I’ve always hoped that what I do here moves money out of wallets and into record sales. Nothing ridiculous–I know nothing I review here will lead to Britney sales. But if just one of you bought one record you saw here, every day, that would be 365 more records sold this year than if this corner of this internet blog didn’t exist. And I don’t think that’s outlandish–with about 3500 unique visitors per day, one record sale doesn’t seem beyond the pale. I’ve often suspected that some of you buy stuff because you’ve sampled it here. Some of you tell me you’ve bought stuff, but I’ve never been able to know for sure . . .
And now it looks like my hopes and suspicions have some basis in reality.
In this 30-page report from New York University, researchers tracked the relationship between album sales and what they called “online chatter.” In short, they found that indie records with more than 40 blog posts showed above average sales. Major label releases with more than 40 blog posts showed much higher sales. Even better: Indie lable records with more than 240 posts showed sales comparable to major label releases!
There are some weaknesses with the study: It’s the first of its kind, it only tracked 108 albums, it tracked only physical (not digital) sales, and only tracked for one month. Still, it’s a start.
Have any of you bought an album because of posts you read here? Drop me a comment and let me know!
