26 September 2005

Consumers are starting to access web logs to get help on what they should and shouldn't buy.

According to a survey, more than three-quarters of those questioned said they checked blog sites before hitting the shops.

According to the BBC, around 77 per cent say blogs are a good way to get some insights into products they are considering buying, believing web journals are more honest and reliable than corporate or commercial websites.

"Consumers are tired of marketing gloss and so the interest in blogs is not surprising," Paul Halfpenny, product manager at survey sponsor Hostway, told the BBC.

The survey suggested that people are also beginning to place more trust in blogs than newspapers or TV news programmes.

The statistics revealed than between 40 and 49 per cent of those interviewed said they felt blogs were as trustworthy as other forms of media.

The research comes just after Internet giant, Google, joined the blog market, launching its blog search engine.

The size of the blog world has not yet been ascertained, but rival to Google Blog search, Technorati, report it indexes around 17.1 million blogs.

© Adfero Ltd

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