Key Factors of Success of the Online Hospitality Exchange and Sharing Communities

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Key Factors of Success of the Online Hospitality

Exchange and Sharing Communities

Hassan Ali

Thesis MSc. Information Studies Track: Business Information Systems

Faculty of Information Studies University of Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Supervisor: dr. W.P.Weijland Signature:__________________________

Examiner: Prof. dr. Tom van Engers Signature:__________________________

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Abstract

Online communities have earned a remarkable importance on the internet, however, research shows that the success rate of such communities is considerably small. This fact increases the importance of studies on the success of online communities. In this paper, the success of these communities is defined. Moreover, the measurements for this success are characterized and finally, the factors of success for these communities are determined. Our main aim is to study the measurements of success and finally determine the success factors specifically for the online hospitality exchange and sharing communities. For this purpose the case study of couchsurfing.org is performed. Finally, with the help of this case study and success measurements and factors for online communities in general, we have defined success measurements and factors specifically for online hospitality exchange and sharing communities.

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1. Introduction

The usage of virtual communities, or in other words of online communities, is a significantly large part of the activities of an average user of the internet. According to a report on internet usage statistics by Nielsen, a considerably large amount of the time of internet users is spent on social media websites (Nielsen, 2014). Online communities are a major part of these social media websites. The earliest form of these communities were aimed to help their users to connect to each other and interact. However, with the development of internet, these communities started to fulfill tasks in addition to connection between users. An example of such a task is interactive education and learning through online communities. Similarly, online communities about traveling and hospitality have also developed ways to connect users with these interests in an innovative manner. More on communities about traveling and hospitality will be explained further.

Another important element of online communities of today is that the members of such communities are not limited to certain geographic locations. They can communicate and make use of functionalities offered by these communities virtually from any part of the world with the availability of internet. This fact has also lead to the significant growth of the user participation of these communities. Similarly, it has also become possible for the users to find a community explicitly in accordance to their interest and connect to this community regardless their geographical location. It can be argued that such boundless possibilities of connections in accordance to interests, can increase the level of pleasure of the users (Bollen, Gonçalves, Ruan, & Mao, 2011). This increase in pleasure can be a motivation behind the usage of these communities.

Despite the fact that online communities have gained a high level of popularity on the internet, for a large number of new online communities it is hard to survive (Kraut & Resnick, 2011). According to a study by Deloitte, even though a large amount of corporate funds are spent on building online communities for the purpose of branding, less than a quarter of these communities ultimately gain more than 1,000 active members (Worthen, 2008). In another study by Feverbee a random sample of 875 communities was selected to be studied and it was noticed that only 12 of these communities had more than 100 active members (Leahy, 2013). This large rate of failure of online communities increases the importance of studies about the causes of these failures. Similarly, understanding of the success of these communities can also help us to define the ways how the failing communities could be saved and possibly led to a path of success. This is why my research is aimed to study the success of the online communities.

In this paper, I am mainly interested in the factors which can play a role in the success of these communities. Additionally, my interest lies in travel and tourism as this industry has been noticeably growing around the world, at a constant pace since 1950 and it is expected to grow

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further in the coming years (see appendix 1). Besides that, the evolution of internet has made it possible for travelers and tourists to connect in a more efficient manner and make use of innovative ways of tourism such as airbnb.com and couchsurfing.org (Sicot, 2013). This is why I am willing to specify my research to online hospitality exchange and sharing communities. I am willing to find out which of these factors are specifically important for the online hospitality community. Therefore the research question which is investigated in this paper is:

What are the key factors of success of an online hospitality exchange and sharing community?

In order to understand the factors of success for online communities, it is important to define success for these communities. In philosophical terms definition can be described as a statement of the meaning of a term (Copi, 1982). Similarly for online communities, the definition of success can be a statement describing ‘when a community can be called successful’. This is why the first sub question related to the main research question is:

How can the success of online communities be defined?

After defining the success for online communities, I am interested in the ways of measuring this success. These measurements can consist of indicators which can be related to the elements of success.

How can the success for online communities be measured?

Furthermore, after defining the measurements of success for online communities, I would like to apply these measurements to the online hospitality exchange and sharing communities. This will be done to make it clear how the earlier defined measurements can be used for an online communities in practice. For this purpose, the case study of couchsurfing.org will be used. The third sub question will be:

How can the measurements of success be applied to the couchsurfing.org?

Finally after finding measurements of success, I am interested in the factors which play a role in the success of an online community. In particular, my interest lies in defining the success factors for online hospitality exchange and sharing communities. For this purpose again the case study of couchsurfing.org will be used to define the success factors specifically for online hospitality exchange and sharing community. This is why the fourth sub question will be:

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As couchsurfing.org is reported to be a successful online hospitality exchange and sharing community because of its large network of members and leading position in the market (Couchsurfing, 2014), with the help of this question, I shall determine the key factors which are valid for online hospitality exchange and sharing communities. This will finally lead to the answer of the main question of this research.

To answer the above mentioned questions, the following structure will be used:

In chapter 2 the underlying theories of the topic will be defined to improve the understanding of the main topic. In this theoretical framework, first the nature and the working of online communities is studied. Furthermore, the exchange and sharing element on these sites and their relationship to the Economy of Giving is defined. Additionally, hospitality exchange in general and in online communities is discussed as a part of the theoretical framework. After the theoretical framework, in chapter 3, the methods employed to conduct this research are explained. In chapter 4 of this paper, research and results are described. After a description of the results, in chapter 5 follows the discussion and chapter 6, conclusion and future work.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Online Communities

An online community or a virtual community can be defined as a virtual space which helps people to come in contact with each other in the form of a conversation, to exchange information and to exchange other resources (Owyang, 2007). In addition to the exchange of information and other resources, online communities are used for the purposes of learning, playing and socializing. An online community can be formed in different social settings. Among these settings, such communities can consist of a small group of users to a significantly large number of participants (Kraut & Resnick, Building Successful Online Communities, Evidence-Based Social Design, 2011).

