A study on blogs’ impact on music sales conducted by an NYU/Stern professor and a former student has found that the volume of blog posts featured on the Internet before an album’s release can significantly affect future album sales, and in turn can predict sales for record labels. This is the first study to quantify the economic impact of user-generated content for the music industry. When legitimate blog posts exceeded a threshold of 40 before an album’s release, sales were three times the average, and increased five-fold if the album was associated with a major record label.
When blog activity reached more than 250 posts, sales were six times the average, regardless of label affiliation.
Additionally, an indie album with 240 blog posts in the observation period could overcome the disadvantage of being on an indie label.
According to Coolfer, the survey looked at 108 albums and tracked blog chatter using Technorati. The researchers only looked at CD sales by using the Amazon.com sales rank as a proxy. Had they been able to obtain Soundscan data to analyze digital sales, it’s likely the sales numbers for indie releases would have been greater as they have a higher digital share than major label releases.
Does Chatter Matter? — Archive @ NYU
NYU Researchers Study Music Blog Buzz — Coolfer
Study: Blog Chatter Can Triple Album Sales | Digital Media Wire
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