Blogs are Influential

You knew it, I knew it, but now it's official. Hotwire conducted a study on user-generated content and how it influcences a user's purchase decision in Europe.

Here are some of the key findings:

- Blogs are now a near second to newspapers as the most trusted information source: A quarter (24%) of Europeans consider blogs a trusted source of information, still behind newspaper articles (30%), but ahead of television advertising (17%) and email marketing (14%).

- High spenders are most trusting of blogs: Of those who spend more than 145€ (£100) online every month, the proportion of people who trust blogs rises to 30%.

- Blogs are now driving purchase decisions: More than half (52%) of Europeans polled said that they were more likely to purchase a product if they had read positive comments from private individuals on the internet.

- They also block purchases: Nearly 40 million Europeans have not bought something after reading comments posted online.

This aligns with Forrester's recommendation for eCommerce sites for next year to increase the amount of user generated content through consumer ratings and product reviews.

Amazon has picked up on this long ago and recently added, as Seth Godin points out, the next level in consumer ratings - rating consumer reviews:

The Taste of the Masses

What are users interested in and passionate about? Which brands, items (again, brands) or people are talked about the most? And how do people talk about them?

To get a good understanding of that, it is interesting to visit The Best Stuff in the World.

The popularity of a particular item, person or place is measured in the size of its vignette on the site. You can click on each one and decided whether you agree that 'it's the best' in one or more user-established categories. Today, peace, Futurama, music, The Simpsons, fries, and YouTube are leading based on user votes. Interesting combination...

The funny thing - none of these is a brand per se (with McDonald's, Dr.Pepper and others listed). All have influenced pop culture, they would never show up in the same search result and all but YouTube have been around for years if not centuries.

It reminds me of an advertising microcosm - if enough people know your brand (we'll leave the love or hate out of it for now), its size and visibility grow. The interesting thing is that this microcosm is kept alive and changing by the users, the 'active members', who add new or vote for existing 'stuff'. Depending on how established this site gets, it may actually become a source of insight into the likes and dislikes of teens and twens.

But: why do users participate? All this is done without any incentive for the users. In my opinion it's passion that drives this site - if someone feels strongly about something, be it positive or negative, he is willing to spend the time to express it. I love Milka chocolate and I felt the need to say so.