Online reviews

I have been seeing new studies that address the impact of online reviews - and it appears their importance is second only to word-of-mouth. What has been interesting about this, is that while only a small portion of web users are contributors, the majority of web users are considered "watchers or readers" and many companies discount sites or online reviews because of this. I believe that marketers should not overlook these as they are disproportionately influential in purchasing decisions. See Rubicon's study on this: http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/online-reviews-second-only-to-word-of-mouth-in-purchase-influence-6968/?camp=newsletter&src=mc&type=textlink