Similar to different possible sizes of online communities, there can be a large number of purposes which these communities can serve. It is often reported that these communities can serve the same range of purposes as offline groups or networks. For example in a physical community, people can share information, learn from each other, provide companionship, social support and entertainment. Online communities are often reported to accomplish these purposes among others (Kraut & Resnick, Building Successful Online Communities, Evidence-Based Social Design, 2011).

The earliest forms of communities were reported to mainly serve as a communication channel for individuals where they could come together and learn from each other. To fulfil this purpose, listservers, emails, and bulletin boards were used. However, emerging technology changed the

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way how these online communities used to interact with their users. In the mid 90’s, a large number of functionalities were added to these communities in addition to basic communication. Among many other new features these functionalities consisted of the sharing of music and online gaming (Yeoman, 2013). Further technological developments helped to make a major transformation to fields such as education and health care. An example of such an online community is GlobeMed. In GlobeMed students can volunteer their health care services to the public in developing countries worldwide.1

Similar to the medical sciences, as mentioned above, online communities have helped with the development of innovative practices in education. According to a research performed by Flores and Wang, online learning communities (OLC) can be one of the most effective ways for students to acquire information skills (Yeoman, 2013). In another study about the usefulness of online communities for adult education, Eustance stated that web technology in the form of online communities, can help to create a sustainable adult learning network (Eustace, 2013). In addition to education and medical sciences, online communities have reported to influence many social settings where users share and exchange goods and services with each other in real life (Boyd, 2007).

2.2. Hospitality Exchange

Hospitality exchange and sharing can be defined as the sharing of accommodation between the members of a social network who are generally travelers. This is mainly done without monetary exchange. Online hospitality exchange and sharing communities are generally formed when users with similar interests (in this context traveling) get together. Users generally make use of online platforms to come in contact with each other and communicate information about themselves and their preferences.

Hospitality exchange is reported to be largely attractive for students and volunteers, as they can stay with locals while traveling (Boyer, 2012). Moreover, this group of users in general often own limited resources, which is why they prefer low cost or free substitutes for their accommodation during traveling (Chadee & Cutler, 1996).

A significantly large number of advantages are often argued by the supporting groups of hospitality exchange (Boyer, 2012). First of all there is generally no cost attached to the accommodations found through hospitality exchange platforms. This is often stated to be the most common reason of preference of hospitality exchange. Secondly, accommodations offered

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on the hospitality exchange networks are generally shared with the owners of the accommodation. Compared to the travelers, these owners generally have a higher level of knowledge of the location. Moreover, for a member of the same hospitality network, it can also be concluded that the other members can have a shared interest. Due to this fact these members can have an enriched quality of time spent during travel. Thirdly, by making usage of the hospitality exchange networks, users can be a part of the community. This feeling of belonging can also be one of the reasons of making use of accommodation through hospitality exchange networks (Rosen, 2011).

In addition to the advantaged I mentioned above, there are also a number of disadvantages commonly reported about the hospitality exchange. Most importantly the safety of traveling is one of the most discussed concerns in such communities. In the past a number of major criminal incidents were reported where travelers were harmed and potential users of such exchange communities were discouraged (Telegraph, 2009) (Lange, 2014). In addition to safety, a limited number of hosts to choose from is also a frequently reported disadvantage of using a hospitality exchange community. It is reported that users often need to start searching for a host ahead of time and they often need to plan the duration of their stay together with the host. Additionally, hosts generally do not guarantee an accommodation for the time they plan. Due to this fact, travelers can face unexpected unavailability of the accommodation which they have chosen. Finally, the lack of privacy and flexibility is also one of the reported concerns of users of a hospitality exchange.

In this research, the goal is to determine the success elements of the online hospitality exchange and sharing community. There is a large number of hospitality exchange networks reported to be functional on the internet, a list of the major communities can be found in the appendix 2. It can be noticed from the appendix 2 that the couchsurfing.org project has significantly larger presence compared to other major relevant networks. This is why, in this research, couchsurfing.org hospitality exchange network will be used for the case study. The measurements of success defined in the first part will be applied to the case of couchsurfing.org. Moreover, this website will be used to understand the factors of the success of such communities.

2.3. Couchsurfing.org

Couchsurfing.org is an online network or a community for hospitality exchange and sharing. This community is reported to be the largest of its kind with more than 7 million users in more than 100,000 cities around the world (Couchsurfing, 2014). Moreover, it is also reported that the users of couchsurfing.org are from diversified cultural backgrounds. This argument can also be supported because the speakers of three hundred and sixty five languages can be found on this website as registered members (Marx, 2012). In addition to hospitality, couchsurfing.org is also used by its members to share their experiences and to connect with other users. There are also a

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large number of events organized by the users of couchsurfing.org, where other users can participate. Due to a large number and diversity of users of couchsurfing.org, it is assumed to be an appropriate website for this research.

2.3.1. Working of the site

As mentioned earlier, couchsurfing.org has a large group of users as members of this community. Users on coushsurfing.org can be divided into surfers (users who are looking for a host to stay with) and hosts (users who are willing to host other users). This role of the members can alternate according to their need. Moreover, all the members of the community can participate in the conversations and make use of events part of this website. Couchsurfing.org works as follows.

Similar to most of the online communities, couchsurfing.org requires its users to register on the website with some basic information. Although, it is also possible to provide this information using a Facebook account, see appendix 3. Once registered, it is possible for users to edit the profile by providing more information such as location, travels, languages and preference, as it can be seen in the appendix 4. In the same section, it is also possible to provide information about the way one can host other travelers. The creation and maintenance of the profile is of critical importance for the users of couchsurfing.org, as it increases the trust of potential hosts (Lauterbach, Truong, Shah, & Adamic, 2009). Moreover, if a user of couchsurfing.org has a larger number of social connections, it is probable that he will be perceived as more trustable. This can also be done by hosting other guests. Similarly, the creation and hosting of events on couchsurfing.org and a higher level of activities in discussion forums can also be among the factors which increase the trustability of a user.

