Examining differences among book reviews from various online platforms

Abstract

Purpose

Websites have their own features in aspect preference (e.g. the relative importance platforms place on product aspects in product evaluation). The purpose of this paper is to capture characteristics of different book reviews on aspect preferences by opinion mining techniques.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employ two indicators for identifying aspect preferences, and propose a method for quantifying overall differences of reviews on aspect preferences through three dimensions: aspect awareness, aspect satisfaction and comprehensive value.

Findings

The results show that book reviews on e-commerce websites contain information about external aspects of a book (e.g. hardcover), while those on social network websites pay more attention to content-related aspects of the book (e.g. stories). These results indicate that aspect preferences of reviews vary from platforms and make it hard to evaluate book comprehensively based on single-source data. Online book reviews from a wide range of sources can assess book impact from multiple perspectives and dimensions.

Practical implications

In order to illustrate the value of the authors’ method, the authors show book impact assessment based on multi-source data as an application of these difference analyses. Furthermore, the authors present an example of a book promotion to provide customized marketing services for different user clusters.

Originality/value

This study investigates the influence of different data sources on book evaluation from the content of book reviews. The authors also showcase potential applications of these analyses in book impact assessment.

Citation

Zhang, C., Tong, T. and Bu, Y. (2019), "Examining differences among book reviews from various online platforms", Online Information Review, Vol. 43 No. 7, pp. 1169-1187. https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-01-2019-0037