the 11 motives for giving eWOM communication are examined using an online sample of German Web-based opinion-platform users.An online questionnaire was developed and made accessible through (a) a banner link on the home page of the Deutsche Bahn AG, one of the most heavily frequented Web sites in Germany (b)pop-up windows on dooyoo.de and hitwin.de that pointed users to the survey, and (c) e-mail messages e=sent to a selection of users of two Web-based opinion participants.The average time for completing a questionnaire was raffled off among the participants. the average time for completing a questionnaire was just under 12 min. of the 4,445 respondents, only those 2,083 individuals who had previously written comments for distribution on the platform were included for data analysis After excluding 20 cases containing missing or inconsistent information the final sample consisted of 2,063 provided of eWOM communication. Information on the demographic profile of the sample is provided in table2