From Third Place to Third Space: How Social Networking Sites Shape the Perception of our Social Spaces: An Abstract

The proliferation of information and communication technologies, including communication applications such as social networking sites, email, instant messaging, and mobile telephone, has led to an age of “perpetual contact.” The initial concern that such technologies would lead to diminishing face-to-face time has been argued against with much research showing how they can develop, maintain, and strengthen social interaction, and demonstrating how social conceptions of people’s online and offline identities and behavior are changing. Particularly social networking sites that make extensive use of the co-presence of their members in real and virtual spaces are growing faster than others. Despite their popularity, the merger of the digital and real-world perception of public urban spaces remains largely unexplored in the literature. Under the umbrella of location-based services, these sites offer people a connection between the real and the virtual world. Despite their popularity, little research exists on how these sites impact the digital and real-world perception of public urban spaces. Using the social networking site Yelp as a research context, our case study investigates the mediating role that social networking sites play in the digital and real-world perception of public urban spaces. Our article discusses the underlying social and behavioral norms and the implications that the emerging third spaces play for the convergence of online and digital worlds. One of the implications of this research for managers is in learning from the business model that Yelp has created whereby users generate content for free, and Yelp successfully created an atmosphere, or as some yelpers call it, a “lifestyle”-like realm by engaging people that is especially effective in long-term loyalty. Among other contributions, this work provides marketing implications for managers with respect to designing platforms that support effective utilization of user-generated content, for example, through incorporating gamification mechanisms, status levels, and others.