According to a study exploring how online content influences IT purchase decisions, nearly 90 percent of business and IT executives in a range of industries say online content has a moderate to major impact on vendor preferences and selections, BtoB Online reports. But only 22 percent say they are "very satisfied" with the caliber of content freely available online.

The most popular types of technology content were vendor white papers (58 percent), product reviews (54 percent) and analyst research reports (52 percent). Top technology content pet peeves "hype and puffery of offering" (53 percent), "poor communication of business value proposition" (46 percent) and "too few proof points that evidence ROI" (45 percent).

The top-line results of the study, "Define What's Valued Online," was released by the Chief Marketing Officer Council and KnowledgeStorm.