Inexpensive, super-portable, and (importantly!) low-cost netbooks might be one bright spot in PC sales in the current global economic downturn, but market analysis firm Biz360 finds consumers don’t seem to be all that thrilled with the low-end notebooks—at least if online reviews and social media postings are any indication. Biz360 pointed its automated Opinion Insights tool at social media Web sites and online product reviews to get a sense of how consumers are responding to netbooks. The results? So-called "net advocacy" for netbooks—Biz260’s measure of the general online buzz for a product or brand—is about 40 percent lower than net advocacy for all notebook products. Furthermore, while raw performance seems to be the most important factor in evaluating a notebook computer, performance reviews of netbooks are predominantly negative.
