Classroom Companion: Business

10.2 
 Characteristics of Multisided Platforms
MSPs offer several benefits to the users, including:
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They offer uniform, simple, and secure login procedures and ease of use.
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They offer simple and transparent ways of connecting customers with matching 
interests through built-in matchmaking mechanisms, for example, matching 
suppliers and consumers in a trade process or providing information to market-
ers to support targeted and precise advertisement campaigns.
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They offer efficient transaction management, thereby simplifying search, reduc-
ing management costs, and streamlining administrative and payment processes.
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They may also assist in trust-building between users within the same group or 
between users in different groups.
The MSP is related to the concept of value networks described in 
7
Chap. 
8
since 
the value network is an organization or company offering mediation services either 
within a single group or between different groups, in which case, the value network 
is equivalent to an MSP. 
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Chapter 
8
explains the strategy of value networks in 
general. In this chapter, the attention is on the mediation activity itself and the 
techno-economic platform supporting it.
It is assumed that the mediation between the user groups is asymmetric. 
Asymmetry means that the platform is serving two or more user groups with differ-
ent motives for using the platform services. 
.
Table 
10.1
 shows examples of MSPs.
There are two main types of MSPs: digital MSPs and tangible MSPs. Digital 
MSPs mediate the exchange of digital goods and services, while tangible MSPs 
mediate the exchange of physical goods and non-digital services. Facebook and 
. Table 10.1 Examples of MSPs. (Authors’ compilation)