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Abstract:
Junk e-mail or spam is rapidly choking off e-mail as a reliable and efficient means of communication over the Internet. Although the demand for human attention increases rapidly with the volume of information and communication, the supply of attention hardly changes. Markets are a social institution for efficiently allocating supply and demand of scarce resources. Charging a price for sending messages may help discipline senders from demanding more attention than they are willing to pay for. Price may also credibly inform recipients about the value of a message to the sender before they read it. This article examines economic approaches to the problem of spam and the results of two laboratory experiments to explore the consequences of a pricing system for electronic mail. Charging postage for e-mail causes senders to be more selective and to send fewer messages. However, recipients did not interpret the postage paid by senders as a signal of the importance of the messages. These results suggest that markets for attention have the potential for addressing the problem of spam but their design needs further development and testing.

spam, Junk, pricing e-mail, market for attention

Abstract:
Junk email or spam is rapidly choking off email as a reliable and efficient means of communication over the Internet. While the demand for human attention increases rapidly with the volume of information and communication, the supply of attention hardly changes. Markets are a social institution for efficiently allocating supply and demand of scarce resources. Charging a price for sending messages may help discipline senders from demanding more attention than they are willing to pay for. Price may also inform recipients about the value of a message they read it. This paper presents an economic model and the results of two laboratory experiments to explore the consequences of a pricing system for electronic mail. Charging postage for email causes senders to be more selective and to send fewer messages. However, the recipients did not use the postage paid by senders as a signal of message importance. These results suggest that markets for attention have potential for addressing the problem of spam, but that their design needs more work.

Abstract:
Balancing the needs of information distributors and their audiences has grown harder in the age of the Internet. While the demand for attention continues to increase rapidly with the volume of information and communication, the supply of human attention is relatively fixed. Markets are a social institution for efficiently balancing supply and demand of scarce resources. Charging a price for sending messages may help discipline senders from demanding more attention than they are willing to pay for. Price may also help recipients estimate the value of a message before reading it. We report the results of two laboratory experiments to explore the consequences of a pricing system for electronic mail. Charging postage for email causes senders to be more selective and send fewer messages. However, recipients did not use the postage paid by senders as a signal of importance. These studies suggest markets for attention have potential, but their design needs more work.

Computer Mediated Communication, Electronic Mail, Empirical Studies, Economics, Markets, Social Impact, Spam

Abstract:
Balancing the needs of information distributors and their audiences has grown harder in the age of the Internet. While the demand for attention continues to increase rapidly with the volume of information and communication, the supply of human attention is relatively fixed. Markets are a social institution for efficiently balancing supply and demand of scarce resources. Charging a price for sending messages may help discipline senders from demanding more attention than they are willing to pay for. Price may also help recipients estimate the value of a message before reading it. We report the results of two laboratory experiments to explore the consequences of a pricing system for electronic mail. Charging postage for email causes senders to be more selective and send fewer messages. However, recipients did not use the postage paid by senders as a signal of importance. These studies suggest markets for attention have potential, but their design needs more work.

Computer Mediated Communication, Electronic Mail, Empirical Studies, Economics, Markets, Social Impact, Spam

Abstract:
Trust is important in all business relationships, and especially in global Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce due to the virtual and physical distances between buyers and suppliers. This study uses information signaling theory to examine two antecedents of trust in global B2B transactions: (1) buyers' perceptions of national integrity and legal structure of suppliers’ country, and (2) third-party verifications of suppliers. We surveyed buyers on a B2B exchange and found that buyers trust suppliers more if the suppliers' countries have higher national integrity, a better legal structure, and if the suppliers have been verified by a third party. Furthermore, as the number of transactions between buyers and suppliers increases, legal structure of the suppliers’ countries has lesser effects on buyers' trust but national integrity remains influential. Lastly, we found that buyers' trust in suppliers positively affects their supplier-selection decisions. This study emphasizes the importance of adopting a global perspective in e-commerce research, and provides insights on trust formation and development in B2B relationships.

trust, e-commerce, business-to-business, online exchanges, national integrity, legal structure, information signals

Abstract:
Work life is filled with interruptions, most of which benefit the interrupter more than the one being interrupted. This problem is greatest with remote collaboration, because team members interrupt blindly, without contextual cues about partners' availability. Awareness displays are designed to provide distributed workers with up-to-date status information about their group members. We describe a pair of laboratory experiments conducted to determine whether awareness displays containing information about a remote collaborator's workload aids in timing interruptive communication. Results indicate that such displays can be useful in coordinating communication, but only when the interrupter has motivation to use the display. Our results also indicate that the attentional demand of the awareness displays themselves need to be taken into consideration, because too much detail may distract the person viewing the display from their primary task. In this study, participants spent significantly more time looking at the most detailed-filled displays and these displays harmed their task performance. We conclude that a display with an abstract representation of a collaborator's workload is best; it leads to better timing of interruptions without overwhelming the person viewing the display.

Electronic communication, virtual work, interruption, awareness, computer mediated communication, computer supported cooperative work, instant messaging

Abstract:
An open data network is one that allows firms to exchange information with outsideentities, and a national data network is one that provides virtually universal access, interconnecting most businesses and private citizens in a country. Establishing a national data network is verycostly and must be justified by its economic, service, and societal impact. France with its Teletelsystem is close to having a national data network, whereas the United States is not. Using data from 619 businesses in France and the United States we examine several claims: 1) opennetworks have improve firms' productivity, efficiency, and quality of service; 2) national opennetworks allow relationships among firms to be based on an electronic marketplace; and 3)national open networks differentially benefit small and medium sized firms. The results show thatfirms using open networks are more efficient and profitable and have more stable relationships with their customers. The natural advantage that large firms have to exploit new technology has been moderated in France, since small and medium-sized firms who used the national network have gained the same advantages as large firms. However, even in France, the use of opennetworks by the general population of firms is still relatively low, thus arguing for a long diffusion constant for the beneficial effects of open networks.