earticle

영어

Information asymmetry in emerging platforms with two-sided markets creates barriers for interactions, especially for products lacking established reputation, termed the reputational cold-start problem. To address the problem, this study explores the roles of platform-initiated contents (PICs). Specifically, this paper examines how inspector-based textual PIC and video-mediated PIC influence consumer demand and subsequent reviews in the accommodation-sharing context. We employ econometric analyses with propensity score weighting and two-stage residual inclusion to address potential endogeneity concerns. We find that (i) both PICs as quality signals enhance the booking rate, and (ii) the positive impact of video-mediated PIC is more pronounced for properties facing the reputational cold-start problem, a nuanced effect not observed for inspector-based PIC. Furthermore, we demonstrate that inspector-based PIC increases subsequent reviews for properties with the cold-start problem while video-mediated PIC has no significant effects on subsequent reviews for those properties. Contribution and practical implications for addressing the cold-start problem in emerging platforms are discussed.