University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Incentives in the Wild: Leveraging Virtual Currency to Sustain Online Community

Wang, Yang; Mainwaring, Scott

Content Files
wang and mainwaring.pdf

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/14950

Description

Title
Incentives in the Wild: Leveraging Virtual Currency to Sustain Online Community
Author(s)
  • Wang, Yang
  • Mainwaring, Scott
Issue Date
2010-02-03
Keyword(s)
  • Incentive
  • virtual currency
  • online community
  • Chinese
Date of Ingest
2010-02-22T18:05:44Z
Abstract
The importance of incentive mechanisms has long been recognized in sustaining online communities. However, many existing community systems have rigid systemimposed incentive mechanisms that preclude user appropriations of the incentives. We draw upon recent investigations of the role of virtual currency (VC), a form of incentive, in a vibrant online community in order to highlight emergent practices that were enabled, facilitated and manifested through exchanges of virtual currency among users. Our study shows evidence that these user appropriations of VC help sustain the community and fulfill users’ broader needs on these systems.
Type of Resource
text
Genre of Resource
Conference Paper / Presentation
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/14950

Owning Collections

iConference 2010 Papers PRIMARY
Conference Papers