Citation: Chee Wei Phang, Juliana Sutanto, Chuan Hoo Tan & Jan Ondrus, Mobile Social Networking Application Viability: A Research Framework, International Journal of Accounting and Information Management, vol. 22, no. 4, p. 321 – 338, 2014.

Mobile Social Networking Application Viability:

A Research Framework

INTRODUCTION

Mobile social networking applications (MSNAs) are fast becoming popular among the

consumers today. These applications allow individuals to use a mobile device to construct a

public or semi-public profile space to display their personal information, and through doing so

establish new relationships, while also communicate with other users with whom they share an

existing relationship (Gressgard and Stensaker, 2006; Ling and Yttri, 2002). It has been

estimated that the number of such mobile social media users will grow from 650 million this year

to 1.3 billion by 2016 (Hanslip, 2011). Consistent with these speculations, it has been reported

that MSNA is currently among the most attractive type of mobile applications to venture

capitalists (Schweitzer et al., 2009) as well as to corporations looking for promising

technological investment (Kane, 2005). Indeed Facebook, which is currently the largest social

networking service provideri, is aggressively pursuing a mobile strategy with the launch of its

mobile platform in 2011 and its mobile app called Facebook Home in 2013 to tap onto the

growing mobile user populationii. This is unsurprising considering that of its 1.06 billion

monthly active users recorded worldwide in 2012, 680 million users accessed the social

networking service on mobile devicesiii.

Despite the promising outlook, it remains unclear how MSNA providers can more

effectively leverage on these applications to derive commercial benefits. As noted in an article

by the Knowledge@Wharton on 13 February 2013ii, “[t]he challenge for companies is

developing a strategy that takes advantage of the unique characteristics of mobile platforms.”

Elaborated by Saikat Chaudhuri in the same article ii, “[c]ompanies need to leverage uniquely

mobile features such as physical location, immediacy and targeting”, but how to achieve this

remains not well understood. This suggests a pressing need for a framework that can help MSNA

providers to more systematically utilize the features afforded by mobile technology to ensure

their commercial viability. Thus motivated, this article proposes a conceptual framework that

addresses the viability issue of MSNA. Viability here is understood in terms of how desirable

commercial outcomes may be derived from mobile applications specifically MSNAs.

To investigate the commercial viability of MSNAs, it is important to first understand how

these applications could better fulfill their core value to the users since continuous usage is a

foundation for deriving their commercial benefits. Specifically, the nature of MSNAs implies

that such applications need to address the social needs of users to be interconnected and to

maintain relationships with each other. The relationships of concern could transpire in several

ways, involving individuals who are 1) members of a social group e.g., a family clan, or

graduates of an educational institution, 2) located in close proximity e.g., residing in the same

housing area; and 3) simply end-users of the same application (Beer, 2008; Boyd and Ellison,

2007). This study builds on the relevant social networking perspectives to propose an

activity-based view on mobile application usage, which is then associated with a proposed set of

measurement metrics.

Additionally, while there has been a sizable amount of research conducted on the MSNAs’

technical design aspects (Miluzzo et al., 2008; Tsai et al., 2009) and user behaviors (e.g.,

Humphreys, 2008; Sadeh et al., 2009), studies conducted specifically on how to determine

whether such applications are commercially viable remain lacking, and lag far behind its rapidly

increasing popularity. To the best of our knowledge, there is yet to be directed, orchestrated

studies that focus on examining the link between the features of MSNAs and their assessments.

We distinguish three classes of MSNA features: (i) profile-based, (ii) spatial-based, and (iii)

temporal-based features. Through this conceptual framework (and the propositions), we hope to

promote subsequent research to examine MSNAs in a more orchestrated manner.

MSNA AS THE FOCAL APPLICATION

Extant research on MSNAs primarily focuses on the technical design of such applications,

such as the sensory technologies to detect MSNA devices and users (Miluzzo et al., 2008), and

the network architectural design for MSNAs (Eagle and Pentland, 2005; Tsai et al., 2009). We

found only two studies (Humphreys, 2008; Sadeh et al., 2009) that investigated user behavioral

response to MSNAs. Among them, Humphreys investigated Dodgeball, an MSNA that aimed at

facilitating social connection and coordination, and concluded that exchanging messages through

Dodgeball led to a tendency for strangers to congregate in urban spaces. Interestingly, Dodgeball

was bought over by Google in 2005 but was then shut down in 2009 because it could not bring

forth profit to the company. In another study by Sadeh et al. (2009), an MSNA that enables users

to selectively share their locations with others was developed to investigate users’ privacy

concerns via a series of laboratory and field experiments. While these studies managed to

integrate the technical and users’ behavioral aspects of MSNA to obtain richer insights into how

the application can benefit the users, they did not delve into how the application could be

enduringly viable.

