reduces hospital adoption by up to 25 percent. We
find similar evidence when we control for the endogeneity of state laws
using variation in signups to the 'Do Not Call' list
System Size, Lock-in and Network Effects for Patient Records
We examine empirically whether the size of a firm using a network
affects the scope of its network usage, and consequently network effects
and lock-in within the network. We use the example of hospital
information exchange. We find that hospitals in larger hospital systems
are more likely to exchange electronic patient information only within
their system and less likely to exchange patient information externally.
We show that hospitals are also more likely to exchange information
externally if others hospitals also do so. This implies that the
disinclination of large hospital systems to exchange data externally
harms overall levels of network use. Our results highlight that makers
of technology policy designed to encourage the optimal use of networks
should consider regulating the behavior of network users as well as
technology vendors