User Generated Information on Mobile Channels with More Concise Reviews and More Extreme Ratings

Abstract

Online word of mouth is shifting from personal computer (PC)-based channels to mobile-based channels in this mobile marketing age, which leads to the question of whether mobile word of mouth is shorter and louder than the PC word of mouth? By investigating the 162 452 pieces of online word of mouth created by 19 496 users on a top-three online shopping website in China during a two-year period, this paper successfully discovered that mobile reviews are shorter than PC reviews and that mobile ratings are more extreme than the PC ratings. These findings lead to the managerial implications that on one hand, managers may direct reviewers to PC channels to generate longer and consequently higher-quality reviews. On the other hand, managers of higher/lower quality products may prefer mobile/PC channels such that there products' merits can be underlined whereas their products' shortcomings may be obscured.