Content Contribution under Revenue Sharing and Reputation Concern in Social Media: The Case of YouTube

• Main Authors: TANG, Qian, GU, Bin, WHINSTON, Andrew B.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2011
• Subjects: YouTube; social media; economic value; content providers; Computer Sciences; Management Information Systems; Social Media
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/1849; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/2848/viewcontent/Youtube_ICIS_2011.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

A key feature of social media is that it allows individuals and businesses to contribute contents for public viewing. However, little is known about how content providers derive payoffs from such activities. In this study, we build a dynamic structural model to recover the utility function for content providers. Our model distinguishes short-term payoffs based on ad revenue sharing from long-term payoffs driven by content providers’ reputation. The model was estimated using a panel data of 914 top 1000 providers and 381 randomly selected providers on YouTube from Jun 7th, 2010, to Aug 7th, 2011. The two different sets of providers allow us to explore the difference between top and ordinary providers. Our results demonstrate that both providers value incremental subscribers as much as incremental video views. We also find that top providers value accumulative subscribers more than accumulative video views, while ordinary providers value accumulative video views more.