Our reviews of the previous works on MSNAs highlight several gaps that need to be bridged

to advance research. Specifically, the review points to the opportunities to integrate the different

themes of research to advance the investigation on MSNAs. Essentially, the research

opportunities can be translated into the following research questions. First, by tying up the

themes on technical design, user behavior, and business consideration, we seek to answer the

question: “What are the technological design features of MSNAs pertinent to mobile use

behavior that can be leveraged for attaining the viability objective?” Second, given that

consumers interact among themselves and form social groups, there is a need to understand

consumers as groups rather than isolated individuals. This leads to the next question: “How can

we understand and leverage the mobile social networks afforded by MSNAs to enhance their

viability objective in conjunction with the pertinent design features?” Answering these questions

allow us to assess the value of MSNAs that can be extracted from consumer interaction with

each other through the applications. The technological design of MSNAs may also guide

researchers and practitioners in developing the MSNA for their research/commercial pursuits.

SOCIAL NETWORK PARADIGM AS THE THEORETICAL UNDERPINNING

When mobile users are interconnected and communicate with one another e.g., through the

use of MSNAs, a social network is formed. A social network is typically manifested by a set of

actors (e.g., mobile application users) connected by a set of ties (e.g., friendship ties). Individuals

tend to adapt and imitate the behavior of others in the social network. This led to the emergence

of a number of social network perspectives (see Valente (2006) for a review) to explain the

social influence among individuals in adopting an idea, practice, product, or information. A

summary of these social network perspectives is presented in Table 1.

INSERT TABLE1 ABOUT HERE

The central thrust of the social networking paradigm is the concept of interpersonal

influence as a form of social contagion, i.e., how individuals influence each other; and who

influences whom in the contagion process. Under this paradigm, scholars have examined

individuals who are more influential (e.g., opinion leadership principle) (Katz et al., 1963;

Harben and Kim, 2007; Goldsmith and Clark, 2008), individuals who are more/less likely to be

influenced and the breadth of influence (e.g., strength of weak ties principle (Granovetter, 1983)),

and individuals who can bridge disconnected groups of people (e.g., structural hole model (Burt

1992)). These derivations subsequently spin off a series of investigations to complement the

initial development underpinnings. For instance, explained through the opinion leadership model,

research has found that opinion leaders could influence consumers’ perception of advertising

messages (Harben and Kim, 2007) as well as their fashion preferences (Goldsmith and Clark,

2008). The opinion leadership model, however, does not clearly dictate how an individual is

more likely to be influenced (Watts and Dodds, 2007). This gap is addressed in different ways by

the network closure (Coleman, 1988), structural equivalence (Borgatti and Everett, 1992; Burt,

1987), and thresholds models (Granovetter, 1978; Rogers, 2003).

Taking a dynamic view, some researchers argue that an individual who is more likely to be

influenced by others may also become more influential as well, which is espoused in the dynamic

model (Myers, 2000). The dynamic model is typically depicted in the form of a

susceptible-infectious-recovery framework, which has been applied extensively in epidemiology

(Anderson, 1991; Bailey, 1975). Two key concepts are examined by this model with respect to

the social influence among individuals i.e., susceptibility and infectiousness. Apart from the

number of adopters surrounding an individual, the susceptibility of the individual (to an

influence) is also dependent on the degree to which he/she gets into contact with the adopters i.e.,

the individual will be more susceptible if he/she meets his/her adopter friends more frequently.

Further, once an individual has been converted from being susceptible to “infected” (i.e.,

becoming an adopter), he then becomes infectious (i.e., more influential) to others in the network,

implying a dynamic process of how social influence operates.

Collectively, the social network paradigm may inform useful strategies that merchants can

formulate to improve the diffusion and adoption of commercial messages. For instance,

merchants can locate the opinion leaders in a social network and engage them with appropriate

incentives to more effectively influence the others (Valente and Davis, 1999). However, it is

often difficult for merchants to know their customers well and get them to frequently get in touch

with each other for such social influence to operate. We contend that MSNAs, through acting as

the platform for social interaction among the users and allowing the users to conduct social and

economic activities at the actual physical context, will equip merchants with the needed

understanding of customers to improve commercial viability.

RESEARCH PROPOSITIONS

Drawing on the social networking paradigm, we can identify that the commercial viability of

a MSNA is contingent on the breadth and intensity of the communication and interaction activity

among the application users, which bonds and sustains the interest of the users to continue using

it. To this end, we can conceive the application viability as best manifested in terms of the

explicit social networking relationships among users in two ways: dynamic communication and

dynamic evolution. Dynamic communication perspective is reflected by the rate and quality of

message responses made by users of the same application. This is built on the conjecture that if

message communications are able to inspire responses from the users both in terms of intensity

and quality, this implies that users find meaning in the communications, which makes it more

likely for them to continue using the application to receive commercial messages. Dynamic

evolution perspective is more straightforward and was developed based on the viral marketing

literature (Bampo et al., 2008; Wiedemann et al., 2008a; 2008b). The deployment of the MSNAs

can be perceived as a form of viral marketing, whereby the MSNA can serve as a technological

tool to facilitate the dissemination of messages to the targeted consumers in existing social

networks so as to achieve marketing objectives. The central thesis of this perspective rests on the

measurement concept of the spread of message i.e., message relaying from one individual to

another (Ewing, 2009).

Considering both perspectives, we can conceptualize the commercial viability of MSNA in

three ways: 1) rate of message response, 2) quality of message response, and 3) spread of a

message. While rate of message response refers to how many targeted customers respond to a

commercial message, quality of message response refers to how well a commercial message is

received by the targeted customers. Spread of a message refers to how fast a commercial

message (e.g., information about a product, or discount offer) can be propagated or relayed to

targeted customers (Vernette, 2004).

MSNAs, being an increasingly pertinent form of mobile applications, possess three classes

of features i.e., profile-based, spatial-based, and temporal-based features, that together aid in the

attainment of their commercial benefits. Profile-based features of MSNAs leverage on users’

profiles, social network contacts, and interaction patterns to offer targeted information and/or

services to the users. Spatial-based features rely on information about the physical space (i.e.,

geographical location and surroundings) in offering information and/or services to the users.

Temporal-based features map users’ needs to different dimensions of time, which we will discuss

in the subsequent sections. These three classes of features, when viewed in isolation, are not

exclusive to MSNAs. For instance, web-based SNAs typically offer profile-based features to

associate users with their relevant social networks/groups. Likewise, mobile applications may

include spatial-based features (e.g., GPS functions) to facilitate users in locating places of

interest such as restaurants. These features, as offered in SNAs or mobile applications, could by

themselves bring about desirable commercial viability, but it is the combination of profile-,

spatial-, and temporal-based features and their complementary nature that make the MSNAs a

particularly efficacious commercial tool to merchants.

Figure 1 depicts the overarching research framework. We posit that the fostering and

bridging of networks of high-affinity customers are facilitated by MSNAs that can provide the

means (how) to better reach the customers (who) with the right product/service (what) at the

right place (where) and at the right time (when).

INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE

Propositions related to Profile-based Features

Profile-based features of MSNAs fundamentally leverage on the notions of user profile and

profiling to meet commercial objectives. The importance of users’ profile information can be

understood from the social identity perspective (Erickson, 1968). Users’ profile information

reflects their social identity, which has a bearing on how they appraise themselves and behave in

their interaction with others (Whitbourne and Connolly, 1999). User profiling entailed in

MSNAs typically involves the creation of a database that contains information about users’

demographics, hobbies, lifestyles, social roles, and most importantly their social network

information which is at the heart of MSNAs. All this information has their established utility for

merchants to perform market segmentation on both their potential and existing customers so as to

offer customized products or services (Raghu et al., 2001).

