Google and the Kay Feller Group released a report earlier this month on how reliant brands remain on conversation.  The authors title the report "Word of Mouth and the Internet," and they find that most Word of Mouth conversations are still conducted the old fashioned way--face to face.  But the Internet is vital to brand impressions in those conversations.  It is the primary source of information for those conversations, surpassing television and other forms of news media. It is also where people turn for information following up a word of mouth conversation.  And for the moment, according to this Google funded study, search still dominates social media as the place people are getting most of their information.

You can read the report here, and watch the following video for a good summary of the findings: