The use of the Short Message Service (SMS), available on mobile phones and other devices, for exchanging text messages is gradually diminishing. SMS has been replaced by

Smart Phone Apps offering free messaging services; example include Whatsapp, Kakao, WeChat and Viber. The use of these platforms is constantly evolving; they are now used for

advertising, group chatting, the sharing of information, and e-commerce communication. This paper provides a review of the currently available Mobile Messenger Applications,

comparing their abilities, function and features. In particular the paper focuses on the engaging of these Apps in Global Social Commerce. In addition, the engagement of users towards sharing, commenting and rating the products and services were also discussed

Lee, Catherine Cheng Ean *

Tan, Kiat Yao *

Teh, Phoey Lee *

Lee, Cheng Ean Catherine *

Sunway Institutional Repository

Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Mobile Messenger Rating, Sharing and Engagement in Global Social CommerceKiat Yao TAN1, Phoey Lee TEH 2 and Cheng Ean LEE31 Department of Information System, Sunway University, kiatyao_95@hotmail.com2 Department of Information System, Sunway University,phoeyleet@sunway.edu.my3 Department of Communication and Liberal Arts, Sunway University,catherinelee@sunway.edu.myABSTRACTThe use of the Short Message Service (SMS), available on mobile phones and otherdevices, for exchanging text messages is gradually diminishing. SMS has been replaced bySmart Phone Apps offering free messaging services; example include Whatsapp, Kakao,WeChat and Viber. The use of these platforms is constantly evolving; they are now used foradvertising, group chatting, the sharing of information, and e-commerce communication. Thispaper provides a review of the currently available Mobile Messenger Applications,comparing their abilities, function and features. In particular the paper focuses on theengaging of these Apps in Global Social Commerce. In addition, the engagement of userstowards sharing, commenting and rating the products and services were also discussed.KEYWORDS: Mobile Apps; Engagement; Rating; SharingINTRODUCTIONShort Messaging Service (SMS) has been the main feature found in a mobile phone andmostly used by mobile users when the mobile phone was first launched (Dolmadjian, 2014).Mobile Messaging Application (MMA) has become one of the alternative choice, replacingthe similar service provided by SMS (Hoffman, 2013). MMA has the capability for GroupChatting in which Group Chat is normally used when there is more than three people whohave the same interest, gathered and chat on the topic in one platform. It required anadministrator to host a group chat. The Group Chat has then become a common method ofcommerce to share information, which later acts as an advertisement platform.RATING METHODThere are different types of rating method available online. The unary scale has beenpopularized by Facebook, where users can note an interest in a particular wall-post or photoby clicking a “Like” button. The binary scale (Like & Dislike) has been used widely in manysocial-news aggregators like Digg.com and YouTube. (Sparling, 2011a) studies 348 users,Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)who generated 12,847 ratings on movies and products review. Among all, 2,010 have usedthe method of unary ratings, 4,163 used binary ratings, 3,978 used the star ratings, and lastly4,426 used the slider ratings. Their results show the preferences intention of using binaryrating.For a better understanding about the types of rating method, a simple example is provided asfollows:Table 1: Ratings on WebsitesRating methods Example of WebsitesUnary Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/)Binary You tube  (http://www.youtube.com/)Star IMDb   (http://www.imdb.com/)Slider Hr-survey(http://www.hr-survey.com/PfSlider.htm)Unary rating has been popularized by Facebook. Users can show their interest of a wall-postor photo by pressing the ‘like’ button (Sparling, 2011b). Fig 1 shows the sample of UnaryRating from Sunway University Facebook page. Binary rating is a rating method where usersgive a positive or negative rating to its contents (Anderson, Sims, & Tse, n.d.). For example,if they like the post, they will press the ‘like’ button, if they do not like the post. This ratingmethod  is used by YouTube (Sparling, 2011b).  