The profile-based features are expected to play a part in contributing towards the attainment

of commercial viability in the following ways. First, by capturing the users’ social network

information (who knows who) and their social interactions among themselves (e.g., their sharing

of comments on product or discount information), the features may aid in the identification of

opinion leaders among the customers. Through measuring the centrality of each individual, a

merchant can identify how many others an individual can potentially influence and then engage

these opinion leaders as agents to initiate and accelerate the diffusion of a commercial message

(Katz et al., 1963; Rogers, 2003). Through mining the connections and interaction patterns

among the customers, customers’ network structures may be constructed and analyzed to detect

the existence of structural holes (Burt, 1992), for which certain individuals may be engaged to

bridge the disconnected groups of potential customers to enhance the extent of marketing

information dissemination. Knowledge about the network structure may also be employed to

identify consumers who occupy similar network positions i.e., having structural equivalence

with each other. A subset of these consumers may be targeted and invited to try out a new

product to instill the comparison tendency of their structurally equivalent others (Burt, 1987).

With the social network information, merchants may also locate groups of people with a high

density of interactions (i.e., high network closure), and capitalize on the trust and norms within

the groups to influence those connected to them (Coleman, 1988).

Second, customers’ profile information, such as demographics and interests, can be

employed to match their social network information to increase the effectiveness of the social

influence for disseminating commercial messages i.e., through profile-matching. As noted by

Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955), social influence is primarily a matter of communication among

those with shared interests. The greater the degree of similarities between two parties e.g., in

terms of interests and demographics, the greater the attraction between them, which in turn eases

their communication and fosters their relationships. Consequently, effort can be made to channel

the influence of opinions leaders to those who share similar profile information e.g., having

common interests, so as to make their influence more salient. Similarly, to better capitalize on

the influence of a customer to his structurally equivalent others, merchants could focus on

promoting products related to their shared interests or lifestyles. Merchants could also assess the

procurement threshold level of an individual based on his/her past responses to commercial

campaigns. For instance, some individuals might habitually respond to a commercial message

(such as using a coupon to buy a product) only after a large percentage of their social network

contacts had done so, as recorded by the profile-based features. Merchants may thus employ such

information to identify individuals with relatively low thresholds and target them as early

adopters of a product or service. Based on the discussion, we propose:

Proposition 1: Embedding profile-based features into MSNAs could contribute towards the

materialization of commercial viability by affording personalization to consumers; and aiding

merchants in identifying consumers occupying important social network positions (e.g., opinion

leaders and bridges), and leveraging on their behaviors through profile-matching.

Propositions related to Spatial-based Features

People tend to congregate at a place with knowledge of each other’s locations that is often

not pre-planned (Humphreys, 2008). Such a tendency could occur among people who know each

other e.g., close friends, or it could involve two or more strangers who fancy spontaneous

meetings e.g., on a Friday night at a pub. From the perspective of the dynamic model,

specifically the susceptible-infectious-recovery framework, individuals’ proximity may increase

both their susceptibility and infectiousness with regard to the diffusion of a commercial product,

service, or idea. Key to the contagion process in the framework is increased social interaction

among people (Sorenson and Stuart, 2001), which often emerges among individuals who are

spatially proximate to each other (Hawley, 1950). Indeed previous literature has noted that

proximity could facilitate communication and information exchanges (Saxeman, 1994), thus

stimulating diffusion of information. The spatial-based features in MSNAs may contribute

towards the materialization of commercial viability through fostering the proximity among the

consumers and exploiting the distance information between consumers and merchants.

The central theme of spatial-based features in MSNAs is the concept of space, which serves

as a container for places whose meanings are shaped by what one does in them (Curry, 1999).

The sharing of location information among users of an MSNA in real time may afford people

with opportunity to act on it spontaneously and may change the way they conduct social

activities (Humphreys 2008). This information enables the merchants to conduct group-based

promotions, whereby a certain number of shoppers are needed to enjoy an attractive product

discount rate. An MSNA can be used to alert shoppers on the number of others who are near the

shop and are interested in joining in the purchase of the product. With the help of the MSNA, the

interested shoppers may then organize themselves together and proceed to purchase the

discounted product at the shop.