Once registered, a user can make use of the website which can be divided in four different sections. First, if a user is willing to travel and looking for a host he can use the ‘Surf’ section of the website. This type of user is referred as a surfer, as mentioned earlier. There it is possible to enter the name of the city he is interested in, his arrival date and his departure date, as it can be seen in appendix 5. On the second step of the ‘Surf’ information part, a surfer can tell about his plans during his stay. Moreover, it is also possible to inform potential hosts how many persons are willing to surf in total, as it can be seen in appendix 6. On the third step a surfer can upload pictures of himself or related to him. This step is aimed to increase familiarity between the host and the surfer. Additionally, on this step, the surfer can provide information about himself and communicate his interests. Finally, after completing these steps, surfers are presented with a number of potential hosts. Surfers can connect to them and ask for available place to stay. A list of potential hosts can be seen in the appendix 7.

The second section of the website is specifically for the users who are willing to host others. In this section users, or hosts, are presented with a number of ways to communicate with surfers

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about the availability of a space they have. In the similar section, they can express their location and also the time span for which they will have that space free. A screenshot of this section can be seen in the appendix 8.

The third section of the website is specifically about events which can be based on the specific location which a user (surfer or host) can search. Moreover, the nature of events can also be specified in this section. Finally, the search can be performed on the basis of relevance or date. An event search screen can be seen in the appendix 9. In this section, it is also possible for the users of couchsurfing.org to create events themselves. This can be done by choosing the location of the event, a description of the event, the time and date of the event and by telling the preferences about guest who are allowed to visit this event. It is also possible to make an event either explicitly accessible for a single group of users or it can be made publicly accessible.

The fourth section of the couchsurfing.org’s website consist of a discussion forum. This forum is mainly distributed into groups of conversation on certain topics. Examples of these groups are geographic and interest based groups. It can possibly be argued that an active participation similar to active hosting of the members of couchsurfing.org can help improve the trustability of a user. In the discussion section of couchsurfing.org it is also possible to search a group by using a language and location filter. A screenshot of this section can be seen in the appendix 10.

2.4. Sharing, Exchange and the Economy of Giving

Sharing is reported to be an important part of online communities in general (Sharratt & Usoro, 2003). In the research of Golle, Leyton-Brown, Minov and Lillibridge it is argued that the incentives are significantly important for sustainability of sharing in online networks. (Golle, Leyton-Brown, Mionov, & Lillibridge, 2001). These incentives are largely reported to be monetary based. Similarly, trade and exchange of goods or services is also often quoted to be unthinkable without any money based grounds in the real world (Glyn, 2005).

In contrast to these arguments for a need of a monetary system, a large number of examples can be found where trade between two members takes place without any monetary system. Such a trade can be supported with the help of the Economy of Giving model defined by Weijland (Weijland, 2014). This model suggests that under certain conditions moneyless trade or giving can be sustained.

According to the model of Economy of Giving, a user in a free market will supply goods to other users if he expects settlement of this giving with future transactions. In other words a supplier of a good keeps track of the goods he has given to a receiver. This record keeping of givings can be called account balance. If the account balance of a receiver is not settled for a long

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period of time, it is possible that a supplier has less willingness to supply to the similar user in the future.

However, when supply gets settled by the recipient, this settlement can have a positive impact on the willingness to supply further. Such transactions will continue to take place according to the model of Economy of Giving. Moreover, with the passage of time and as a result of multiple transactions, it is possible that both users converge to a point where they continue trading regardless their account balances.

The above mentioned properties of the model can be explained with the help of Figure 1. In this figure, yield of two users is shown with the help of different curves. It can be seen that as a result of the first transaction, the account balance of P increases and account balance of Q decreases. This transaction is settled by Q where the account balance of both users change. Multiple transactions can lead to a convergence point where the yield curve of P intersects the yield

curve of Q. This can be seen as a convergence point of both users.

For our research, it can be assumed if the members of a community function according to the model of the Economy of Giving, these members will be expecting something in return for their favor. In the case of couchsurfing.org, hosts of this community can be expecting to be either hosted in the future by their guest or they can be hosting their guest for pleasure.

Moreover, users of such communities can be expected to strive for settlement of their favor to other users. In a case if their giving is not settled, these users will have less incentive to give any further. Similarly, hosts of couchsurfing.org will have less incentive to host the same guest if they do not expect to get any favor in the form of pleasant time or hosting in return.

2.5. Common Measures for Online Communities

Internet is often reported to be a medium where measurability is relatively easy to achieve compared to other communication mediums (Williamson, 2001). This easy measurability is caused by a large number of tools which help to measure different aspects of the online traffic and communication. For example, a sudden and significant rise in the number of visitors on a webpage can be an indicator of increase in the popularity of that page due to a certain trend.

Figure 1: Trade and Account Balance Source: Mathematical Foundations for the Economy

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In a research about assessment of the value in online communities, Cothrel identified a number of most commonly used measures of a website performance (Cothrel, 2008). These measures are unique visitors, page views, session time, community click-through, the number of registered members, the number of postings in a certain period of time, read to post ratio, page additions, page revisions, peak number of currently active users on a certain page, the total number of users active on the webpage, audience penetration, repeat visits and frequent visitors. A list of these measures can be found in the appendix 11. Similarly, these measures are also a part of the studies by Preece about success of online communities (Preece, 2000) (2001).We can expect that a number of these measures are also valid and usable for the measurement of success hospitality exchange and sharing community. However, it is important to note that some of the measurements will be different because of the specific nature of these communities. For example for the case of couchsurfing.org, measurement of activity of users will be based on how often users host each other and how often users surf using this website.

