An Emerging Media Series study conducted by KnowledgeStorm and Universal McCann focuses on the role of blogs and RSS on technology purchasing decisions, gathering data from 4,500 business and IT professionals.

Blogs have made inroads into B2B technology companies with more than 53 percent of respondents saying the content they read in blogs has an impact on their work-related purchasing decisions. Some 80 percent of respondents say they read blogs, with 51 saying they read them at least once a week.

More than half of respondents say they are getting both business and technology information from blogs: 53 percent read blogs weekly for business information, and 57 percent for technology topics. And a full 70 percent recommend or pass along content from blogs at least once a month.

Also, 59 percent of business and IT professionals said they are "somewhat" to "very" familiar with RSS, with 31 percent saying they subscribe to RSS feeds or readers.

The blog/RSS study is the second in a series of joint research studies focused on the effects of new media within the B2B marketplace. The first study focused on podcasts; the final study will focus on wikis, webcasts and mobile technology.