A comparison of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn: Examining motivations and network externalities for the use of social networking sites

Although the winner-takes-all approach is often theorized in the use of an information communication technology, more than one popular social networking site exists in the market. Integrating uses and gratification (U&G) theory with network externalities, this study examines why social networking sites can coexist in the market and whether predictors of using social networking sites differ across popular social networking sites. Three separate surveys were conducted for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The results show that motivations for using each SNS differ; these motives exert a greater influence on SNS use than network externalities for all three SNSs.