The suggestion of more research into “whether social networks like Facebook will become even more influential than vertically-based review sites ” is interesting. Looking across all forms of user generated comment: social networks, blogs, discussion forums and so on, the thing that strikes us is that comment on, for example airlines, can be found in the most unexpected places - motorbike forums, parenting chat rooms, golfers blogs, you name it, as well as on the well known travel review sites. Whether this is more influential is open to question, but there may be some truth in the notion that when seeking opinion on an airline a customer is more likely to be influenced by the views of a fellow like-minded golfer (mother/biker), than simply another flyer.

UKnetmonitor has picked up some research we did earlier this year on the UK travel industry. Their article is titled ‘Influence of blogs on consumers’ - which is slightly misleading… what we were really looking at was the impact of…