3. Research Method

For ease of accomplishment, research in this paper is divided into three main parts. In the first part, the concept of success for an online community is defined with the help of past studies. Furthermore, it is determined how this success can be possibly measured for such communities. As already discussed, there are a number of tools available which can be used to measure different aspects of an online community.

In the second part of the research, online hospitality exchange and sharing website couchsurfing.org is used as a case study. I have made use of the measurements of success which are defined in the previous step. These measurements are modified to be used for online hospitality exchange and sharing communities and applied to the case of couchsurfing.org. In this way, the applicability of the previously defined measurements is made clear. Finally, in the third part of this research, with the usage of the case study about couchsurfing.org and literature, the factors of success for an online hospitality exchange and sharing community are found. The model of this research can be seen in the figure 2.

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3.1. Defining and Measuring the Success

As mentioned earlier, in the first part of this research, the success for the online communities in general is defined. To accomplish this, previous research on this topic is used. Work of DeLone and McLean (D&M model) is used for understanding the success of an information system (DeLone & McLean, 1992) (2002) (2003). D&M model is widely accepted and used for the definition of success for Information Systems. Moreover, this model provides useful grounds to define success for other systems related to the Information Technology. From the model of D&M, definition of the success elements of online communities is derived. For this purpose, literature study by Lin is used (Lin, 2008).

After the success is defined, the measurements of this success of the online communities are determined. Preece has done an extensive amount of research on the success measurement of online communities. This is why the measurements defined in this paper are largely based on the research of Preece on determining and measuring success of online communities (Preece, 2001). In addition to that research of Sedera about the measurement model of enterprise systems success is used (Sedera, 2006). Furthermore, after finding these measurements, they are applied to the case of couchsurfing.org.

3.2. Case Study: measuring success of couchsurfing.org

In a scientific research, one of the purposes of a case study is to find the underlying principles by exploring causation (Shepard & Green, 2003) (Yin, 2009). Similarly, these underlying principles can be used to build theories on the base of the case study (Eisenhardt, 1989). In this paper, the measurements defined earlier with the help of the literature are used to specify measurements for the success usable for the case of couchsurfing.org. Moreover, it can be argued that if these measurements are valid for couchsurfing.org, they are also useable for other online hospitality exchange and sharing communities.

Finally after defining the measurements for online hospitality exchange and sharing community and applying them to the case of couchsurfing.org, similar case study is used to understand the factors of success. This has ultimately helped us to answer the main research question.

3.3. Factors of Success for Online Hospitality Community

In the last stage of this research, the factors of success of online communities are defined. Past studies are used as a starting point for this step. In particular, research of Krcmar, Leimeister and Sidiras about success factors of virtual communities is used (Leimeister, Sidiras, & Krcmar, 2004) (2006). In addition to their research, the research of Lin about system characteristics and social factors as success determinants of virtual communities is used (Lin, 2008).

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After determining the possible success factors for virtual communities in general, the factors for online hospitality exchange and sharing communities are identified. As mentioned earlier the case study of couchsurfing.org is used for this purpose.

4. Research Findings

4.1. IS success model and online communities

Information System or shortly IS success model refers to a model which defines the success of an information system within, or for, an organization. In the work of DeLone and McLean it is argued to be significantly important for the definition of success of information systems (Bernroider, 2008). This model is also reported to be largely adopted for the assessment of success for certain Information Systems in real life. The first version of this model was published in 1992, and it contained six components

of success of Information Systems. These components were: - System Quality, - Information Quality, - Use, - User Satisfaction, - Individual Impact, - Organizational Impact.

A diagram of the first version of this model by DeLone and Mclean (D&M

-model) can be found in appendix 12. Later on, in 2003 an updated version of the D&M model was published, which contained an additional factor, ‘Service Quality’, as can be seen in figure 3. According to the D&M model of success of IS, System Quality, Information Quality and Service Quality are related to two other components of success of IS, namely the intention of users to make use of the information system and user satisfaction. Specifically in the updated version of the D&M model the nature of this causal relationship can be either positive or negative. This nature can be described with the help of an example where a high quality of an information system can increase user satisfaction and the intention to use that system. Similarly, a poor information quality can lead to a decrease in the user satisfaction and a decrease in the intention to use that information system.

Figure 3: Updated D&M model for IS success Source: (DeLone & McLean, 2003)

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The D&M model can be transformed to a model of success for online communities by shifting the focus of this model from IS to online communities. This can be done by moving the focus from ‘IS use’ to ‘belonging to a community’ and by changing the need of ‘Net Benefits for an organization’ to ‘loyalty to the community’ as suggested in the literature of Lin (Lin, 2008). Additionally, in contrast to IS success which is mainly based on IS use, virtual communities are reported to be characterized by the addictive, voluntary behavior and anonymity. Ultimately, the sense of belonging can be seen as the element of significance importance for a virtual community as it leads to a higher level of member loyalty.

Similar to a member’s sense of belonging, the satisfaction level of a member is positively related to the level of loyalty of the member. Moreover, this satisfaction level can also influence the sense of belonging. This relationship of different elements of an online community were proved by the research of Lin. However, in the results, ‘social usefulness’ of an online community did not seem to have a strong relationship with the ‘sense of belonging’. A demonstration of this researched relationship can be seen in the figure 4.

Figure 4: Virtual communities success model by Lin, Source: (Lin, 2008)

The definition of the success of an online community can be derived with the help of this research model of Lin. It can be implied that “the success of an online community can be a result of the higher level of the loyalty of its members to the community and this loyalty can be due to the fact that members of the online community have a sense of belonging to this community and they are satisfied with the use of this community”. The above statement represents the answer of the first sub question of this research about definition of the success of online communities.

4.2. Measurement of Success of an Online Community

The work of Preece is reported to be of significant importance for the study of online communities for their success (Iriberri & Leroy, 2009). In her research Preece defines, sociability and usability of an online community among the most important factors for the success of an

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online community. She divides these elements further into sub elements for the purpose of the measurement of success (Preece, 2001). According to Preece, Sociability and Usability are in fact closely related to each other.

