A Temporal Study of the Effects of Online Opinions : Information Sources Matter

This article examines how the sentiment embedded in online comments (i.e. valence) and the quantity of comments (i.e. volume) available on a movie influence the movie’s box office receipts. We tracked over 1500 sources of online expert and consumer reviews for cinematic movies released for an entire year and continuously monitored major social media sites (e.g. Twitter and Plurk) for comments. We text mined the comments to elucidate the sentiments and analyzed the data. We show that the persuasive effect of different online sources fluctuates as time evolves. Our findings suggest that online opinions are strong predictors of sales, but the different sources of online opinion are not equal in impacting product sales. Our research demonstrates that online opinions are not always persuasive and useful, and our findings provide insights into when consumers are likely to pay attention to online opinions