An e-service is an activity or series of activities that take place during the interaction between a provider and a customer through an electronic channel. Increasingly e-services are being realised using the technology of Web services. Meeting the e-service quality expectations in a Web service implementation is essential for delivering a tailored experience to customers. However it is not straightforward to attribute quality expectations for an e-service to quality of service (QoS) characteristics for its constituent Web services. This paper proposes a solution to this problem that uses fuzzy linguistic techniques to map the customer's fuzzy expectations from the e-service to Web service QoS variables. By using this approach various quality aspects of the service can be tailored for individual customers and efficient e-service customisation can be achieved

Assessing the usefulness of reviews has been the aim of several research studies. However, results regarding the significance of usefulness determinants are often contradictory, thus decreasing the accuracy of reviews’ helpfulness estimation. Also, bias in user reviews attributed to differences, e.g., in gender, nationality, etc., may result in misleading judgments, thus diminishing reviews’ usefulness. Research is needed for sentiment analysis algorithms that incorporate bias embedded in reviews, thus improving their usefulness, readability, credibility, etc. This study utilizes fuzzy relations and fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) in order to calculate reviews’ usefulness by incorporating users’ biases as expressed in terms of reviews’ articulacy and sentiment polarity. It selected and analyzed 95,678 hotel user reviews from Tripadvisor, written by users from five specific nationalities. The findings indicate that there are differences among nationalities in terms of the articulacy and sentiment of their reviews. The British are most consistent in their judgments expressed in titles and the main body of reviews. For the British and the Greeks, review titles suffice to convey any negative sentiments. The Dutch use fewer words in their reviews than the other nationalities. This study suggests that fuzzy logic captures subjectivity which is often found in reviews, and it can be used to quantify users’ behavioral differences, calculate reviews’ usefulness, and provide the means for developing more accurate voting systems.

The reviews usefulness has been the aim of several research studies. However, results regarding the significance of usefulness determinants are often contradicting, thus decreasing the accuracy of reviews’ helpfulness estimation. Also, bias in user reviews attributed to differences e.g. in gender, nationality, etc., may result into misleading judgments thus diminishing reviews’ usefulness. Research is needed for sentiment analysis algorithms that incorporate bias embedded in reviews, thus improving their usefulness, readability, credibility, etc. This study utilizes fuzzy relations and fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) in order to calculate reviews’ usefulness by incorporating users’ biases as expressed in terms of reviews’ articulacy and sentiment polarity. It selected and analysed 95.678 hotel user reviews from Tripadvisor, for five nationalities. The findings indicate that there are differences among nationalities. The British are most consistent in their judgments expressed in titles and review documents. The British and the Greek review titles suffice to convey any negative sentiments. The Dutch use fewer words in their reviews than the other nationalities. This study suggests that fuzzy logic captures subjectivity which is often found in reviews, and it can be used to quantify users’ behavioral differences, calculate reviews usefulness, and provide the means for developing more accurate voting systems.

Virtual communities are groups of people with similar interests who meet online and together act as a learning environment, place for social support, or as bodies for influencing public opinion. In this paper, the authors identify characteristics of a virtual community that influence its members to customize e- services provided to or received by the virtual community. The authors propose a theoretical framework of factors influencing service customization in a virtual community that has been validated with two case studies conducted in health-focused virtual communities. The findings confirm that the quality of the learning environment, social support, and the virtual community’s ability to influence public opinion, positively contribute to the perceived usefulness and active participation in the community by its members. In turn, these factors were found to have a positive influence on customization of e-services by the members, based on the community’s suggestion. The research also suggests several areas of focus to enhance e-service customization through virtual communities.