Feedback Mechanisms as Intermediaries for Web Information Market: An Exploratory Study

The Internet is sometimes said to be drown in contents. Users of information therefore experience an even more difficulties in identifying the accuracy, relevancy, and interpretability of information. Total Data Quality Management and centralized information intermediary are either too expensive for the vast amount of Internet contents or forcing information consumers to face another problem of determining trustworthy intermediaries. We explore the possibility of using various feedback mechanisms to serve as intermediaries. Service quality of four types of feedback is compared in this study: click through count, open-ended, close-ended feedback, and no feedback. The potential benefits of feedback are twofold. For information consumers, it serves to provide quality proofs and helps become aware of the public’s preferences toward specific content sites. For information producers, feedback could provide peer support and recognitions. This exploratory study concludes that open-ended feedback and click through count make users with higher perceived service quality. For the information providers, feedback information awards them with peer support and a more satisfied attitude toward the system. These results, while not conclusive, suggest that it is possible to make feedback mechanisms play the role of infomediaries to manage the information market, a much more important role than for accounting purpose.