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Analysis of local online review systems as digital word-of-mouth

Published:07 April 2014Publication History

ABSTRACT

Using a large dataset of Yelp's online reviews for local businesses, we investigate how Word-of-Mouth research can inform the design of local online review systems and how these systems' data can extend our understanding of digital WOM in a local context. In this paper, we analyze how visual cues currently present in Yelp map to WOM concepts. We also show that these concepts are highly related to the perceived usefulness of the local reviews, which is aligned with prior WOM literature. Additionally, we found that local expertise, measured at the level of the neighborhood, strongly correlates with the perceived usefulness of reviews. Our findings augment the understanding of local online WOM and have design implications for local review systems.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM Other conferences
      WWW '14 Companion: Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web
      April 2014
      1396 pages
      ISBN:9781450327459
      DOI:10.1145/2567948

      Copyright © 2014 Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2).

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 7 April 2014

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