People Trust WOM From Friends More Than Any Other Source
This blog post from Forrester senior analyst Jeremiah Owyang takes a look at several different research sources, all of which address the idea of trust. According to research from Forrester, Edelman, and Pollara, consumers still trust recommendations from friends ahead of all other sources -- from traditional media, to bloggers, to, as Jeremiah quotes "strangers with 10,000 MySpace 'friends.'" The boiled down take-away message from the post is that honest, authentic word of mouth is still the best way to spread the kind of information that impacts consumers' purchase decisions.