Personally, and I realize I am unusual in this respect, I've never read anybody's blog. When I shop online, which is where I do almost all of my shopping, I read the reviews on the site for a product or products I'm interested in. To me that's a much more useful and trustworthy approach than linking to a blog.
Just can agree... I never have read a blog just to make a buying decision. Blogs are surely fine as a way of distributing whitepapers (and therefore also important for SEO), but I don't think that they play a big role when it comes to product recommendations.