Content analysis of product usage information from embedded sensors and web 2.0 sources: A first analysis of practical examples

The middle of a product´s life is when the product is with the user. During the middle of life (MOL) phase, useful product information is created (usage information). In the past, research in engineering focused on the transformation of this information into engineering knowledge - for this purpose, demonstrators were developed and described in literature. Apart from demonstrating the feasibility of the approach, little is known about the vast body of usage information. This research is based on the analysis of real information manually extracted from a small selection of contents. Selected contents have been taken from a product embedded sensor device, a shopping website (Amazon.com), a review website (Engadget.com) and a media platform (Youtube.com). Based on the discussion of the findings, a tree-like structure is proposed, summarizing the preliminary content-related characteristics of usage information identified in this paper. Among these characteristics are the originators, sources, lifecycle activities covered, formats and the scope of information from the middle of life.