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As a new form of social commerce, live-streaming shopping (LSS) provides customers with vivid real-time communication/interaction. However, there is limited research investigating the impacts of gamification in LSS. Thus, this study explores the relationships between gamification, customers’ engagement and purchase intention in LSS. A research model is formulated, and a questionnaire-based online survey is administrated to LSS viewers for empirically validating the model. Through the analysis of 272 collected questionnaires by using SPSS and AMOS, this study shows that gamification elements (including reward and competition) can enhance customers’ engagement (comprising sense of presence and immersion) and purchase intention. Moreover, sense of presence significantly mediates the indirect effects of reward and competition on purchase intention, but immersion does not mediate such effects. Stores and brands can design LSS programs with reward and competition to enhance customers’ sense of presence, immersion and purchase intention. Strategically, they should focus more on presence than immersion to better achieve their goals of LSS.

As it plays a key role in industrial and commercial development, the stock market has significant impacts on a country’s economic growth; the stability of the stock market is therefore very important. However, the current stock-trading system is centralized, and investors have to participate in trading stocks through intermediaries/dealers, consequently causing problems such as high transaction fees, potential manipulation by intermediaries/dealers, long settlement times, and data protection issues. The advantages of blockchain technology, such as immutability, improved security, transparency and efficiency, not only make blockchain and fintech inextricably linked, but also shed light on innovations of existing stock-trading systems. This research aimed to alleviate the transaction costs, data storage security, and centralized system failures caused by the original centralized stock trading system through the blockchain-based stock trading prototype innovation/renovation of stock trading services. Further, it explored the application of blockchain in the field of financial technology. In order to prove the feasibility of a decentralized blockchain-based stock trading service, in the research methodology, this study first drew the architecture of the system through object-oriented analysis, followed by the flowchart of each function and smart contract. Finally, based on each flowchart, a blockchain stock system was developed to replace the centralized stock trading service in a decentralized, transparent, tamper-proof, and secure manner. After proposing the design and implementation details of a blockchain-based system with required service functions, we performed functional/performance tests and theoretical analysis of the system, confirming its feasibility, applicability, and value. The research results showed that our system has the characteristics of blockchain decentralization, which can alleviate the problems of transaction fees, broker manipulation, and data storage security encountered by existing stock trading services.

This article explores the potential of blockchain technology to enhance podcast content marketing. In the post-pandemic era, more and more enterprises are using podcasts for content marketing. However, the rapid growth of the podcast industry has also raised concerns. This study looks at current podcast advertising methods and uses a 10-step process to examine the need for a blockchain platform. With the decentralization, transparency and traceability of the blockchain and five smart contracts, the new distributed podcast platform improves content marketing metrics and reduces transaction costs. It provides enterprises with a more robust podcast platform, as well as more opportunities for niche creators to showcase and optimize the podcast platform as a useful advertising and marketing tool.