A Study on Visualizations of New Product Trends on Online Social Networks

This study examines the new product information spreading issue from a data visualization perspective. Different from previous research, this study demonstrate how choosing proper visualization methods benefits the promotion of new products via online social network. With the adoption of proper visualization methods, the information flow can become intuitionistic, such as the topic trends, the customer satisfaction, and even why consumers choose competitors´ products instead of this one. We adopt Area Chart visualization and propose Dynamic Gauge visualization approaches based on D3 library to demonstrate the importance of visualization method choosing and applying for iPhone 5S topic trends. We identify in our study that topic trends differ in different cultures, the trends change over time during the new product release cycle, and different features of the product get various attention. Under these circumstances, a proper visualization method can help company make decisions according to the topic trends instantly. Based on these findings, company managers can make full use of online social network, recognize opportunities, identify issues, and better accomplish Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).