By: Spacelab Research Staff

A study released by NYU late last year declared that "The Internet has enabled the era of user-generated content, potentially breaking the
hegemony of traditional content generators as the primary sources of “legitimate” information." Sounds obvious, right? But then the NYU team started droppin' science to show exactly how and why. And they've got numbers to back it up.

The Center for Digital Economy Research, a part of NYU's Stern School of Business, conducted a study in 2007 that looked deep into the notion of how new media or Internet buzz can impact album sales. They found that online chatter can most definitely raise album sales, whether for independent labels or the big 4 of Sony, Universal, EMI, or Warner.

They got all scientific on us and boiled down online album reviews from sites like Pitchfork, PopMatters, and Stylus Magazine; while also measuring the number of mentions on blogs, music web sites, and social networking sites; additionally throwing in traditional print media (they call them dead tree media!) to round out the study.

The results seem obvoius at first glance and then get a whole lot more interesting: the more a band name or album gets mentioned, the higher the album sales. The interesting part is in finding that this whole network of influence is quickly becoming decentralized as compared to its previous incarnation as a smaller group of establishment media.

The study says in its conclusion that "We found that the most significant variable is blog chatter or the volume of blog posts on an album, with higher numbers of posts corresponding to higher sales."

Welcome to the brave new world of media! Largely unpredictable, with a mind of its own, with large players losing the controlled distribution and PR hegemony they once had.