The effect of online user comments on the development and improvement process of technological products

The new product development and improvement process is very impor-tant for many companies in terms of sustainability. This process, which is a ne-cessity to survive in competition, also involves different challenges. A business firm should allocate both its time and financial resources to this process. However, the process should begin with the proper product idea. In addition, the product must comply with the business strategies of the firms and satisfy custo-mer needs. It should strengthen the firm under consideration against competitors. Producing a product not demanded will be an idle investment. Therefore, in the process of new product development and improvement, customers' feelings and thoughts need to be taken into consideration. The changing customer profile with developing technology should not be ignored. All of these variables are needed for an up-to-date approach in the process of new product development. The main purpose of the thesis is to provide an answer to the question of how effective the feelings and thoughts of consumers are in the process of new product development and improvement. In accordance with this purpose, a tech-nology intensive product, Vestel Venus cell phone was selected for the analysis. In this thesis, by using "User Innovation Approach", the online feedback of Ve-nüs users in social media, a platform that individuals feels themselves free, are analyzed. In order to better understand the consumer profile, "Google Trends" and "Social Network Analysis" were first applied. Then, a "Sentiment Analysis" was performed using the "Support Vector Machines", the "Random Forest" and the "Recurrent Neural Networks" algorithms. "Python" was used as software. After examining 2005 feedback, the analysis shows that consumer feelings and thoughts are not taken into account for the new product development and imp-rovment process in the case of Vestel Venüs, which can be attributed to the im-port dependency of Turkey in high technology inputs.