Example of binary rating can be seen in Fig2.Fig 1: Unary Rating from Sunway UniversityFacebook Official Website Fig 2: Binary Rating from a video ofYouTubeStar rating is a rating method that uses the amount of star to evaluate a certain product orstatus. An example of star rating method is shown in Fig 3. The Amazon online store, Filmaffinity, Movies and others have used the “5 stars” rating method that allows users to indicatewhich products are of their interest. Fig 4 explains the meaning of “5 stars” rating that theusers give for each content and each content has a value. These values are defined by (NuñezValdez et al., 2011).Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Fig 31: Star Rating from a review of IMDb Fig 4: Meaning of Rating (Nuñez Valdez etal., 2011)Slider rating is a rating method that gives researchers the chance to produce question andanswer style that incorporate a greater breadth of answers, as well as enable animation andinteractivity.  Respondent can simply slide to whatever rating they want (Taylor, 2012). Anexample of slider rating is shown in Fig 5.Fig 5: Example of Slider Rating from hr-surveyMEDIA SHARING AND FORWARDINGMedia sharing is a method that allows us to forward and upload our photos, videos andaudio to website and MMA that can be accessed anytime anywhere as long as there is anInternet connection. We can share the media to the public or to selected group of friends(“What is a media sharing site? | Affilorama,” n.d.) . Fig 6 to Fig 11 each shows the featuresof Media Sharing and Forwarding on Viber, WhatsApp, Line, SnapChat, Keek, Voxer andWeChat.Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Fig 6: Media Sharing and Forwarding in“Viber” Fig 7: Media Sharing and forwarding in“Whatsapp”Fig 8: Media Sharing and Forwarding in“Line” Fig 9: Media Sharing and Forwarding in“Snapchat” and “Keek”Fig 10: Sharing Media and Forwarding in“Voxer” Fig 11: Sharing Media and Forwarding in“WeChat”These features are all available for MMA users, no matter which platform the users are using.One component that is missing is the “rating” function, which is to be replaced by theemoticon of “thumb up”, mainly.MOBILE APPS, FEATURES AND COMPATIBILITY(Walker, 2014) listed these Mobile Messenger Apps such as Whatsapp, Viber,Facebook Messenger, Line, Voxer, Heytell, Talktone, Keek and Snapchat as the mostcommonly used Messaging Application. Most of the listed Application are compatible withiOS and Android. However, the fewer features an App has, they more text need to beexchanged. Thus, the requirement to have share media such as postings of photos, video, textand emoticon in the communication. Every MMA has their unique set of combinationfeatures, which other mobile messaging application doesn’t have. Some has come withadditional features. Table 2 lists the features of MMA, its additional features andcompatibility.Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Table 2: Mobile Apps, Features and CompatibilityFunction &App Name Compatibility Features Additional FeaturesWhatsapp iOS, Android,Windowsphone,BlackBerry,Symbian,S40Text, emoticon, photo,video, audio, location,contact, Walkie Talkie -Line Text, emoticon, photo,video, audio, location,contact, Walkie Talkie,Line Camera,  StickersSocial Page, exclusive partners,celebrities & gamesViber iOS, Android,Windows,BlackBerry,PC, MacOSText, Emoticons,Photo, Video, location,Doodle, Voice call -Voxer iOS , Android&Mac OSText, photo, location,Walkie-Talkie Available in desktopKeek iOS, Andriod ,WindowsPhone &blackberryVideo & comment Instant sharing video to twitter,Facebook and moreSnapChat iOS &Andriod Text, photo, video,emoticon Editable and caption able videoVideo/ photo will not be storedFacebookMessenger iOS ,Android,BlackBerry,Windows &web browserText, Emoticon, photo,video, audio, location,contact, Walkie Talkie,StickersLink to FacebookHeyTell iOS, Android,Blackberry&WindowsPhoneText, location, Walkie-Talkie Push-to-talkTextNow iOS, Android Text, emoticon, photo,voice call & voice mail Addable of signature to each textWeChat iOS, Android,BlackBerry &WindowsPhoneText, emoticon, photo,voice, video call, voicecall, locationSight, Name Card, RecallA total of ten Messaging Applications are compared in Table 2. All the apps are compatiblewith iOS and Android platforms. Voxer and Text Now are not compatible on Blackberry.Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)MOBILE RATING AND COMMENTSTable 3 summarizes the ratings and comments function of the apps listed in Table 2.There are only three mobile messaging applications (e.g: Line, Facebook Messenger & Keek)that allows status and media rating (eg. Unary Rating). Although other mobile messagingapplications provide group sharing, media sharing and status posting, there is no way forother user to rate or vote for a photo or status posted by someone else. If an individual requireany opinion from others about their photo, they can only judge based on the replies theyreceived.Table 3 Functions available from Mobile Messaging ApplicationAPP NAME &FUNCTIONAVAILABILITYLIKEICON DISLIKEICON STATUS GROUPSHARING MEDIASHARINGWHATSAPPLINEVIBERVOXERKEEKSNAPCHATFACEBOOKMESSENGERHEYTELLTEXTNOWWECHATIn Table 2, we can see that only two mobile messaging applications which are Line and Keekthat allows status and media rating (eg. Unary Rating). Users who wish to receive others’opinions about their photos will only able to judge the replies that they received on the App.”In year 2011, Nuñez Valdez has studied the social voting techniques (Nuñez Valdez et al.,2011). He concluded that most of the people who likes a content would assigns the maximumscore and if they do not like it, they will assign the lowest score. This is equivalent to “LikeProceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)& Dislike” value.  In an article by Michael Zhang (Zhang, 2012), at one time of history,YouTube has used the 5-star rating system for its videos. However the service was thenreplaced with Binary Rating (“thumbs up & thumbs down”). YouTube product managermake this move due to the assumption of its value similarity.Devavrat Shah, a professor of Information and Decision Systems at MIT says that the flaw ofthe 5-star rating is too ambiguous and subjective (Zhang, 2012). Human’s rating tends tofluctuate based on their mood. Therefore, Star Rating and Slider Rating will not be the bestchoice (Zhang, 2012). Thus, with much evidence which supported that Star Rating and SliderRating will not be the best choice.  The Binary Rating (“like & dislike” / “thumbs up &thumbs down”) would be preferred to be included in the MMA.However, are the current features and functions on our mobile messaging applicationssuitable in Engaging in Global Social Commerce? In order to further understand the marketengagement, a pilot study is carried out with 100 Mobile Messaging Application users.SYNTHESIS ON MOBILE APPLICATION ENGAGEMENT1. How the users discover a new mobile messaging application?One hundred questionnaire were collected to understand the mobile messagingapplication engagement among the users.  Figure 12 shows five pie charts of how the usersdiscovered when there is a new mobile application in the market. The first pie chart reflectedthat 60% of users agree that they get-to-know a new mobile messaging application fromfriends, 52% of them found it through social media platform, while 47% of them stated thatthey were informed by advertisement. Blog in this case was asked separately from socialmedia as it was assumed as a type of website to introduce and reviews new apps, only 9%agree that they get-to-know the new mobile messaging application from blog/website Otherthan that, other sources seems to be no effect to the introduction of a new application. It canbe concluded that social media seems to be an ideal platform to market a new apps.Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Figure 12: How the users get-to-know a new Mobile Messaging Application2 From where does the user download their new mobile messaging application?Figure 10 shows three pie charts which discuss how the user download their mobilemessaging application. 61% of the users downloaded the apps from Play Store whereas 53%of them download it from the App Store. This implies that Android mobile users are largerthan iOS users. Not many of them discovered their mobile messaging application whichconcludes only 10% of them downloaded their mobile messaging application from othersources.Figure 13: Form where the User’s download their new appsProceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)3 Most frequent used Mobile Messaging ApplicationFigure 14: Most Frequently Used Mobile Messaging Application by UsersWhen the respondents were asked which is the most frequent used apps, Whats’appmessenger scored the highest among the respondents with (74%), followed by FacebookMessenger (21%) and Line (5%). The respondents were given nine types mobile messagingapplications such as Viber, Keek, Voxer, Snapchat, Textnow and Heytell, but majority ofthem chose Whatsapp and Line.4 Mobile Messaging Application engagement (frequently used) and ReplacementFigure 15 and 16 show the frequency of usage and replacement of MMA. It was obvious thatWhats’app has the highest frequency used (hourly