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How Is the Mobile Internet Different? Search Costs and Local Activities

Author

Listed:
  • Anindya Ghose

    (Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10012)

  • Avi Goldfarb

    (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6, Canada)

  • Sang Pil Han

    (College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

Abstract

We explore how Internet browsing behavior varies between mobile phones and personal computers. Smaller screen sizes on mobile phones increase the cost to the user of browsing for information. In addition, a wider range of offline locations for mobile Internet usage suggests that local activities are particularly important. Using data on user behavior at a (Twitter-like) microblogging service, we exploit exogenous variation in the ranking mechanism of posts to identify the ranking effects. We show that (1) ranking effects are higher on mobile phones suggesting higher search costs: links that appear at the top of the screen are especially likely to be clicked on mobile phones and (2) the benefit of browsing for geographically close matches is higher on mobile phones: stores located in close proximity to a user's home are much more likely to be clicked on mobile phones. Thus, the mobile Internet is somewhat less “Internet-like”: search costs are higher and distance matters more. We speculate on how these changes may affect the future direction of Internet commerce.

Suggested Citation

  • Anindya Ghose & Avi Goldfarb & Sang Pil Han, 2013. "How Is the Mobile Internet Different? Search Costs and Local Activities," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 613-631, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orisre:v:24:y:2013:i:3:p:613-631
    DOI: 10.1287/isre.1120.0453
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    References listed on IDEAS

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