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Media Release

November 21 2006

News online, but not the extras

People use online news websites to access the best quality news content, not to interact with add-on or supplementary services, a University of South Australia study has found.

The findings, by PhD researcher Yenhao Chen from the International Graduate School of Business (IGSB), are in sharp contrast with what experts in the online information services industry believe that viewers want from online news services.

Industry experts say that to make online news websites attractive and to promote adoption of their sites, they must include supplementary facilities such as search engines and onsite blogs. For the past few years they have paid much attention to these supplementary services rather than focusing on the quality of their core service, online news.

Chen, who works as a news correspondent for the major news organisation in Taiwan, Chinese Television System (CTS), which is also in the top 10 worldwide for news provision, conducted a large scale research project to gain a better understanding of what people look for in an online news website and why they adopt or reject online news services.

Potential Web sales worth £8 billion were lost in the United Kingdom in one year due to insufficient understanding of customers’ online preferences. A study by the Gartner Group has observed that 75 per cent of all online business ventures fail every year for this same reason (one of the important rationales for doing the research).

In conducting the research, Chen developed a modified version of the well established Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is used to research reasons for the adoption of new software in companies.

Most standard models for researching the adoption of innovations including TAM largely assume that people are information processing machines in seeking to understand their intentions, but don’t take into account their emotional responses, according to Professor of Marketing Management in IGSB, David Corkindale, who is Chen’s supervisor. Also most academic studies to try to understand adoption of innovations only examine people’s intentions.

“But intention is not a very good measure to explain whether or not something is going to be taken up, adopted or used,” Prof Corkindale said. “We all intend to get properly fit, but few do.

“Chen has built some novel elements into TAM based on the Uses and Gratification theory. In the real-world experiment that we conducted, we also measured people’s behaviour, not just their intentions. The modified TAM has enabled Chen to determine to what degree enjoyment or other emotional responses play a part in people adopting a new online news service.”

The China Times Media Group supported Chen’s research by setting up a new online news service. The news website was promoted by Yam.com, which is owned and run by CTS (the biggest search engine and blogs service provider in Taiwan), with a banner advertisement that encouraged people to visit the news website to find out more about it.

“Using the support of this large news organisation, a total of 557 survey participants visited the site and completed the questionnaire in one month,” Chen said.

“In addition to a list of standard questions, participants were asked some questions that tapped their emotions and, initially, the likelihood of them revisiting the site.

“All of the people who visited the site for the first time and completed the questionnaire were later recontacted and asked the degree to which they had revisited it and if they had, how often, and when they visited it, how long they spent at it, to see how well their intention to revisit matched their actual number of visits, as predicted by the modified TAM,” Chen said.

“Our research shows that people who don’t find some enjoyment in using a news site are less likely to revisit or adopt that news service.

“And adding extra capabilities to a site doesn’t increase its attractiveness or effectiveness. The consumer to consumer interaction facilities are viewed as supplementary services, not core services.

“People go to the news website because they want the best quality news content, not to interact with supplementary services. They can do that elsewhere,” Chen said.

“The implications of this for managers of online information services are that they need to pay more attention to upgrading their core online news service instead of concentrating on supplementary services to promote their core business.”

“Another factor that has implications for managers of online information services is trust. “Many industry experts believe that because no monetary transaction is involved in visiting the website, trust is not an issue. While previous research has shown that people sometimes view free online services as less trustworthy, our results show that trust is a major factor in people’s use of an online news service,” Chen said.

Online information services (OIS) should not be categorised as a mass medium despite the size of the user population, according to Chen. “Our survey shows that users prefer to form a personal relationship with OIS and resist outside influences. Personalisation has been verified as a sensible direction of future development for online services and should be seriously implemented,” he said.

“Having a good understanding of the market through interactions with real customers helps managers of online services to get a clear picture of what people are looking for online. It enables managers to make informed changes that will go a long way towards the success of their online business, rather than adding to the growing number of online businesses that have failed.”

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