WEBEIS 2017 Presentation Abstracts **Pedro Ferreira (Carnegie Mellon University, pedrof@cmu.edu) (with Miguel Matos and Michael Smith) Title: The Effect of Subscription Video-on-Demand on Piracy: Evidence From a Household Level Randomized Experiment Abstract: We analyze the effect of Subscription Video-on-Demand (SVoD) on digital piracy. A random set of households that used BitTorrent were gifted TV channels with movies and TV shows that could be streamed as in SVoD. On average, treated households did not change their likelihood of using BitTorrent but the households whose preferences aligned with the gifted content reduced this probability by 18%. We show that licensing windows limit the ability of content providers to tailor SVoD catalogs to pirates and that treated households are willing to pay at most $3.25 USD/month for a SVoD catalog as large as Netflix in the US. Therefore, SVoD can only help to curtail a small share of piracy and to do so it must offer content much earlier, and at much lower prices than those currently charged in the marketplace. These changes would likely reduce industry revenue and damage incentives to produce new content. **Sofia Bapna (University of Minnesota, sbapna@umn.edu) Title: Simple Interventions Reduce Gender Inequality in Networking: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment Abstract: Networking is a critical means by which individuals identify opportunities and access resources that help them advance their careers. Although identifying and connecting with new people can be challenging for anyone, the barriers to success are especially high for women in many STEM fields. These barriers originate from women having a greater network distance from desirable connections than men and from being socially distant from the majority group (men). This study employed a randomized field experiment at a professional networking conference in the IT sector to causally identify the effect of interventions aimed at reducing barriers to successful networking for women. The study confirms that women have significantly worse networking outcomes than men. Specifically, we find that being a woman decreases the expected number of new contacts met, and the average amount of time spent talking to new contacts. In addition, by lowering network distance to other event participants, the number of new people women met and the amount of time they spent talking to those people increases significantly. Finally, by lowering social distance to other event participants, women spend significantly more time on average talking to new contacts. The interventions did not significantly affect networking with prior connections (for both men and women) or the networking outcomes for men. Through this study we are able to make theoretical and practical inferences about the social catalysts and inhibitors of new tie formation and network dynamics. ** Jason Chan (University of Minnesota, jchancf@umn.edu)
Title: “Make Healthcare Apps Great Again”: The Role of Incentives and Cues in Promoting App Usage Abstract: Despite the promise healthcare apps hold in the management of chronic conditions and general health, they face the inherent problem of low usage levels. To address this issue, we propose four app design features based on monetary incentives and informational cues. Partnering with an app company that develops a tracking app for diabetic patients, we deploy different versions of the app mirroring the various schemes to assess their efficacy in driving short-term and long-term usage levels. Results from our field experiment suggest that monetary rewards and past usage information can be used to spur initial usage levels. Users exposed to the financial schemes continue to have higher usage levels upon the removal of financial incentives, but at a reduced rate. Motivated and health conscious users tend to respond more positively to these schemes. ** Idris Adjerid (University of Notre Dame, iadjerid@nd.edu) (with George Loewenstein, Rachael Purta, and Aaron Striegel) Title: A Gentle Shove or a Choice: Sharpened Incentives and the Moderating Role of Technology Decision Aides ** Geneviève Bassellier (McGill University, genevieve.bassellier@mcgill.ca) (with Jui Ramaprasad and Divinus Oppong-Tawiah) Title: Converting Pirates of Digital Goods to Payers: Exploring Persuasive Computing in Online Music Abstract: This study looks at how social factors can be leveraged to dissuade online piracy in digital goods. We seek to leverage persuasive computing to influence consumers' decision making process regarding their acquisition of online digital goods and seeks to identify how different persuasive techniques can, in a pay way you want context, persuade the consumers to pay an amount different from 0. ** Matt Hashim (University of Arizona, mhashim@email.arizona.edu) Title: Paper versus Electronic Social Engineering **Laura Brandimarte (University of Arizona, lbrandimarte@email.arizona.edu) Title: Does Government Surveillance Give Twitter the Chills? Abstract: Since Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding mass surveillance programs implemented by the NSA, Government surveillance has garnered national and international attention. The research community has attempted to estimate what many refer to as “chilling
effects” of surveillance, or the tendency to self-censor in order to cope with mass monitoring systems raising privacy concerns. Until now, such effects have only been estimated using either Google/Bing search terms, Wikipedia articles, or survey data. In this research in progress, we propose a new method in order to test for chilling effects in online social media platforms. We use a unique, large dataset of Tweets and propose the use of new statistical machine learning techniques in order to detect anomalous trends in user behavior (use of predetermined, sensitive sets of keywords) after Snowden’s revelations made users aware of existing surveillance programs. **Gordon Burtch (University of Minnesota, gburtch@umn.edu) Title: Incentive Design for Ad-Sponsored Content Abstract: This study investigates the effectiveness of financial incentives for increasing viewership and social sharing of advertisements. Incentives can, in principle, help advertisers reach a larger audience, but there are two aspects of their application that have yet to receive much attention: (a) How large of an incentive will be needed to engage users with advertisements in the real world, i.e., what is the Willingness to Accept (WTA)? (b) How does the design of a system that offers incentives in exchange for advertising exposure impact said incentives’ effectiveness? To this end, we develop a mobile application that offers a user access to data (and thus content) in exchange for exposing herself or her social network to advertisements, i.e., advertiser-sponsored access. We report on a randomized experiment in which users were offered a monetary incentive in exchange for engaging with an advertisement, either by watching the advertisement or by sharing it with their Twitter network. Our work speaks to two open questions in the networking and marketing literature: how can we design effective sponsored data plans and how can we convert individuals into agents of social sharing in paid advertising? Our initial results from the experiment indicate that users do respond to financial incentives, but in a heterogeneous fashion, conditional on a variety of factors including advertisement characteristics, incentive amount, and the type of the requested engagement behavior (i.e., watch vs. share). **Pallab Sanyal (George Mason University, psanyal@gmu.edu) Title: Decision Complexity in Combinatorial Auctions Abstract: In combinatorial auctions bidders can bid on combinations of goods in addition to individual items. Research has shown that versions of these auctions can be conducted with appropriate feedback that are manageable, have good economic outcomes, and are acceptable to general consumers. Still, the complexity of these auctions is a potential issue for their potential in a consumer setting. We identify three aspects of complexity along which combinatorial auctions will vary competition, auction size, and the number of bidding alternatives. We examine these complexity aspects using five auction types conducted with a general consumer population in an experimental environment with real payoffs.
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