Page 75 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Case 2.2: EC Application: Craigslist: The Ultimate Online Classified Community 53

questionable ads and scams being posted. Craigslist also (mumbai.burrp.com), to users who dress up paper dolls
attracts criminals seeking to commit fraud by paying with that look like celebrities (stardoll.com). New revenue mod-
bad checks. The anonymity of Craigslist’s users as well as els are being created almost daily. Although some generate
the lack of ratings encourages unlawful acts. limited revenue, others succeed. Lately, the Pinterest model
Another concern is that adult services make up a signifi- has become popular.
cant portion of the total traffic on the site and may involve Many communities attract advertisers. For example, viva-
illegal activities, especially concerning minors. With the pets.com attracts pet lovers with wiki contributions in its
sheer volume of users and ads posted per day, such monitoring attempt to catalog all pet breeds. The site attracts hundreds of
is not possible given the modest workforce of only 40 plus thousands of unique visitors per month. Obviously, pet food-
that the site employs (data of 2016). (As of September 8, related vendors are interested in placing ads there.
2010, Craigslist has been trying to control such activities.) Some of the popular social-oriented services are:
On the other side, many supporters contend that attempts
to control Craigslist may simply cause users to use other, 1. Xanga.com hosts blogs, photo blogs, and social network-
less-regulated sites. ing profiles. Users of Xanga are referred to as “Xangans.”
In China, a company called 58.com Inc. (58.com) is mod- Xanga was originally launched as a site for sharing book
eled after Craigslist and provides similar information and and music reviews. Today it is one of the most popular
generates sizeable revenue and profits. The company is listed blogging and networking services, with an estimated
in the NYSE under the symbol WUBA. 10,000,000–100,000,000 users worldwide. Xanga has a
Sources: Based on Clark (2008), Liedtke (2009), and very popular blogring in Hong Kong, Macao, and
craigslist.org (accessed March 2016). Singapore. (A blogring links together a number of blogs
that share mutual interests and can be searched by subject
Questions matter.)
1. Identify the business model used by Craigslist. 2. Digg.com is a community-based website that takes short
2. Visit craigslist.org and identify the social network and reports from members on podcasts, news articles, and vid-
business network elements. eos, which are then voted on by other participants. Digg is
3. What do you like about the site? What do you dislike available on a website, iPhone app, and daily e-mail.
about it?
4. Why is Craigslist considered by some as a site that “could
change the world?” Mobile Social Commerce
5. What are some of the risks and limitations of using this
site? Mobile computing is growing faster than any other type of
EC computing. According to Bent (2014), mobile data traffic
grew 81% (from 820 petabytes per month in 2012 to 1.5 exa-
Private (or Enterprise) Social Networks bytes per month in 2013). This clearly boosts mobile com-
merce. According to The Retail Bulletin (2012), 64% of
In addition to public-oriented business social networks such smartphone consumers used them to shop online. In subse-
as LinkedIn and Craigslist, there are many private social net- quent chapters, we will discuss many mobile applications.
works (also called enterprise networks) within organizations. Instagram is considered an important factor in the future of
An example is the opening case in Chapter 1 (Starbucks). mobile social commerce. Here we present the basic defini-
Other companies with notable internal networks for employ- tions, technologies, and a few examples.
ees only include Northwestern Mutual. According to the
company, they have an internal blog (“Mutualblog”) and a
Yammer account internally, which is used by over 1000 Mobile Social Networking
employees to dialog and make connections on nonpropri-
etary topics. Private networks are for employees, business Mobile social networking refers to social networking where
partners, and customers. members chat and connect with one another using any
mobile device. Most major social networking websites now
offer mobile services. By Q4 2013, Facebook had 945 mil-
Business Models and Services Related to Social lion mobile users out of a total 1.23 billion million monthly
Networking active users (see techcrunch.com/2014/01/29/facebook-is-
a-mobile-ad-company and newsroom.fb.com/Company-
Social network sites provide innovative business models, info). Some social networking sites offer mobile-only services
ranging from customer reviews of food and night life in India (e.g., path.com and javagala.ru).