Here are some facts about the use of user reviews that come from a presentation I heard recently from Patti Evans of JupiterResearch.

1) Customers are about twice as likely to write user reviews about good shopping experiences than bad ones. Likewise they are twice as likely to write user reviews about products they like than products they do not like. This is good news for retailers and should help alleviate fears about user reviewers hurting sales.

2) Customers that write user reviews likely spend much more money online. The 20% of online shoppers that write the most reviews account for 32% of total online spending.

3) Almost 50% of online shoppers find user reviews helpful. That 50% spends more online than the other 50%.

Ah, yes. Pilgrim’s Picks for when you find a news story that you can’t quite figure out how to expand it to 300 words.

Here’s the “almost made it” list for this morning:

• Mashable is impressed with Digg co-founder’s new project Pownce. It’s a mixture of Twitter, chat and file sharing. An invite would be welcomed.
• Remember Feedster? Of course you do, the site that once was the go to place for blog news. No? Well anyway, it’s back, with a fresh look and cool gadgets.
• Google’s losing employees and gaining them too!

There’s lots more over at the Marketing Pilgrim Link blog. Here’s a sample of what you’re missing: