Inter-Edge and Cloud conversion accelerated user-generated content for virtual brand community

Abstract

Web-based enterprises have increasingly begun to build their own virtual brand community on the Cloud. How to encourage Web users to generate Web content in the Web community continuously and permanently has become the focal point. However, few studies have explored that how to drive the motivation of user-generated content (UGC) named self-enhancement (SE) internalized from the perspective of user’s personal characteristics and then enhance the intention of UGC. Even fewer studies have been devoted to drive the motivation of UGC from the perspective of information technology. Based on self-construal (SC) theory, self-determination (SD) theory, and current immersive applications of Edge computing, we proposed to a solution of user-generated content motivation internalized in the virtual brand community implemented through the manipulation of the tradeoff of inter-Edge and Cloud processing. Our survey shows that different types of self-construal (SC) users have different levels of internal motivation for self-enhancement (SE) accomplished through the organization of user characteristics. We build a detailed simulation of the change of time delay, availability, and cost of inter-Edge and Cloud conversion to demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed mechanism of UGC motivation internalized in the virtual brand community in guiding enhancing the intention of UGC in the community in practice.