DailyTech - Study: Blogging Affects Music Sales

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Internet Study: Blogging Affects Music Sales
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - February 8, 2008 2:10 PM

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12 comment(s) - last by wordsworm.. on Feb 9 at 11:52 AM

Study shows that the more blog posts an album gets, the more sales are made

Music sales is a huge business for sure, even if digital downloads and piracy are being blamed for poor sales of traditional music formats.

A study performed by Vasant Dhar and Elaine Chang from the NYU Stern business school suggests that the amount of blog traffic a band or musical group gets directly relates to how well the music will sell. The study looked at over 108 albums over eight weeks. The study looked at blog results from “legitimate” blogs, which was determined by the number of Technorati links a blog has. Sales figures from albums were taken from Amazon.com sales ranks.

Those two sources for study information may be looked down on by critics, but the study does lend some weight to the power of bloggers for music sales. What the study authors found was that blogs had more effect on the sales of music that any other online or mainstream publications.

BetaNews reports that when more that 40 “legitimate” blog posts were made for an album that sales were three times higher than average and five times higher than average for mainstream labels. The study also shows that if blog posts about an album exceed 250 posts sales of the album were six times higher than average.

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Sure that isn't the other way around?

By GaryJohnson on 2/8/2008 2:56:57 PM , Rating: 5

Maybe the more music sells, the more blog traffic it gets.

RE: Sure that isn't the other way around?

By gersson on 2/8/2008 3:03:23 PM , Rating: 2

so true.

This study basically states the obvious:
The more popular a band is, the more likely said band is to sell more records.

Parent

RE: Sure that isn't the other way around?

By Oregonian2 on 2/8/2008 3:11:46 PM , Rating: 2

I think the advanced technical professional term is "word of mouth". Talking creates sales that creates more talking that creates more sales , ad infinitum.

Probably will have RIAA lawsuits preventing internet commenting about bands because it'll affect sales, possibly negatively as well.

Parent

RE: Sure that isn't the other way around?

By Alexstarfire on 2/8/2008 4:22:48 PM , Rating: 2

That, and they only looked at online music sales. It pretty much only shows that blogs affect people who buy music online. I highly doubt blogging has the same effect on B&M sales.

Also, they don't mention if the blogs came first or the sales. Granted that'd be impossible to monitor directly, but it'd be interesting to know if the music sales started after the initial blog posts, or if it occurred. If it occurs before blog posts then it really does just state the obvious. If it's the other way around though, it may have some weight to it.

Parent

queue the lawsuits.

By nvalhalla on 2/8/2008 3:37:43 PM , Rating: 5

The RIAA will switch from suing downloaders to suing bloggers, who's blatant lack of posting about copywrited content has resulted in billions of dollars in lost music sales...

Correlation doesn't imply causation.

By s12033722 on 2/8/2008 2:59:05 PM , Rating: 4

It seems just as likely to me that there are a larger number of blog posts because it is a top-selling album that many people are listening to. It could be the other way, but I don't see any real evidence one way or the other.

yeah...

By intogamer on 2/8/2008 10:57:52 PM , Rating: 2

This was a known "niche" for bloggers to generate income. You would scope around myspace artists and try to find some hinting news.

Then hopefully the artist will gain popularity or sign a contract. You will be banking on adsense.