Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Blogs Influence IT Purchasing

KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann have released a study of IT professionals that finds that they read blogs and get technology information from them, and that they use RSS. This isn't exactly a surprising finding, but it is interesting to see someone trying to measure blog readership in a specific business demographic.

Syndication technologies (RSS and Atom) seem to be stuck in the early adopter phase, but this study found that 31% of respondents use feeds. Interesting but again, not surprising; this is a group where you'd expect to find more early adopters.

I'd take some of the statements in the announcement with a grain of salt (like the use of the word "proves" in the headline and breathy proclamations that blogs are "the perfect forum" for IT professionals), and read this is another indication that you need to be thinking about how blogs fit into your arsenal of PR and marketing tactics - particularly if you are marketing to IT buyers.

This study follows an earlier KnowledgeStorm/Universal McCann study on podcasts, and an upcoming study on wiki technologies is promised.

No comments: