New York - The volume of blog post chatter about a new album can significantly affect future sales, and in turn predict sales for record labels, according to a new study co-authored by NYU Stern professor Vasant Dhar and former student Elaine Chang. The study found that, when legitimate blog posts exceeded a threshold of 40 before an album's release, sales were three times the average, and increased five-fold if the album was associated with a major record label.