Here’s a rare piece of good news for the music industry. Turns out the online "chatter" or "buzz" associated with a new release correlates to improved sales. The more positive chatter, the higher the sales.

According to researchers at New York University’s Stern School of Business, commentary generated by bloggers and social network users tend to be a strong predictor of success or failure for a new release, Ars Technica reports.

According to Ars Technica:

The researchers followed the Amazon sales ranks for each of the 108
albums over a period of eight weeks (they said that Nielsen SoundScan
stats would have been ideal, but they are costly and proprietary), as
well as articles, blog postings, and MySpace friend counts about them.
The blogosphere appeared to be most strongly correlated to better album
sales—if 40 or more legitimate (written by normal people and not by marketers blog posts were made before an album’s release, sales ended up being three times the average.

The report goes on to say that the more MySpace friends a band has, the more likely they are to generate stronger sales. But still, traditional media is still the king maker in the music biz. A good review from Rolling Stone cannot be beat, they say.

Of course, the importance of quality musicianship should not be forgotten. It’s doubtful loyal bloggers could help the career of  the once mighty Janet Jackson.

For the full NYU report, click here.