Previous research shows that people prefer to interact with others while shopping rather than

doing it in isolation (O’Hara and Perry, 2001). Of particular interest is the finding that

conversations among customers about their product consumption experience may influence

attitudes towards the product and induce preference shifts (Schlosser and Shavitt, 2002). The

importance of social interaction in shopping activity is evident in the recent emergence of

web-based collaborative shopping tools. However, these web-based tools remains lacking in

terms of the social-experiential elements and rich communications that are present in face-to-face

interactions (Jahng et al., 2007); all of which can be afforded by the MSNAs. The ability for

MSNA users to be at the actual physical context (e.g., in a shop that sells audio systems) would

facilitate the deeper sharing of product knowledge among the consumers (e.g., how to visually

and audibly differentiate between a good and a mediocre audio system). With respect to this,

merchants may provide appropriate stimuli to induce information sharing among proximate

consumers about a target product or service.

The distance information provided by the spatial-based features based on the location

information of users and merchants may also improve the attainment of the desirable commercial

viability. Prior research has suggested that physical distance plays an important role in the price

that consumers are willing to pay for a product or service (Balasubramanian et al., 2002). Recent

research also shows that location-based mobile promotions may stimulate consumers’ unplanned

purchases in a supermarket context (Hui et al., 2013). Our discussion leads to the following

proposition:

Proposition 2: Embedding spatial-based features into MSNAs could contribute towards the

materialization of commercial viability by fostering the proximity among customers for enhanced

social shopping experience and to increase customers’ susceptibility and infectiousness to

information sharing and diffusion; and exploiting distance information to tailor offerings to

customers.

Propositions related to Temporal-based Features

The temporal-based features in MSNAs could contribute towards the materialization of

better commercial viability through predicting and fulfilling users’ needs along four perspectives

of time experience i.e., clock time, organic time, strategic time, and spasmodic time (Bulter,

1995). Clock time is linear and is the most common form of time experienced and understood.

For organic time, ideas and actions are developed through consensus building and congruence

over a possible future, but where the past is relatively uncodified and linked in an indeterminate

way to those futures (Bulter, 1995). Accordingly, decision making about when to send a

particular advertisement will be based on principles of satisficing rather than achieving optimal

solution. In the strategic time perspective, the future depends on the prediction of the actions of

other people, even though their views of possible futures may not always be congruent with

one’s views (Bulter, 1995). Examples of temporal-based features that take advantage of strategic

time are features that send discount coupons for electronic gadgets shortly before Black Friday.

Finally, time experience can also be conceptualized as spasmodic time. With spasmodic time, the

present is experienced through events that are irregular, highly novel, movable, and with many

concurrent events impinging (Bulter, 1995). In such circumstances, product/service choices often

occur in a haphazard way with the time scale bearing little relation to clock time.

Temporal-based features that take advantage of spasmodic time are those that send information

which depreciates quickly in value e.g., a time-limited group discount event (Balasubramanian et

al., 2002).

The essential message is that MSNAs, being applications installed on a mobile phone that is

always with the users, could blend into the rhythms of time experienced by the users in

conducting their everyday activities (Green and Harvey, 1999). The preceding characteristic of

MSNAs is particularly pertinent when one considers the tendency for people to organize and

coordinate their social activities e.g., shopping and gathering, in a spontaneous nature (Ling and

Yittri, 2002). The gathering of young pub goers on Friday nights (clock time) serves as a good

example for this tendency. With confidence that the mobile phone is always with the users, a pub

operator can send out promotional messages (e.g., free flow of beer) half an hour before the

“Happy Hour”, during which the pub goers are able to organize a gathering at the pub through

the application “on the spot” while the message is still fresh in their mind. In terms of organic

time, merchants may grab the opportunity to send out information on overcoat sales to shoppers

when there is a sudden drop in temperature accompanied by strong, cold wind in an evening

during the seemingly early winter. Again the action is made possible with the “always with

users” nature of the mobile phone. For temporal-based features capturing strategic time,

advertisements about the limited stock availability of a latest electronic gadget can be sent to

shoppers when a queue has already built up to purchase the gadget on Black Friday. This may

stir the curiosity of shoppers which may in turn help to further popularize the product. Finally,

the “always with users” nature of MSNAs is a natural companion for the temporal-based features

capturing spasmodic time. This is due to the importance to heighten a sense of urgency in

shoppers at a particular moment with respect to a limited-time promotional message tapping on

their spasmodic time experience. Our preceding discussion leads us to propose the following:

Proposition 3: Embedding temporal-based features into MSNAs could contribute towards the

materialization of commercial viability through assisting in the prediction and fulfillment of

users’ needs along the four forms of time experience (clock time, organic time, strategic time,

and spasmodic time), and by blending into the temporal rhythms experienced by users in their

everyday activities.

