The Polarity of Online Reviews: Prevalence, Drivers and Implications

Schoenmueller, Verena; Netzer, Oded; Stahl, Florian

doi:10.1177/0022243720941832

Cited by 135 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 62 publications

(107 reference statements)

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“…The predominant positivity in comments and reviews left by users online has already been noted in a recent study including 25 online platforms [51]. We can also support these findings for diet-tracking app reviews, as our results suggest that the users leaving reviews for diet-tracking apps generally tend to give positive ratings.…”

Section: Principal Findingssupporting

confidence: 89%

User Perspectives of Diet-Tracking Apps: Reviews Content Analysis and Topic Modeling

Zečević¹,

Mijatović²,

Koklič³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

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Background The availability and use of mobile apps in health and nutrition management are increasing. Ease of access and user friendliness make diet-tracking apps an important ally in their users’ efforts to lose and manage weight. To foster motivation for long-term use and to achieve goals, it is necessary to better understand users’ opinions and needs for dietary self-monitoring. Objective The aim of this study was to identify the key topics and issues that users highlight in their reviews of diet-tracking apps on Google Play Store. Identifying the topics that users frequently mention in their reviews of these apps, along with the user ratings for each of these apps, allowed us to identify areas where further improvement of the apps could facilitate app use, and support users’ weight loss and intake management efforts. Methods We collected 72,084 user reviews from Google Play Store for 15 diet-tracking apps that allow users to track and count calories. After a series of text processing operations, two text-mining techniques (topic modeling and topical n-grams) were applied to the corpus of user reviews of diet-tracking apps. Results Using the topic modeling technique, 11 separate topics were extracted from the pool of user reviews. Most of the users providing feedback were generally satisfied with the apps they use (average rating of 4.4 out of 5 for the 15 apps). Most topics referred to the positive evaluation of the apps and their functions. Negatively rated topics mostly referred to app charges and technical difficulties encountered. We identified the positive and negative topic trigrams (3-word combinations) among the most frequently mentioned topics. Usability and functionality (tracking options) of apps were rated positively on average. Negative ratings were associated with trigrams related to adding new foods, technical issues, and app charges. Conclusions Motivating users to use an app over time could help them better achieve their nutrition goals. Although user reviews generally showed positive opinions and ratings of the apps, developers should pay more attention to users’ technical problems and inform users about expected payments, along with their refund and cancellation policies, to increase user loyalty.

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Section: Principal Findingssupporting

confidence: 89%

User Perspectives of Diet-Tracking Apps: Reviews Content Analysis and Topic Modeling

Zečević¹,

Mijatović²,

Koklič³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

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show abstract

“…However, the size, timeliness, and richness of UGC does not guarantee that these data are representative. Relying on social listening could bias perceptions of the marketplace due to differences in users across platforms (Schweidel and Moe 2014; Schoenmueller, Netzer, and Stahl 2020).…”

Section: Marketing Data and The Streetlight Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Platforms for UGC have proven to be a rich data source, but limited research has documented differences across platforms (Schoenmueller, Netzer, and Stahl 2020; Schweidel and Moe 2014). As users’ motives for engaging with each other likely differ across platforms, inferring social ties from one venue will not capture all meaningful connections between users.…”

Section: Customer Acquisitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capturing Marketing Information to Fuel Growth

Du¹,

Netzer²,

Schweidel³

et al. 2020

Journal of Marketing

Self Cite

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Marketing is the functional area primarily responsible for driving the organic growth of a firm. In the age of digital marketing and big data, marketers are inundated with increasingly rich data from an ever-expanding array of sources. Such data may help marketers generate insights about customers and competitors. One fundamental question remains: How can marketers wrestle massive flows of existing and nascent data resources into coherent, effective growth strategies? Against such a backdrop, the Marketing Science Institute has made “capturing information to fuel growth” a top research priority. We begin by discussing the streetlight effect—an overreliance on readily available data due to ease of measurement and application—as contributing to the disconnect between marketing data growth and firm growth. We then use the customer equity framework to structure our discussion of six areas where we see substantial under-tapped opportunities—incorporating social network and biometric data in customer acquisition, trend and competitive interaction data in customer development, and unstructured and causal data in customer retention. We highlight challenges that obstruct firms from realizing such data-driven growth opportunities and how future research may help overcome those challenges.

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“…In particular, controlling for the business's average rating prior to consumption accounts for differences in expectations that may arise from selecting a specific restaurant, as demonstrated by Yin et al (2016). Moreover, Schoenmueller et al (2020) validated that the number of reviews by reviewer prior to visiting reviewing business serves as an effective proxy to control for rating polarity-related self-selection into reviewing. We followed this approach and incorporated _ _ to safeguard against systematic differences of reviewers to self-select into reviewing a particularly negative or positive experience that could bias our focal coefficients.…”

Section: Empirical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Reviewing from a Distance – Uncovering the Negativity Bias of Psychological Distance in Online Word-of-Mouth

Neumann

Gutt

Kundisch³

2020

SSRN Journal

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How does reviewing consumption experiences from a psychological distance affect one's online ratings? Prior literature has found a positivity bias in the reviewing behaviors of consumers when they evaluate an experience from a spatial or a temporal distance. However, these results do not fully account for the unique context of online reviews, which involves publicly associating oneself with a potentially negative experience in front of others.Analyzing a data set from a large review platform, which enables identification of reviewers' spatial and temporal distance, we found that the positivity bias is not present for consumption experiences that are characterized by a negative sentiment. Instead, ratings for negative experiences reviewed from a spatial distance-that is, reviews by travelers-are systematically lower than ratings given in spatial proximity-that is, reviews by locals. These findings can be attributed to spatial distance, enabling travelers to distance themselves from these experiences and thus publicly associate themselves with lower ratings. For temporal distance, we found patterns consistent with prior literature that highlighted a disparity between spatial and temporal distance. These results improve our theoretical understanding of reviewing behavior and help platforms in their efforts to de-bias ratings.

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The Polarity of Online Reviews: Prevalence, Drivers and Implications

Cited by 135 publications

References 62 publications

User Perspectives of Diet-Tracking Apps: Reviews Content Analysis and Topic Modeling

User Perspectives of Diet-Tracking Apps: Reviews Content Analysis and Topic Modeling

Capturing Marketing Information to Fuel Growth

Reviewing from a Distance – Uncovering the Negativity Bias of Psychological Distance in Online Word-of-Mouth

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