With the advent of personal blogs and social networking sites, it has become easier than ever for consumers to share experiences and opinions. This trend was recently manifested in a recent study by Compete.com, where it was found that recommendations by peers are more influential than internet advertising. This certainly represents a move towards a world where interenet results are culled from the collective opinion of internet users. It also indicates to me that natural search is more valuable than ever. We already know that natural search results get more attention, higher conversions and more consumer loyalty than paid search. Will this become more pronounced with the influence of social media? Quite simply, yes. As natural search becomes more the result of the combined opinions of millions of people, rather then some mathmatical algorythm, it will become more and more popular, at the expense of paid search. In order for retailers to be involved with this shift of influence, the first step is to be a good company with good products. The second step is to build a retail blog.