Predicting Product Performance with Social Media

Last 20 years brought massive growth in IT&C world. Mobile solutions such as netbooks, laptops, mobile phones, tablets enable the wireless connection to the Internet. Anyone can ac-cess it anytime and anywhere. In this context, a part of the activities from the real world have a correspondence in the online discussions. Social media in general and social networks in particular have turned into marketing tools for organizations and a place where people can express their opinions and attitudes about products.The paper shows how social media can be used for predicting the success of a product or service. To showcase this, two case studies are presented; a test to prove that the conversations that take place in social media are a good indicator of success and the second is an exercise to predict the winner of the Oscar for best picture in 2011.