Data Quality Goes Social: What Drives Data Currency In Online Social Networks?

Despite the increasing acceptance and usage of Online Social Networks (OSN), particularly the currency of user data has been identified as a crucial success factor for both, users as well as providers. However, while research on Data Quality (DQ) in traditional information systems is considered to be relatively mature, findings from prior research on currency have not yet been confirmed for the context of OSN. Moreover, neither theories taking into account the specific social characteristics of OSN nor real-world evaluations have been applied to learn more about potential factors influencing the currency of user data in OSN. By using publicly available data of the business network XING, we therefore empirically investigate factors influencing the currency of user data. Thus, the paper makes three contributions: First, we confirm factors influencing currency from prior research in the field of DQ for the context of OSN. Second, we find that social characteristics such as social pressure induced by the number of direct contacts and users’ activity have a significant impact on the currency of user data. Third, we show that taking into account these additional factors when estimating currency leads to significantly better results than relying solely on previously known factors.