Video: Understanding the Science and Art of Online User Reviews

Camilla Vasquez, discourse analyst and sociolinguist at the University of South Florida, spoke at the Skift Global Forum about her work researching and analyzing online user reviews.

Vasquez, who blogs about online reviews, authored “The Discourse of Online Consumer Reviews,” the first book-length study of online review language. Her most basic insight, which resonated through the audience of travel professionals, was that the word “good” is common in many negative reviews, often more common than the word “bad.” That’s because reviewers who write the most enlightening reviews tend to be objective and point to the good and bad.

And in good news for hotels, restaurants, and attractions, Vasquez pointed out that whether it is TripAdvisor, Yelp, or Amazon, reviews skew toward the positive, not negative.

This is the latest Skift Global Forum 2015 video we have posted. Over the next eight weeks we’ll release each of the three dozen-plus presentations from the 2015 Skift Global Forum. To keep track of them all, bookmark Skift Global Forum.

Watch the video, above, for the full 13-minute presentation.

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