Social network services are emerging as a promising IT-based business, with some services already…

Social network services are emerging as a promising IT-based business, with some services already being
provided commercially such as Facebook, Cyworld and Xiaonei. However, it is not yet clear which
potential audience groups will be key social network service participants. Moreover, the process showing
how an individual actually decides to start using a social network service may be somewhat different from
current web-based community services. Hence, the aims of this paper are twofold. First, we empirically
examine how individual characteristics affect actual user acceptance of social network services. To
examine these individual characteristics, we apply a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to construct
an amended model that focuses on three individual differences: social identity, altruism and telepresence,
and one perceived construct: the perceived encouragement, imported from psychology-based research.
Next, we examine if the users’ perception to see a target social network service as human relationshiporiented service or as a task-oriented service could be a moderator between perceived constructs and
actual use. As a result, we discover that the perceived encouragement and perceived orientation are
significant constructs that affect actual use of social network services.
Attachments:
5435959_1_RQ.pdf