To Tweet or to Yelp: Accountability and Choice in Online Consumer Feedback

SPRING 2012 RESEARCH INCUBATION AWARDEE

John Byers (Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences)

This work studied the interplay between consumers and an emerging class of firms that generate economic value in whole or in part by enabling users to share their experiences through comments, reviews and online feedback, notably Yelp, Twitter, TripAdvisor and Airbnb. The importance of this work was to deepen our understanding of these new mechanisms that were becoming central to the information economy — we sought to: quantify the value of user-generated information; measure the incidence and cost of negative by-products such as misinformation and fake reviews; understand the role of consumer choice in using these platforms; and understand the managerial implications for firms seeking to shape and manage their online reputation. The Hariri grant served as a matching grant to a Google Research Award. This work had already received considerable media attention.

This work was funded by a Hariri Research Award made in June, 2012.