"Living encyclopedia" or idle talk? Seeking and providing consumer information in an Internet newsgroup

The article investigates the character of the Internet newsgroups as fora o f information seeking, and reviews the potentials of "weak and strong ties" proposed by Granovetter and the prospects of newsgroups as a "living encyc lopedia" suggested by Rheingold. An empirical study in the field of consume r issues was conducted by focusing on a Finnish newsgroup sfnet.kuluttajat. The research questions deal with the nature of information needs and the w ays in which the participants provided help regarding requests addressed to the group. About 9% of the 894 messages contained questions indicating exp licit information needs. Attention was also paid to the sources and channel s used by participants providing help to information seekers. About 24% of messages contained answers to questions. Help providers preferred their own experience as an information source. Both successful and unsuccessful atte mpts at information seeking were explored. Surprisingly, there was practica lly no dialogue between information seekers and providers, even though news groups provide opportunities for interaction. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc . All rights reserved.