How Is the Mobile Internet Different? Search Costs and Local Activities.

Author List: Ghose, Anindya; Goldfarb, Avi; Han, Sang Pil;
Information Systems Research, 2013, Volume 24, Issue 3, Page 613-631.
We explore how Internet browsing behavior varies between mobile phones and personal computers. Smaller screen sizes on mobile phones increase the cost to the user of browsing for information. In addition, a wider range of offline locations for mobile Internet usage suggests that local activities are particularly important. Using data on user behavior at a (Twitter-like) microblogging service, we exploit exogenous variation in the ranking mechanism of posts to identify the ranking effects. We show that (1) ranking effects are higher on mobile phones suggesting higher search costs: links that appear at the top of the screen are especially likely to be clicked on mobile phones and (2) the benefit of browsing for geographically close matches is higher on mobile phones: stores located in close proximity to a user's home are much more likely to be clicked on mobile phones. Thus, the mobile Internet is somewhat less "Internet-like": search costs are higher and distance matters more. We speculate on how these changes may affect the future direction of Internet commerce.
Keywords: cognitive load; hierarchical Bayesian methods; local interests; microblogging; mobile Internet; ranking effects; recency effects; search costs; social media
Algorithm:

List of Topics

#160 0.341 mobile telecommunications devices wireless application computing physical voice phones purchases ubiquitous applications conceptualization secure pervasive differential usability increasing local location
#217 0.117 search information display engine results engines displays retrieval effectiveness relevant process ranking depth searching economics create functions incorporate low terms
#258 0.101 information proximity message seeking perceived distance communication overload context geographic dispersed higher geographically task contexts recipient face-to-face temporal safe dyadic
#285 0.101 effects effect research data studies empirical information literature different interaction analysis implications findings results important set large provide using paper
#151 0.100 costs cost switching reduce transaction increase benefits time economic production transactions savings reduction impact services reduced affect expected optimal associated
#284 0.070 users user new resistance likely benefits potential perspective status actual behavior recognition propose user's social associated existing base using acceptance
#228 0.066 internet peer used access web influence traditional fraud world ecology services impact cases wide home studies addition choice 2008 telephone