I've just realised something today - something that has been a trend that's sneaked up on me over the last couple of years and to my mind (at least) it marks a changing behaviour about how I buy things. It would probably be more accurate to say it marks a changing behaviour about how I find things to buy.

The traditional thing (which I and all of us do) is to want something and we go out and find it on the internet, choose the best for our purpose and budget and buy it from whoever came up lucky in the search engine stakes. Or Amazon. Or Ebay.

In the good old days, we'd wander around the physical shops to find something new, but I rarely do that now.

I don't read newspapers much, nor magazines. Much of what I want in life doesn't appear on TV advertising.

I've realised that my main source of buying inspiration is coming from three places. Amazon. Ebay and blogs of one kind or another.

Virtually all my new software purchases has come from a blog mentioning the product.

It's really sneaked up on me how blogs and even kickstarter are introducing me to NEW products in particular and fuelling the ability for small companies to gain traction without massive advertising dollars.

It made me wonder when I ever saw a blog mentioning Xara products and I don't think I ever have.

I realise that the blog world is rapidly being infiltrated by established advertising players, but I like the way that Blogs are still the route to getting the message out there without massive money changing hands, or even any money.

Another trend I've noticed is 'favour me and I'll favour you' kind of selling - often through blogs with someone selling training, for example, mentioning another training product at a discount, often with the favour returned later.

It's amazing how fast this landscape is mutating. SEO is just so old black hat these days..

I can't help but feel Xara is losing out in this new 2015 landscape.