Understanding the motivation to use web portals

• Social escapism motivation is the main determinant of web portal intention-to-use.
• The influence of motivation on intention-to-use of web portal was investigated.
• Motivations were highly correlated to intention-to-use of web portal.

The purpose of this research was to study the motivation attributes of information products from the end-users’ perspective, and to measure the impact of these attributes on intention-to-use. In the context of Web portal use, the information product generally includes three types of services: personal services (e.g., email), information services (e.g., online news) and search services. The literature underscores the importance of motivational factors such as social escapism and privacy concerns on the intention to use. Drawing from this theoretical background, an initial set of motivation attributes has been identified, and an experimental study using 142 subjects as Web portal users has been conducted. As far as impact analyses are concerned, social escapism motivation, information motivation, interactive control motivation, and socialization were found to highly correlate to all of the three types of services and the combined use. Lessons learned from this study should also help IT professionals to design, develop and deploy more effective general web portals.