Figure 5: Measurements of success for online community

Sources of data: (Preece, 2000) (Preece, Sociability and usability in online communities: determining and measuring success, 2001) (Maloney-Krichmar & Preece, 2005)

As it can be seen in figure 5, the framework for sociability can be divided into three sub elements. The first sub element is purpose, which refers to a community’s shared focus on an interest, need, service, information or support. Purpose mainly refers to the reason why the community members belong to a community. The second sub element of sociability is people. People actually form a community and interact with each other. They generally have social, individual and organization needs to join the community. People may take different roles in a community such as leaders, moderators etc. Finally, policies refer to the protocols which guide the interaction and contribution of the people in the community. Policies can be necessary for a community in a formal way to regulate and moderate the behavior of their users. In other words, policies can provide governance to a community.

Similar to the sociability, the framework of usability is divided into four sub elements. The first sub element of the usability of an online community is ‘Dialogue and social interaction support’. This sub element refers to the system which supports interaction between users and the ease of use of such systems. Moreover, signs of expressions, such as avatars support of the system etc. is also part of this sub element. The second sub element of the usability is ‘Information design’. This sub element refers to the ease of readability and understandability of the information associated with the community. Similarly, please-ability of the information also falls under this sub element. The third sub element of the usability is ‘Navigation’. Navigation simply refers to the ease with which users can navigate around on the website of an online

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community. Finally, the fourth element of usability is ‘Access’. Access is the ability of users to open and run the content of the website of an online community in a fast and easy manner.

The above mentioned elements of success can be measured with a number of matrices. In table 1, a list of these success measurements can be found which are defined with the help of the literature by Preece.

Table 1: Success measurements of an online community

Sources: (Preece, Online communities : designing usability, supporting sociability, 2000) (Preece, Sociability and usability in online communities: determining and measuring success, 2001)

(Maloney-Krichmar & Preece, 2005)

Element Sub element Measurement

Number of messages per member Number of messages per active member

Number of messages per member over a certain period of time Crossing over between threads*

Questions asked to the responses ratio of users** Rating system for the author's contribution*** Number of total participants of the community Number of different types of members Policies to control abusive behavior

Classification and counting incidents of uncivil behavior

Trustworthiness (security of payment and personal details, security of people's actions using reputation system) Registration policy for trustworthiness (requirements of identification)

Speed of learning (how fast users can learn to use dialogue and social interaction system?) Productivity (how long does it take to send or read a message or perform a particular action?)

User satisfaction about the dialogue and social interaction system (a questionnaire can be used for assessment) Retention (how much is remembered by a user after use of the dialogue and social interaction system?) Errors (how many errors do users make during usage of the dialogue and interaction system)

Speed of learning (how understandable is the information about the community?)

Productivity (how long does it take to find, read and understand information about the community?)

User satisfaction about the available information about the community (a questionnaire can be used for assessment) Retention (how much of the information about the community is remembered by the user after reading it?) Errors (how many errors do users make during the search of information about the community?)

Speed of learning (how fast can users learn navigating through the website?) Productivity (how long does it take to reach a certain part of the community?)

User satisfaction (how satisfied are the users about the navigation on the website?) (questionnaire) Retention (how much of the navigation procedure is remembered after use?)

Errors (how many errors do users make during navigation through the website?)

Speed of learning (how long does it take to learn to download any piece of software or website?) Productivity (how long does it take to download any part or page of the website?)

User satisfaction (how satisfied are the users with the responsiveness of the website?) Errors (how many errors do users make when downloading any piece of software or website?)

Success Measurements of an Online Community

Sociability

Purpose

People

Policies

*** lack of rating for author's contribution can demotivate authors to write further Information

Design

Navigation

Access Usability

* a thread refers to a single conversation in a forum

** both asking a question as well as answering others' questions lead to increased sociability Dialogue

and social interaction support

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4.3. Measuring success of couchsurfing.org

The success of couchsurfing.org is measured using the earlier defined measurements of success of the online communities based on the literature of Preece. In figure 5 a relationship of different elements of an online community can be noticed. These elements can be defined for couchsurfing.org with the help of literature and available data on the website of couchsurfing.org.

4.3.1. Element of Sociability for couchsurfing.org

For the measurement of ‘Sociability’ of couchsurfing.org, data provided on the statistics page of the website was used (couchsurfing, 2014). Additionally, the measurements suggested by Preece were adapted for their usability with an online hospitality exchange and sharing community.

The first sub element for sociability of an online community suggested by Preece is the ‘purpose’ of use of an online community. The main purpose of usage of couchsurfing.org is hospitality exchange and sharing. Data about the activities of users regarding this purpose was collected from statistics page of the website. These activities were related to the readiness of members to host, the availability of members for meet up and activities, currently traveling members, friendship links between the members of the community and time and spatial based activities of the members. It can be noticed in table 2 that a significantly large proportion of the total members of the website were reported to be highly involved in hospitality and other social activities.

Table 2: Sociability Measurements (source: couchsurfing.org) * an approximated representation of actual numbers

Total number of users 7,000,000*

Location of members (cities) 100,000*

Number of cities which organize weekly events through the website 300*

Gender Diversity (male:female) 53:47

Languages of the members of the website 366

Number of events organized on the website 170,000*

Members ready to host 46%

Members available for meet up and activities 69%

Members currently traveling 21%

Friendship links created on the website 19,100,000*

Number of accumulated total nights surfed by the members 5,600,000* Number of days members of the website traveled together 3,400,000* Numbers of references written by members about each other 11,500,000*

Number of interests on the website 40,000*

Policies to control abusive behavior P

Trustworthy website about handling user information P

Registration policy for trustworthiness (requirements of identification) P

Sociability Element Measurements for couchsurfing.org

People

Purpose

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Moreover, connecting through an interest is another major purpose of the community of couchsurfing.org. Couchsurfing.org is reported to represent more than 40,000 shared interests among its users, in addition to hospitality. Ride sharing, language exchange, photography and cooking are among the examples of interests which are reported to connect the users of this website. A large number of shared interests proves that couchsurfing.org is a community which fulfills the ‘purpose’ condition of success.

