The Connector Website Model New Implications for Social ... - PRWeb

� Over time, user-to-user interactions gradually generate a majority portion of the
website content and the regulation of which is governed jointly between the host
organization and the online community of users;
� Depending on the surrounding social and economic conditions, as well as site
design and development, the connector website should excel in facilitating the
discovery and coordination of context-based communications and transactions.
A little more elaboration might be useful. First, interpersonal communications
and transactions are relatively simple. Specifically, connectors allow users to look for
others by targeting online profiles either through mutual contacts or customized search
parameters. A user can also perform a search on one or more preference criteria, or
keywords, specifying what qualities he or she most desires in another user. Depending
on the level of detail, a person can search for others based on one category (e.g. zip code)
or multiple categories (e.g. gender, career interest, favorite sports, favorite movies, likes
to cook, etc.). Interactive classifieds and discussion boards are other applications that
facilitate interactions. These early website applications were rooted in social search.
Several years later, a more explicit social networking application added another
dimension to the connector website.
Secondly, a connector website serves as a key intermediary for its users. It serves
this function by actively bridging users who act as “consumers” with those users who are
“producers”. In an idealized model, consumer-users create the demand for information
and other goods, and the producer-users supply the timely and relevant information or
goods. (see Table 1) For example, eBay or Craigslist can easily connect a user wanting a
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