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I'm reading the following book on Google's management model, "The Google Model: A Management Breakthrough", which I really recommend ;-)

According to Bernand Girard, Google created a community which was a determinant point in its success. For example, by allowing its employees to create their own blogs, Google interacted directly with its more innovative clients, which allowed it to create and adapt the products needed by these clients. As the discussions with the innovators was public this fed through to more imitators and therefore more sales, increasing the areas under both curves in the "Bass diffusion model".

With blogs Google opinions leaders reach ten times more people and increase its reputation. And as is mentioned in the following article, a good reputation allows you to sell more at a higher price: "The value of reputation on eBay: a controlled experiment".