In addition to purpose, people of a community are another important success measurement of an online community. As mentioned in table 2, couchsurfing.org is reported to have approximately 7 million active users from approximately 100,000 cities in the world. Due to this fact, couchsurfing.org is named to be the leading social travel site since 2004 (Couchsurfing, 2014). In addition to the large number and geographic diversification of users, couchsurfing.org consists of users who are demographically diversified. This means that the people element of success is clearly met by the community of couchsurfing.org.

Finally, ‘Policy’ is the third sub element of sociability as explained earlier. couchsurfing.org has an extensive set of policies for its users to overcome abusive behavior in the community. Additionally, it is also possible for other community members to report abusive behavior if found on any certain public generated page on the site. Users of the site can simply make use of the ‘Report Abuse’ button to report abusive behavior of a post, a member or a group. A screenshot of the report abuse function can be found in appendix 13a, 13b and 13c. Moreover, it is possible for the users of couchsurfing.org to get verified to prove their authenticity and improve the trust-ability of other users in them. Couchsurfing.org reports to have more than one million verified users.

With the help of a clear purpose of its users, a large and diversified network of users and functional policies, couchsurfing.org can be concluded to fulfill the ‘sociability’ element of success.

4.3.2. Element of Usability for couchsurfing.org

The four sub elements of ‘Usability’ suggested by the literature of Preece as described earlier are, Dialogue and Social Interaction Support, Information Design, Navigation and Access. The working of the website was assessed for the measurement of the usability of couchsurfing.org. ‘User satisfaction’ and ‘Retention’ of the website were not measured as they required further experimentation and investigation with the help of a questionnaire filled by the users of the website.

During the experimental use of the website of couchsurfing.org for this research, all of the elements of usability were noticed to be existing on the website. First of all, dialogue and the social interaction system was easy to learn and intuitive. Similarly, messages were easy to send

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and read and these systems were used without any errors. Moreover, video instructions provided on the website increase the speed of learnability of the users even more compared to the text instructions of the website. The above mentioned parts of couchsurfing.org can be seen in appendix 14a.

Similar to Dialogue and Social Interaction Support, Information Design’s measurements were positively analyzed during the usage. Information about the community was easy to find on the header and footer of every page of the community. Similarly, the readability of this information was easy and the information was presented in an intuitive way with the help of frequently asked questions. Moreover, information on a specific topic could be searched with the help of a search bar in the search section and information on most topics was found without any problems. These parts of the website are demonstrated in the appendix 14b.

In addition to Information Design, the Navigation of couchsurfing.org was easy to learn. The main sections of the website were easily accessible on the homepage. Similarly, almost every important part of the website was easy to reach and most of the navigation was made without any problems or errors. See appendix 14c.

On the website of couchsurfing.org as a hospitality exchange and sharing website, there are not many pieces of software which can be downloaded. However, couchsurfing.org has an application for mobile devices which is easy to access from the download bases of all major mobile devices, as it can be seen in appendix 15. Similarly, downloading of the webpages was easy to learn and it was possible with the standard functionality of a web browser. Similarly, the speed of downloading the webpages was relatively good at the moment of our test (appendix 16). Most of the downloading during the experimental use was done without any errors.

In table 3 the details of the usability measures for couchsurfing.org can be seen.

Table 3: Usability Measurements (source: couchsurfing.org)

Speed of learning (Easy to learn to use the dialogue and social interaction system) P Productivity (Easy to send or read a message or perform a particular action) P Errors (Error free use of the dialogue and interaction system) P Speed of learning (Easy to understand information about the community) P Productivity (Easy to find, read and understand information about the community) P Errors (Error free search of information about the community) P Speed of learning (Easy to learn navigation through the website) P Productivity (Easy to reach any certain part of the community) P

Errors (Error free navigation through the website) P

Speed of learning (Easy to learn to download any page or part of the website) P Productivity (Fast to download any page or part of the website) P Errors (Error free downloading of any page or part of the website) P Dialogue and social

interaction support

Information Design

Navigation

Access

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4.4. Success Factors for Online Hospitality

As mentioned earlier in the research method, for the study of the success factors for online communities in general, I have made use of research by Leimeister, Sidiras and Krcmar. In their literature they have identified 32 factors of success for the online communities (Leimeister, Sidiras, & Krcmar, 2004) (2006). These factors can be seen in the appendix 17.

Furthermore, for my research, these success factors for online communities were used to explicitly study their validity for the online hospitality exchange and sharing community. First, the case of couchsurfing.org was used to assess the existence of these success factors as a function of this site. It was noticed that a large number of these factors were observable as a part of couchsurfing.org. However, the nature and / or the way of usage of these factors was largely different. This was caused by the fact that the functionality of the site significantly differs from general online community websites. In general online community websites, the aim of users’ communication and social interaction is mainly to provide or gain information by answering questions of others and asking questions. On the other hand, in the online hospitality community, users come to offer their service as a host or search for a host for themselves. Moreover, organization of events and their attendance in an offline setting was noticed to be another important purpose of the usage of an online hospitality network.

The way of financing the community is another core difference found between couchsurfing.org and general online communities. A large proportion of online communities function as non-profit websites. The most common source of funding of such communities is either with the help of donations of its members or through advertisements on the website itself (Zeng, Huang, & Dou, 2010) (Delaforce, 2014). A combination of both these forms of funding is also noticed to be used on some of the online communities. Moreover, corporate online communities which are generally started for the purpose of branding are mostly supported for their expenses by the firms themselves. Compared to these forms of financing online communities, couchsurfing.org was started in 2003 as a non-profit organization, however, it was liquidated in 2011 and turned its focus towards profit generation (Lapowsky, 2012). This liquidation of couchsurfing.org provided sufficient money for the function and development of the site.