Propositions Combining Profile-, Spatial-, and Temporal-based Features

While we have placed separate focuses on the three features in how they may each

contribute towards commercial viability, we contend that it is the synergy created from

simultaneously utilizing the three features in MSNAs that allows their commercial potential to be

fully unleashed. Specifically, the spatial- and temporal-based features are expected to augment

the profile-based features in bringing about commercial viability in terms of 1) higher rate of

message response, 2) higher quality of message response, and 3) wider spread of a message.

Time and space are both valuable resources, and are among the most fundamental

dimensions of all economic activities (Balasubramanian et al., 2002). As noted by Ohta (1993;

pp. 1), “If time is the warp of economics, then space is its woof”. Extending this analogy, we

contend that MSNAs, through encompassing both spatial- and temporal-based features, would

empower merchants to better weave the warp and woof of their commercial activities,

particularly in augmenting the profile-based features to attain the desirable commercial viability.

More specifically, with the help of the three features collectively, merchants will be able to

integrate their understanding about customers’ characteristics and their social networks together

with information about the settings of their social and economic activities (i.e., time, place, and

surrounding conditions) to formulate targeted commercial strategies.

Consider the following example -- knowing that a group of white-collar movie lovers often

organize spontaneous movie or beer drinking sessions after work, a restaurant operator may offer

group dining with bar beer drinking discounts to these potential customers (through profile-based

features) when they are near the area (through spatial-based features) at the particular hours

(through temporal-based features) to improve their business. The discounts can be designed such

that the larger the size of the groups, the greater discounts they can enjoy. With the spatial-based

features that foster proximity among users, such commercial initiatives could further add to the

“pull factor” of gathering a large crowd of customers to the restaurant. Likewise, movie

distributors and cinemas may also send promotional materials of a new movie in the form of

pictures and trailers to these customers’ mobile devices during their gathering and before the

movie screenings (i.e., through temporal-based features). These examples involve both clock

time, i.e., after work, and organic time, i.e., spontaneous gatherings that may occur on any of the

weekdays but which the tendency of occurrence on certain weekdays may be approximated over

time. The aim is to increase awareness and stimulate discussions among customers about the

movie (Trusov et al., 2009).

Continuing from the example above, opinion leaders within this group of customers can be

identified with the help of the profile-based features to enhance the word-of-mouth effect. Based

on their indicated preferences, the opinion leaders may be invited to attend the preview of a

movie of their favorite genre, after which they will be requested to share their opinions about the

movie with others in the group. The request may be sent when the opinion leaders are detected to

be with his/her friends. The information propagation through the opinion leaders will serve to

intensify the social influence among customers in diffusing a commercial message (in this case,

information about the movie). The proximity between the opinion leaders and the other group

members during the gathering also increases their mutual exposure and interaction, and may

create continuous cycles of members within the group being susceptible and infectious to each

other. Furthermore, the spontaneous propagation of messages to those who join the group once in

a while (i.e., weak ties) through the MSNA may help to enhance the reach of the messages to

different groups of consumers. Together these led us to the following hypothesis:

Proposition 4: Integrating the profile-, spatial-, and temporal-based features in MSNAs would

offer merchants a more holistic understanding about their customers. Subsequently, appropriate

commercial messages could then be sent to the consumers that yield (a) faster spread of message,

(b) higher response rate, and (c) better response quality.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

To recapitulate, we focus on three manifestations of commercial viability based on a review

of the viral marketing literature. The propositions on MSNAs offer valuable insights into how

such emerging mobile applications should be developed and molded to bring about greater

benefits to both their providers and consumers.

Boundary

While we have derived an important set of MSNA features and proposed an assessable set of

propositions in relation to commercial viability, we did not provide empirical validation of these

propositions. Our aim has been to systematically tie together relevant literatures through the

social network paradigm to propose a conceptual framework on which future research on

MSNAs can leverage.

Additionally, we did not embed some areas of research into this article to keep our scope

manageable. First, our focus on the profile-, spatial-, and temporal-based features unavoidably

leaves out some other potentially important features of these applications that deserve attention

e.g., decision support features. Nonetheless, we believe that it is important in its own right to

unveil in-depth insights into how the profile-, spatial-, and temporal-based features of MSNAs

can lead to the attainment of their commercial viability.

