Study: MP3 Blog Chatter Increases CD Sales 300 Percent

"Does Chatter Matter," an NYU business school study showing that blog coverage is tied to increased music sales, has been receiving lots of attention lately, although it was finished in May of 2007 and published in October.

Here's what the co-authors, Professor Vasant Dhar and former student Elaine Chang found, based on a sampling of 108 albums, each tracked for the eight weeks surrounding its release:

-When legitimate blog posts exceeded a threshold of 40 before an album's release, sales were three times the average.

-If the albums blogged about were associated with a major record label, sales increased five-fold.

-When blog activity reached more than 250 posts, sales were six timesthe average regardless of an association with a major or independentlabel.

-The number of an artist's MySpace friends also contributed to higherfuture sales, but had a weaker correlation as compared to blog chatter.

This link between blog posts and CD sales could be caused by anotherfactor: the quality of the album in question. If something sucks,
nobody's going to buy it or write about it. But it's although worthnoting that the MP3 blogs included in the study typically post a trackor two from the album. The increased sales could also be due toconsumers' ability to sample these tracks.

Here's a PDF of the whole study