During the search of success factors of online hospitality exchange and sharing community, only two of the factors were not clearly found as a part of this website. Firstly, the Integration of the members into the administration of the community (factor number 15) was not clearly noticeable. This can also be caused by the fact that the size of this community is significantly large and this community has grown relatively quickly (Geron, 2010). Besides that it can be hard to monitor and control the quality of a large community if administration rights are given to its members (Davis, 2011). Secondly, fast reaction time of the website (factor number 16) was not strong for couchsurfing.org, as it was analyzed that the average loading time of the home page

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was 2.35 seconds (Alexa, 2014). The speed is reported to be one of the major determinants of success of a website (Gehrke & Turban, 1999). During our own measurements of usability, the speed of the website was improved significantly, results can be seen in appendix 16.

It is also found that a number of factors which can be important for the success of an online community in general are also found to be valid for an online hospitality website in the same way. These factors are related to the performance and the use of the website (factor 12,16,17), the measurement of visitors (24,25,26,27), special treatment of loyal members of the community (21), and transparency and neutrality of the contents for members (31, 32). Finally, four of the factors (24,25,26,27) were not possible to determine as data for these factors was not available. Although, these factors can be highly important for the operator of the website to measure success as mentioned earlier in the measurement of success part of the results. These results can be seen in the table 4 below.

ID-#

Success Factors for general online communities [Source: Leimeister, Sidiras and Krcmar, (2004, 2006)]

Success Factors for hospitality communities; Determined using the case study of

couchsurfing.org

1Reaching a high number of members within a short period of time

Reaching a high number of members from diverse locations within a short period of time

2 Building trust among the members Increasing trust among the members using added registration information

3Evolution of the community according to the ideas of its members

Evolution of the community according to the ideas of its members (with the help of meetings of members in an offline setting)

4 Offering up-to-date content Offering an up-to-date system for efficient connection and communication

5 Offering high-quality content Offering an improved system for surfing and hosting by innovative functionality

6Appreciation of contributions of members by the operator

Appreciation for contributions of hosts for providing hospitality

7Assistance for new members by experienced members

Assistance for new members by experienced members (for providing hospitality or searching a host or using other parts of the website)

8Establishing codes of behavior

(netiquette/guidelines) to contain conflict potential

Establishing codes of behavior

(netiquette/guidelines) to contain conflict potential 9Supporting the community by regular real-world

meetings

Supporting the organization of regular real-world meetings by community members

10 Handling member data sensitively Handling member data sensitively

11 Arranging regular events Arranging and letting community members arrange regular events

12 Intuitive user guidance Intuitive user guidance

Success Factors of Online Hospitality Sharing and Exchange

Communities

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Table 4: Success factors for online communities in general and online hospitality exchange and sharing community Sources: (Leimeister, Sidiras, & Krcmar, Success factors of virtual communities from the perspective of members and operators: An empirical study, 2004), (Leimeister, Sidiras, & Krcmar, Exploring Success Factors of Virtual Communities: The Perspectives of Members and Operators, 2006), (Couchsurfing, 2014)

13Personalized page design of the community-site according to the preferences of its members

Personalized pages for the community members on the bases of friends/links in their network and their interests

14Establishing and supporting sub-groups within the community

Establishing and supporting sub-groups within the community. Providing users a function to create these sub-groups themselves.

15Integration of the members into the administration of the community

16 Fast reaction time of the website Fast reaction time of the website 17 Stability of the website Stability of the website

18 Price efficiency of offered products and services Quality of the offered hosting by members on the website

19 Encouraging interaction between members Encouraging interaction between members with the help of recommendations

20 Offering privileges or bonus programs to members Offering privileges or ranks to active members of the community

21 Special treatment of loyal members Special treatment of loyal members 22 Personalized product and service offers for members Personalized hosting options or guests

recommendations for members 23 Focusing on one target group

24Continuous community-controlling with regard to the frequency of visits

Continuous community-controlling with regard to the frequency of visits

25Continuous community-controlling with regard to member growth

Continuous community-controlling with regard to member growth

26Continuous community-controlling with regard to member satisfaction

Continuous community-controlling with regard to member satisfaction

27Defining sources of revenue as a starting condition for building a virtual community

Defining sources of revenue as a starting condition for building a virtual community

28 Constant extension of offerings Constant extension of functions of the website 29 Building a strong trademark

Building a strong trademark using word of mouth in online and offline traveling and tourism

communities 30Existence of an off-line customer club as a starting

advantage

Existence of an off-line customer club as a starting advantage

31Increase of market transparency for community members

Increase of market transparency for community members

32Sustaining neutrality when presenting and selecting offers to community members

Sustaining neutrality when presenting and selecting hosting options or guests to community members

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4.5. Practices to Learn from Online Hospitality Communities

During this research a number of factors were found in online hospitality communities, specifically in couchsurfing.org, which were not a part of the success factors list for online communities in general. These factors were largely related to increase the trust of community members in each other. It can be argued that implementation of these factors in general online communities could yield positive results for these communities as well. Following are the factors which are usually not used in general online communities.

4.5.1. Members Verification

Trust of the authenticity of the content of an online community is often suggested to be an important factor of success for an online community (Booth, 2012). Several different ways can be found in practice which are used to increase the trust between the members of a community in order to expand the number of social connections and the level of activity of the community (Ma & Agarwal, 2007). However, the most commonly used methods to identify users’ authenticity are reported to be inefficient to fulfil their purpose (Ballard & Monrose, 2006).

For an online hospitality exchange and sharing community, the authenticity of a user’s location is an element of a greater importance. Authenticity of this location can be seen as an indicator of accuracy of other information in general which a user has provided online. Couchsurfing.org is noticed to provide its user an opportunity to get their location verified by paying a fee of $25. This verification fee is reported to be the main part of the revenue stream of couchsurfing.org (Perlroth, 2011).

