We study peer effects on individuals' contributions to a major form of word of mouth—online reviews. Provided by either consumers or third-party professionals, online reviews influence consumer purchasing decisions and hence sales. Individuals have conflicting incentives of free riding and...

An increasingly popular trend in online businesses is the adoption of the freemium model, in which premium features are provided along with free features. By providing free features to a large fraction of users and by managing the social interactions between users and their friends, online...

Demonstrating compelling causal evidence of the existence and strength of peer to peer influence has become the holy grail of modern research in online social networks. In these networks, it has been consistently demonstrated that user characteristics and behavior tend to cluster both in space...

In hopes of motivating consumers to provide larger volumes of useful reviews, many retailers offer financial incentives. Here, we explore an alternative approach, social norms, wherein we inform people about the volume of reviews authored by peers. We test the effectiveness of using financial...