A social appraisal mechanism for online purchase decision support in the micro-blogosphere

Abstract

Owing to the plentiful participation of knowledgeable users, an online social network could be seen as a large group of experts that support the decisions of online users. Collective opinions solicited from friends are largely beneficial for online purchase support and can create significant opportunities for sales. In this paper, a social appraisal mechanism composed using the methodologies of social companionship analysis, collective opinion analysis, and consensus decision analysis is proposed for the online users of the micro-blogosphere. The proposed mechanism can successfully summarize collective opinions and expedite the decision-making process that characterizes users' purchasing behaviors. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.