In case if a user chooses to be verified for his location, couchsurfing.org sends a postcard with a verification code to the address which is provided by the user at his location. By using the provided code on the postcard a user can verify his location. As soon as this is done, a verified user indication appears in the profile of the user. This verification process is reported to improve the trust of other members of the community and enhances social relationships (Lipp, Rieger, & Munch, 2011).

It can be implied that this location verification procedure can be used by other online communities and social media websites in a similar way as couchsurfing.org. In this way, the trustability element of these websites can be improved. Integration of this factor to increase trust in these communities can lead to a higher level of ‘sense of belonging’ of other users to the community (Hampton & Wellman, 2001).

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4.5.2. Vouching for other members

In addition to verification of users with the help of a verification code post card, couchsurfing.org also provides a functionality to its users to vouch other members of the community as trustworthy. This means, if a user is vouched by multiple members of a community, he will be more trustable. However, to be able to vouch other members of the community it is required for each user to be vouched at least three times. It is important to notice that couchsurfing.org suggest its users to vouch other users only in case if you have met that person in real life and believe that they are trustworthy. The procedure of vouching and its details can be seen in the appendix 18.

This vouching system can play a great role in improving trust between authentic members of the community. The vouching system of couchsurfing.org was started with its own staff who vouched for the people who they were familiar with. In this way the network of this vouching grew further. However, in the beginning it was reported that a very small proportion (6.8%) of the users was vouched on couchsurfing.org (Lauterbach, Truong, Shah, & Adamic, 2009). This is why, it can be argued that a vouching system will be more beneficial for the communities of significantly large size. Additionally, as a vouching system requires its members to meet in an offline setting in order to vouch, geographic location of the members becomes a constraint for such a system to work.

It can be argued that a vouching system can improve trust between members for general online communities and other social websites. Specifically, communities which are geographically near to each other and members of the communities interact in offline settings, can benefit more from the vouching system.

5. Discussion

In this paper, I have first presented a definition of success for online communities. The definition of success of a system in a form of statement can be argued to be a subjective view of the success of a system. However, in this research, the largely accepted model of success for Information Systems (D&M model) is used to define the success for such systems with the help of different interconnected components. This has helped to define the success in a broader term. Furthermore, a specified form of this model for online communities obtained from the literature by Lin (Lin, 2008) and this was used to define the success of online communities. This success was defined as a result of members loyalty which is argued to be a cause of satisfaction of members with the system of an online community and a sense of belonging of the member with the community. The second objective of this research was to find the measurements of success for online communities. For this purpose, literature by Preece and elements and sub elements for the

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measurement of success were defined. From the similar literature, specific measurements were extracted. However, it is important to note that most of these measurements were exclusively valid for online communities in general.

Thirdly, the case study of couchsurfing.org was used to specify measures of success for online hospitality exchange and sharing community and measure the success of couchsurfing.org itself. It was noticed that the sociability measures of couchsurfing.org were largely different compared to online communities in general. Specifically, measurements of the sociability element were mainly based on the hospitality activities of the members on the website. Moreover, it was found that sociability and usability elements were clearly present on the website of couchsurfing.org. The final object of the research was to define the factors of success for an online community and then to define these factors of success specifically for an online hospitality exchange and sharing community. To accomplish this, first the existence of factors of success was studied for the case of couchsurfing.org. It was noticed that a number of these factors were not valid for such a community. Additionally, a large number of factors for couchsurfing.org were different compared to the online communities in general. This is why form of these factors was altered using the case of couchsurfing.org. In this way these factors were made usable for online hospitality exchange and sharing communities.

I also found out that some of the functionalities such as ‘member verification’ and ‘vouching for other members’ were part of couchsurfing.org. However, these functionalities were not common in online communities in general. These functionalities were mainly aimed to improve trust of the members of the community. The success of couchsurfing.org could also be determined by these two factors in combination with others. This is why, it could be implied that online communities in general could also make use of these factors to improve the trust between members of the community.

6. Conclusion and Future work

Online communities can be seen as a significantly large part of the internet and a large proportion of the time spent on the internet is spent using these communities. The component of exchange and sharing can be seen as the motivation of the usage of these communities. Furthermore, this component can be characterized in the terms of the model of Economy of Giving, which suggest that givings are largely driven by the expectance of receiving a favor in return.

In contradiction to a high level of usage of online communities, these communities have a significantly low rate of success. This is why studies on success of online communities are of increased importance. In this paper we have defined the success for online communities, by

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which such communities can assess their success. However, it can be argued that the success for such communities cannot be called an achievable state but a continues process to sustain this success. Thus, the level of sustainability of this success can be measured with the help of measurements defined in the second part of the paper. These measurements can be modified to be specifically used for certain types of online communities. This modification of measurements is demonstrated with the help of the case of couchsurfing.org.

Finally, for an online community to sustain its success, it is important to know the factors which play a role for a community to be successful. These factors will provide a direction to the operators of these online communities to work in. Similar to the measurements of success, these factors can also vary on the bases of the nature of a community. In this paper, these factors are specifically studied for couchsurfing.org and generalized for the online hospitality exchange and sharing communities. It is also important to know that the some factors from a specific kind of community can be applied to communities in general to yield better results.

This paper is limited to the research of online communities in general and online hospitality exchange and sharing communities specifically. However, there is a large number of types of communities functional on the internet. Thus, it is possible to extend this research to study the success factors of other kinds of such communities. Moreover, the factors of success defined in this paper can be researched quantitatively with the help of a survey filled by users and operators of the online communities. This will lead to an increased understanding of these factors. Finally, the ranking of these factors with the help of a quantitative research can provide operators of online communities a better insight of these factors.

Key Factors of Success of the Online Hospitality Exchange and Sharing Communities