Effect of Social Networks on Online Reviews

The emergence and growth of free review hosting websites give customers the opportunity to share their experience about product/service with a huge audience. A majority of these review-hosting websites offer a range of social networking features. We investigate how reviewers interact on online review websites and learn from social networks. Reviewers learn and gain experience in different ways which eventually affects how they rate products. We find that social networks affect reviewers in both direct and indirect ways. Our result showed that reviewers having a large book collection begin with a larger range in their ratings, whereas reviewers connected to a larger social network begin with a smaller range in their ratings. Further, the range of ratings decreases for all the reviewers as they gain experience over time.