Characterizing Web usersʹ degree of Web 2.0-ness

Though practitioners have seen discussions and debates surrounding the “Web 2.0” concept for the last few years, we know little of Web usersʹ heterogeneity in the usage of Web 2.0 applications, let alone the factors associated with such heterogeneity. In this article, we propose a Web userʹs degree of Web 2.0-ness to be measured by the weighted average of the degrees of Web 2.0-ness of the Web sites that he or she has visited. A Web siteʹs degree of Web 2.0-ness in turn is evaluated through a series of binary criteria as to whether the site accommodates popular Web 2.0 applications. Utilizing clickstream data from an online panel coupled with expert scoring for the empirical analysis, we find that a Web userʹs degree of Web 2.0-ness is positively associated with his or her behavioral volume (measured by the number of page views), behavioral speed (measured by the duration of each page view), and behavioral concentration (measured by the Gini coefficient of page views the user made across Web sites). Furthermore, Web users who are younger and male are found to have a higher degree of Web 2.0-ness.