For many years IFTF research has shown – no surprise here – that trust is a critical factor in people’s decision making processes.  More recent research shows that consumers are increasingly information intensive in their product research, and online consumers actively use and trust online information sources in product research. 
 
We’ve recently started a research project looking at how consumers use blogs as part of their product research and purchasing decision processes.  Our early results indicate that blogs currently have little or no impact on most consumers.  However, leading edge users …