The Pew Internet and American Life Project has just published their recent results of Online Product Research by American adults. The hghlights:

*58% of Americans now reporting that they perform online research concerning the products and services that they are considering purchasing.

*The number of those who do research about products on any given day has jumped from 15% of adults in September 2007 to 21% in September 2010

*24% of American adults say they have posted comments or reviews online about the product or services they buy,

The numbers confirm Greg Sterling’s long stated Research Online Buy Offline mantra. The number of adults reporting having done product reviews is somewhat surprising to me. Interestingly the reviewers are roughly equally split between men and women and across age groups with some tilt towards white, higher educated and higher income individuals as more likely to leave reviews.

While the research is specifically about product reviews, I think it not unreasonable to think that a similar trend will apply to business reviews.