| Title |
Crowd Participation in web 2.0. Understanding Roles, tasks and Incentive Mechanisms in Travel Communities |
| ID_Doc |
69742 |
| Authors |
Consiglio, S; Mangia, G; Cicellin, M; Toraldo, ML; Scuotto, A; Galdiero, C |
| Title |
Crowd Participation in web 2.0. Understanding Roles, tasks and Incentive Mechanisms in Travel Communities |
| Year |
2014 |
| Published |
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| Abstract |
Purpose - This study presents preliminary evidence of an ongoing research project (Orchestra - ORganization of Cultural HEritage for Smart Tourism and Real-time Accessibility) on smart city platforms. Our analysis refers to smart city platforms meant to develop a set of organizational solutions to foster the sustainable compatible exploitation of cultural and touristic resources in the city of Naples. The main goal is to outline a framework able to explores participation patterns. We explain intrinsic and extrinsic motivations employed for the engagement and the retention of participants on web 2.0. Methodology - Our empirical research follows a qualitative approach and consists of two phases. In the first one, we adopted an internet based research method, investigating four travel communities that employ incentive mechanisms to encourage the user-generated content: Tripadvisor, Travellution, AirBnB, Voglio Vivere Cosi. In the second phase we conducted semi-structured interviews to the administrators of these travel communities. We expanded our study in order to investigate the administrators' perceptions and the meanings attributed to motives and incentives. In particular we aim to understand which types of incentives are better employed in these communities to engage and retain users. Originality/value - The crowdsourcing topic gained in popularity over the last decade, as more and more users have begun to flock to social communities. Our contribution is twofold. First, through an analysis of the recent literature on the crowd topic, we provide reflections on intrinsic and extrinsic motives. Second, through the case studies we shed light on a partly jagged and new topic related to the use of incentive mechanisms in order to recruit and motivate crowd. In particular, we try to explain some preliminary insights and emerging issue needed to create a model that could be apllied in the ORCHESTRA platform. Practical implications - By taking into account the incentive mechanisms and the sense of fun perceived by its users, we have reflected on the implications for the web 2.0 by looking at the mass of creative subjects that take part in crowdsourcing activities. Our argument is that the 'architecture of participation' surrounding the web is inextricably linked with the perception of enjoyable experiences deriving from networking activity through the mobilization of millions of voluntary actors. The inclination towards interaction would appear to be the level for motivating many web initiatives. Several communities began huge business all over the world thanks to user-generated contents. |
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