Can User-Generated Content help predict music sales? That’s basically the question Vasant Dhar and Eline Chang from NYU’s Stern Business School set out to answer in their research: “Does user-generated content provide any predictive value for online music sales?”
In other words—can blogs and social media give us early signals about whether an album will flop or fly?
The study ran for eight weeks (four before an album’s release and four after), looking at 108 albums from both indie labels and majors. Since actual sales data (like Nielsen’s) is super expensive, they used proxy metrics: Amazon.com sales rankings, blog post volume, and the number of MySpace friends each artist had.
No big surprise in the findings: there is a correlation between blog chatter or MySpace popularity and album sales. But the researchers also point out that old-school factors still matter—a major label release or a good Rolling Stone review still gives you a serious edge.
You can check out the full 30-page study (PDF) over on NYU’s site.
Via: Mashable and Ars Technica.