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Internet Celebrity Economy: Exploring the Value of Viewers’ Comment Features and Live Streamers’
Marketing Strategies in Forecasting Revenue

viewers during the gameplay process). However, its primary revenue source is the viewer
subscriptions to the streamers (Sjöblom and Hamari, 2017), not from the paid gifting.
YouTube Live livestreams a wide range of issues (e.g., news, sports, and education), and
its revenue also mainly came from viewer subscriptions; but YouTube Live does not offer

interactive functions as rich as those of DouYu.

2.2 Impact of Viewer Comment Metrics on Paid Gifting

Existing research on experience products has discussed how the metrics of online
comments (or word of mouth) impact product revenue (Huang, C. and Liu, P., 2016; Ni,
Li, and Lin, 2021). The results of early studies on the explanatory powers of comment
metrics are consistent with theoretical predictions and with each other. Table 1 compares
the effects of two key comment metrics on product revenue. While most scholars have

stated that the volume of comments positively influences revenue (e.g., Liu, 2006;
Dellarocas et al., 2007; Duan, Gu, and Whinston, 2008; Zhou et al., 2019), some has
indicated that it has no effect (e.g., Chintagunta et al., 2010). Chintagunta et al. (2010)

further explain that volume positively influences the box office only under the condition
of higher comment valence. Similarly, Table 1 shows that a majority of the scholars have
suggested that comment valence positively influences revenue (e.g., Dellarocas et al.,
2007; Duan et al., 2008; Chintagunta et al., 2010).
On live-streaming platforms, sending gifts to streamers signifies viewers' affinity

toward the streamers, while comments indicate viewers' desire to interact with or express
opinions about the streamers, or with other viewers. Given that live-streaming platforms
have the advantage of instant communication, this study assumes that streamers' behaviors

and viewers' comments would affect particular viewers' gift-sending behavior. However,
the coding of viewers' comments is a tedious task and considerably constrains data using
and examination. Zhou et al. (2019) work is the only research so far to show indirect
evidence that the number of words used in a viewer's comments has explanatory power
over gift giving during live streaming. Their findings imply that the higher the volume of

viewer comments, which are positive in nature, the more frequent gift-sending behavior
happens. Given the discussion thus far, this study infers that the volume and valence
of comments are positively related to viewers' gift-sending behavior on live-streaming

platforms.

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