tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424038.post113324647849797741..comments2023-11-16T18:28:45.786+08:00Comments on Rambling Librarian :: Incidental Thoughts of a Singapore Liblogarian: The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales -- Online Book Reviews report: Implication for librariesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424038.post-1133326498495684382005-11-30T12:54:00.000+08:002005-11-30T12:54:00.000+08:00Thanks for sharing that, Kevin. I'd like to add th...Thanks for sharing that, Kevin. I'd like to add that simply publishing a blog or posting book reviews doesn't guarantee that Word of Mouth publicity will happen for the library. An important factor would be how we connect with the target community, like proactively seeking those communities, leaving meaninful comments, writing in personable styles etc. Wonder if your study touched on those aspects from the customer's point of view.Ivan Chewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02727226573817276108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424038.post-1133293327773391522005-11-30T03:42:00.000+08:002005-11-30T03:42:00.000+08:00The High Browse Book Blog is a step in the right d...The High Browse Book Blog is a step in the right direction. With regards to the Yale research, one simply needs to see how Amazon's review system was once exploited to realize how the study was even more valid.<BR/><BR/>Anonymous reviews can be a major problem. In an <A HREF="http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2004Feb/gee20040217023883.htm" REL="nofollow">accident on Amazon Canada</A>, reviewers' identity were revealed and some were found to be authors of their own books, giving themselves 5 star reviews to jack sales up. While one review might not make a major impact, it clearly shows a possible exploit if a gang of reviewers got together to write beautiful reviews for their books (likeness to Googlebombing). <BR/><BR/>I realized this was why Amazon now has that "Real Name" tag attached to a reviewer to give him/her more credibility. This is one reason why I like identifying myself on my blog rather than be anonymous... to build credibility.<BR/><BR/>On a related note, word of mouth has always had the strongest impact in marketing. Substituting real-world word of mouth on the Internet, we think of emails and IMs from friends. However, we also sometimes trust such reviews as almost equivalent to word of mouth. Depending on how the review process works (e.g. transparency), the influence it has over users would vary.<BR/><BR/>This is something I'm close to releasing a survey on, except that I'm comparing blogs to word of mouth. And don't worry, this survey is going to a closed sample group, not to the rest of the blogosphere. I'll try to share my results, though it's going to take a while. :)Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093603817500103421noreply@blogger.com