Second, the advantages of MSNAs do come with their drawbacks. One of the major concerns

is users’ fear of privacy invasion which has been highlighted by previous studies on MSNAs

(Sadeh et al. 2009). Previous studies have highlighted privacy issue as a major factor inhibiting

users’ acceptance of new technologies (Stewart and Segars 2002). Nonetheless, this issue may be

alleviated given careful design of mobile applications such that users can enjoy its functionalities

while having their privacy protected (Sutanto et al. forthcoming).

Implications for Research

This article contributes to research on several fronts. First, extant research has placed

separate focus on the technical design; user behavior; and potential commercial opportunities of

mobile applications including MSNAs. This research undertakes a coherent integration of the

three seemingly disparate themes by examining user behavior together with the business aspects

of MSNAs, and proposing the technological design considerations to fulfill the needs and

interests of the users for enhancing their commercial viability.

Focusing on three key features of MSNAs i.e., profile-, spatial-, and temporal-based features

individually and collectively, we explore the question of how these features may effectively

reach the right customers (profile-based) with the right products/services at the right place

(spatial-based) and right time (temporal-based). We contend that the answer to this question lies

in an understanding of consumer behavior in terms of their usage of the MSNA to perform social

and economic activities. First, individuals use these applications to interact with one another and

form social groups. To aid in understanding how individuals’ social networks can be leveraged

on, we have provided a comprehensive explanation of the different social network perspectives

that may inform future research. Individuals can also use the applications to organize their social

and economic activities within the actual physical context. For merchants, this could mean the

opportunity to obtain a better understanding of their customers’ context while performing a

shopping activity. For this we have organized our discussion on how the different features can

lead to the attainment of commercial viability of MSNAs through a rich collection of pertinent

social network perspectives that have mostly been employed in isolation in previous research

endeavors.

The propositions that link the features to achieve commercial viability can be further

formulated into specific hypotheses for empirical validation. Researchers may identify the

specific, individual features of interest. For instance, researchers may test the effectiveness of a

spatial-based feature that delivers promotional messages from nearby shops to users when they

are within the area. They may also test these features in combination.

Implications for Practice

For the providers of MSNAs, merchants, and marketing managers, this article suggests

possible measures to tap on MSNAs to maximize returns on their investments. Specifically, this

can be achieved via two leverages: 1) the social networks formed among the customers through

the applications; and 2) the contextualization afforded by the applications whereby the customers

are able to conduct social and economic activities at the actual physical contexts.

For the first leverage, this article provides detailed discussion on the different mechanisms

through which the social networks of customers can be interpreted, analyzed, and tapped on. The

key for this is the effective use of the profile-based features to identify customers who are more

influential e.g., opinion leaders, and those who can be more easily influenced. It is also important

to improve the connectivity of the customers’ networks e.g., by bridging structural holes and

exploiting weak ties in the networks. Additionally, practitioners need to be aware of the dynamic

nature of social influence among the customers, such that the social contagion among the

customers should be viewed as a continuous process with mutual influence between customers

who are more influential and those who are more easily influenced.

The above potential exploitation of customers’ social networks is made more viable with the

capabilities of MSNAs that enable customers to conduct social and economic activities at the

actual physical context. The implications to practitioners with regard to this second leverage is

that it is vital to encourage the customers to make full use of the spatial- and temporal-based

features of these applications to conduct and organize their activities such as social gatherings

and shopping activities. It is also important to construct a reliable and effective system to deal

with and respond to the contextual information of customers in real time.

However, caution needs to be taken in exploiting the aforementioned features for this

purpose, such that the afforded delivery of highly targeted commercial messages could irritate

the users due to privacy concern. For this practitioners may consider designing their applications

such that all personal and contextual information are kept within users’ mobile phone to give

them a feeling of psychological comfort that their privacy is preserved (Sutanto et al.

forthcoming).

CONCLUSION

Mobile commerce and the possibility to harness the power of consumers’ social networks

constitute two emerging areas of research and practice that have received growing attention in

recent years. The combination of the two gives rise to the MSNA that can serve as a powerful

tool to help practitioners unleash the commercial opportunities of modern information and

communication technologies. This article can serve to provide timely and useful guidance for

future research and practice on this promising IT artifact.

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