ChasNote

AdAge reports that Austin-based Bazaarvoice, a company that manages customer feedback for companies such as HomeDepot and CompUSA, will now syndicate its database of user comments to online shopping portals like MSN, Google’s Froogle and Pricerunner. Driving the user-review trend, Jupiter Research reports that “48% of online shoppers find it critical that retailers post reviews.” AdAge continues:

“as marketers fixate on getting their virals on YouTube and making friends on MySpace, these relatively unsexy product write-ups have quietly become the most common form of consumer content — Forrester puts it as the most-used form of peer-generated content — not to mention the one with the most direct impact on purchase decisions.”