rated) and most of them “never” replacetheir current mobile messaging application.Figure 15: How Frequent You Use YourMMA Figure 16: How Frequent You ReplaceYour MMAProceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Figure 17: Use MMA to Chat with A Friend Figure 18: Use MMA to Chat with A GroupFigure 17 and 18 show majority uses the MMA to chat with a friend and with a group asfrequent as hourly. From the results above, is this telling us that MMA is actually a goodplatform to engage with friends? Or it has become an “addicted” habit?5 User’s Experience with the features/functions of MMAFigure 19: Satisfaction on thefeature/functions Figure 20: Satisfaction on its effectivenessFigure 21: Satisfaction in using the GroupChat Figure 22: Satisfaction on the MediaSharingProceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Figure 19 and 22 present the users’ satisfaction on the feature/functions of MMA. Majority ofthe respondents rated ‘highly satisfy’ and ‘very satisfy’ for all the feature/functions availableon those Mobile Massager Application. Therefore, the current mobile messaging applicationsare able to satisfy the users and this is the reason why it has been chosen.CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKSIn this study, we argued that the Mobile Messaging Application has been replacingthe Short Message Service. Engaging these convenience tools as a communication channel inGlobal Social Commerce is potentially in vail. However, understanding from the reviews,rating is actually one of the vital part for opinion mining in Global Social Commerce. Currentfree messaging services provided by our smart phone applications has obviously does notprovide features for rating. It is suggestible that future MMA to include “rating” features. Themore functions and features available, the lesser the text communication, and hence the easierthe users to share information. Our comparison of the ten different type of Mobile MessagingApplication features, has allowed us to examine these platforms, to be utilized or perform asa greater opportunity channels for global social commerce. It has led by understanding theuser’s satisfaction levels towards respondents’ opinion. Furthermore, the engagement of anew Mobile Messaging Application has been understood by the influenced of how the usersdiscovery or get-to-new to a new mobile application. The more friends or group of friendsusing the similar apps, the more the network using the same MMA. Apparently, most of ourrespondents highly preferred Whatsapp and Facebook Massager. Thus, suggesting the usethese MMA in Global Social Commerce, by engaging users, utilizing the media sharing,commenting, rating features will therefore enhance the communication channels.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis research is funded by the Sunway University Research Office.REFERENCESAnderson, M., Sims, J., & Tse, E. (n.d.). Turning “ Like ” to “ Buy ” Social Media Emerges.Google. (n.d.). About group chat - Chat Help.Hoffman, C. (2013). How to Eliminate SMS Fees and Text for Free. Retrieved October 20,2014, from http://www.howtogeek.com/164395/how-to-eliminate-sms-fees-and-text-for-free/Katia Dolmadjian. (2014). Old mobiles back in vogue for function and fashion. RetrievedOctober 20, 2014, from http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/old-mobiles-back-in-vogue-for-function-and-fashion-20140611-zroo5.htmlNuñez Valdez, E. R., Cueva Lovelle, J. M., Sanjuán Martínez, O., Montenegro Marín, C. E.,Infante Hernández, G., & Verma, S. (2011). Social Voting Techniques: A Comparisonof the Methods Used for Explicit Feedback in Recommendation Systems. InternationalProceedings of International Conference on Innovation and Sustainability (ICOIS 2015)Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence, 1(4), 61.http://doi.org/10.9781/ijimai.2011.1410Sparling, E. I. (2011a). Rating –156.Sparling, E. I. (2011b). Rating is It –156).Taylor, I. (2012). Use Slider Scales for a More Accurate Rating | QuestionPro Blog.Walker, L. (2014). 10 Popular Mobile Messaging Apps. Retrieved October 14, 2014, fromhttp://personalweb.about.com/od/mobile-messaging/tp/8-Mobile-Messaging-Apps.htmWhat is a media sharing site? | Affilorama. (n.d.).Zhang, M. (2012). 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Mobile Messenger rating, sharing and engagement in global social commerce

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Mobile Messenger rating, sharing and engagement in global social commerce

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