Do Social Networks Improve e-Commerce: a Study on Social Marketplaces
Gayatri Swamynathan
Christo Wilson
Bryce Boe
Kevin Almeroth
Ben Y. Zhao
Proceedings of the First SIGCOMM Workshop on Online Social Networks (WOSN)
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Paper Abstract
Social networks have made a significant impact on how Internet users
communicate, search for and share data today. Numerous proposals have
been made to improve existing distributed systems by leveraging the
inherent trust built into social links. For example, many believe that
by augmenting online marketplaces with social networking, we can improve
trust between transaction partners and increase user satisfaction. In
this paper, we perform a detailed study of Overstock Auctions, an
auction site that has recently integrated social links into user
profiles. Using data on connections between roughly 400,000 Overstock
users, we evaluate the impact of social connections on business
transactions. Our results show that while the majority of users do not
engage in social networking, those who transact with friends from their
social network generally obtain sig- nificant benefits in the form of
higher user satisfaction.