Music is Social: From Online Social Features to Online Social Connectedness

Despite the widespread adoption of social networks, the value of implementing similar opportunities for social interaction into online content consumption websites has received limited attention. The research that has been done suggests that there is significant potential in implementing social features on these sites, since increased interaction can lead to higher engagement with the site, and to an increase in users’ willingness to pay for the site. Considering that music is an inherently social good, and that consumers desire the opportunity to involve social aspects into their consumption of music, this study develops a framework of social features and the social interactions they enable and examines the relationship between the features and online social connectedness. Results suggest that this distinction of social features from other features is valuable, and the type of features that is most likely to lead to feelings of connectedness is highlighted. Implications for site developers and researchers are also discussed.

[1]  Gerald C. Kane,et al.  What's Different about Social Media Networks? A Framework and Research Agenda , 2014, MIS Q..

[2]  H. Kohut,et al.  How does analysis cure , 1984 .

[3]  Renee V. Galliher,et al.  Predicting Depression and Self–Esteem from Social Connectedness, Support, and Competence , 2006 .

[5]  Rachel Grieve,et al.  Face-to-face or Facebook: Can social connectedness be derived online? , 2013, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[6]  Ravi Bapna,et al.  Do Your Online Friends Make You Pay ? A Randomized Field Experiment in an Online Music Social Network , 2012 .

[7]  T. Kamarck,et al.  Measuring the Functional Components of Social Support , 1985 .

[8]  Danah Boyd,et al.  Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship , 2007, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[9]  Leif D. Nelson,et al.  Shared Social Responsibility: A Field Experiment in Pay-What-You-Want Pricing and Charitable Giving , 2010, Science.

[10]  Gal Oestreicher-Singer,et al.  Content or Community? A Digital Business Strategy for Content Providers in the Social Age , 2013, MIS Q..

[11]  Matthew J. Salganik,et al.  Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market , 2006, Science.

[12]  Jan Marco Leimeister,et al.  Social Connectedness on Facebook – an Explorative Study on Status Message Usage , 2022 .

[13]  Javier A. Barria,et al.  Do consumers pay voluntarily? The case of online music☆ , 2009 .

[14]  O. A. Sawy,et al.  Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights , 2013 .

[15]  M. Ainsworth.  Attachments beyond infancy. , 1989, The American psychologist.

[16]  Maria Ek Styvén,et al.  The need to touch: Exploring the link between music involvement and tangibility preference , 2010 .

[17]  Andrew B. Whinston,et al.  Social Computing: An Overview , 2007, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[18]  H. Kohut,et al.  The restoration of the self , 1977 .

[19]  R. Baumeister,et al.  The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. , 1995, Psychological bulletin.

[20]  Gregory A. Bryant,et al.  Music and dance as a coalition signaling system , 2003, Human nature.

[21]  M. Rabin,et al.  Naïve Herding in Rich-Information Settings , 2010 .

[22]  Daniel J. Brass,et al.  Network Analysis in the Social Sciences , 2009, Science.

[23]  Richard M. Lee,et al.  Measuring belongingness: The Social Connectedness and the Social Assurance scales. , 1995 .

[24]  Steven McClung,et al.  Getting up on the download: college students' motivations for acquiring music via the web , 2008, New Media Soc..

[25]  R. Homel,et al.  How Do School Connectedness and Attachment to Parents Interrelate in Predicting Adolescent Depressive Symptoms? , 2008, Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology : the official journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53.

[26]  Chris Anderson,et al.  The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More , 2006 .

[27]  Michael D. Buhrmester,et al.  Amazon's Mechanical Turk , 2011, Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

[28]  Moez Limayem,et al.  Data Collection in the Digital Age: Innovative Alterantives to Student Samples , 2014, MIS Q..

[29]  D. Teece.  Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation , 2010 .

[30]  Markus Makkonen,et al.  Exploring the Acquisition and Consumption Behaviour of Modern Recorded Music Consumers: Findings from a Finnish Interview Study , 2011 .

[31]  Lakshmi Goel,et al.  The Social Component of Information Systems - How Sociability Contributes to Technology Acceptance , 2013, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[32]  H. Kohut,et al.  The analysis of the self , 1971 .

[33]  Richard M. Lee,et al.  Social connectedness, dysfunctional interpersonal behaviors, and psychological distress: Testing a mediator model. , 2001 .

[34]  Siddharth Suri,et al.  Conducting behavioral research on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk , 2010, Behavior research methods.

[35]  J. Waldfogel.  Copyright Research in the Digital Age: Moving from Piracy to the Supply of New Products , 2012 .

[36]  Mor Naaman,et al.  The impact of network structure on breaking ties in online social networks: unfollowing on twitter , 2011, CHI.