A blog post on Church of the Customer comments on a study done to measure who/what influenced the choices of African American book buyers the most. Unsurprisingly, the most influential category is recommendations from friends and family, listed by 55% of respondents.

While an entertaining debate about the comparative power of Oprah (with 12%) has been brought into this post, it simply can’t be argued that even Oprah could be compared on an equal footing with word-of-mouth. She’s a powerful lady, but personal recommendations will always influence people more.