Several researchers have suggested that network externality is useful for understanding consumer behavior in a computer mediated environment. that is a very good idea to link economics and IS as we read the papers of economics IS through IS 362 class.

As the number of users gradually increases, firms’ efforts to provide better service and to gain market power ultimately leads to an increase of revenue and the value of firm.  Portal sites added users’ participation section and webpage which originally were formed for Users’ participation (myspace.com, youtube.com, etc.) and enhance their position based on users’ relationship in the online community.  Recently, the two-way merger between google.com and youtube.com best shows this relation. 

For this week, I focused on these websites, especially UCC to examine a network effect.  As the number of users for UCC is increasing, we see the value of web increasing and portals try to enhance that service.  Recently, as we observed the Google and Youtube merger, UCC has become one of the major resources of value increasing or profit and can be said to be the mainstream of trend.  Under today’s environment, websites’ higher effort to bring more visitors than more ads is the key to improve the value.

In fact, there are many research approaches and methodology for information systems. To be a IS researcher, I am not sure what approach is best related to my interests in Web 2.0, UCC, etc. In addition to traditional qualitative and quantitative research, I have learned many other approaches including economics IS, field study, etc from ICIS papers in IS 362 class. I think I need more work to match an approach with my interest topics. It will be interesting trail and journey for my research in summer.