The Wisdom of e-crowds: Can Masses Create Value?

Abstract

With the rising popularity of the Internet, interactions between companies and their consumers have become more common and meaningful. Researchers often tend to apply the metaphor of community to these on-line networks of B2C relationships. However, this term implies durability and a long-term orientation. It does not cover more incidental, short-lived groups of consumers, who therefore should not be treated as communities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the ability of these short-term, collective consumer phenomena (addressed as e-crowds within the scope of this paper) to create value. Based on a critical literature analysis that considers works from several different fields of knowledge (including management, economics, psychology and media studies) and empirical examples, we argue that while lacking a complex internal organization, e-crowds are capable of creating use, exchange and sign value when certain conditions are met. However, they are equally likely to perform value-destroying activities, which present real risks for companies that interact with e-crowds.

Power asymmetry and value creation in B2C relationship networks

“…The game Party Hard can serve as an example of such a product -it is integrated with the streaming platform Twitch.tv in such a way that it allows consumers to influence the events taking place in the game, by way of popular vote. This can be used to make the particular level easier or harder for the focal member (usually the latter) -for instance, by summoning additional enemies or creating an unexpected turn of events [Wieczerzycki, 2016]. This sort of rivalry between the members of a public becomes the key part of the entire experience of watching a stream.…”

Emergent Collaboration on Twitter: A Case Study of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement

“…This in turn allows a wide array of people to support italbeit for different reasons. Memes are however also argued to threaten the independence of thought within online social networks, as the constant reiteration and remix of content can resemble a closed loop where the same content is recycled [36].…”

“…The community then functions as the context that legitimizes engagement, which in turn encourages the creation of new ways to remix all types of content and enable the personalization of content to contribute. The reuse of content is essential, as it enables the social networks to utilize recycled content to increase coherence as suggested by Wieczerzycki [36]. The increased coherence can then lead to reinforced beliefs in shared values and common causes that Sunstein [34] and Gladwell [17] identified as being essential for these large-scale communities to achieve anything.…”