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The questions are usually structured and standardized. The structure is intended to reduce bias (see questionnaire construction). For example, questions should be ordered in such a way that a question does not influence the response to subsequent questions. Surveys are standardized to ensure reliability, generalizability, and validity (see quantitative marketing research). Every respondent should be presented with the same questions and in the same order as other respondents.

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26m Americans Now Cellphone Only Homes

Twenty-six million American adults now shun landlines in favour of cellphones, and the figure is rising faster than ever, a new survey says.

The percentage of American adults in cellphone-only homes shot up from 7.7% to 11.8% between 2005 and 2006, according to the National Health Interview Survey. The rise is a concern for researchers, who rely largely on landline numbers to conduct phone surveys.

Over the past four years, the percentage of households with no phone at all has held steady at around 2%, but the number of people using only cellphones has more than quadrupled, so that one in seven adults is now without a landline.

» Pew Research Center [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the End of 2011

By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a "second life," but not necessarily in Second Life. "The collaborative and community-related aspects of these environments will dominate in the future, and significant transaction-based commercial opportunities will be limited to niche areas, which have yet to be clearly identified." "However, the majority of active Internet users and major enterprises will find value in participating in this area in the coming years."

» Gartner [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Survey: Second Life residents are in favour of brands

CB News in partnership with Repères presents an opinion poll conducted among 1085 Second Life residents on their perception of Real Life brands in this universe.

The main thing learnt from the poll was that the presence of RL brands is perceived as positive by a great majority of Second Life residents: 66% believe that the presence of RL brands has a positive impact on SL, whereas 22% believe that RL brands have no impact on SL, and only 11% believe that RL brands have a negative impact on SL. Therefore there is no evidence of any overexposure effect or rejection. On the contrary, the avatars are looking forward to the presence of brands (45% of respondents even want more brands) because they enhance and give more credibility to Second Life:

- they give realism and substance to SL by establishing a link with Real Life,
- they make SL more interesting by increasing the number of residents and thus contribute to a greater permanence of this universe.

On the contrary, the main obstacles have more to do with the fear of spoiling the universe, by being too close to real life or too commercial.

[ PDF ] view document » f.abiven [ Contribute: submit link / submit article / submit company ]

Bear Stearns analysts: Online video a 'powerful application'

Citing a new survey analyzing the online video consumption habits of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers, analyst Spencer Wang said Friday that online video is "a powerful new application" that is best consumed on a single site with many choices.

According to their research, 57% of respondents watch video online, with 30% streaming content at least once a week. Males age 18-24 are the group most likely to watch content online, with 62% streaming videos at least once a week.

Although many users prefer online video with no ads, 48% of all respondents and 67% of males 18-34 said their preference for monetization of the platform would be a free ad-supported service with 10- to 15-second commercials. Only 4% said they prefer paying $1.99 per video, and 3% answered that they would like a $14.99 subscription to a service.

A central site for videos was important to consumers, with 56% of all respondents and 69% of males 18-34 preferring that option to different sites. According to the survey, with 42% of all respondents and 72% of males 18-34 report that they use YouTube.

Wang and Bear Stearns analyst Robert Peck stressed that YouTube remains the "behemoth" of the online video space, and they do not see any serious competitors at this time. Peck agreed with Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt's assertion last month at a Bear Stearns conference that "you tend to see power consolidated in a market leader." For now, Peck said, YouTube remains that market leader, "far and away."

Wang said that News Corp.'s MySpace could emerge as a potential competitor in this space. The "entertainment companies," though, are too slow and bureaucratic at the moment to compete in this platform, he said.

Teens Actually Do Protect Their Online Profiles

"A study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals that the majority of teens pay attention to what they are revealing about themselves in their online social profiles. Some 55% of online teens have profiles and most of them restrict access to their profile in some way. Of those with profiles, 66% say their profile is not visible to all internet users. Of those whose profile can be accessed by anyone online, nearly half (46%) say they give at least some false information. Teens post fake information to protect themselves and also to be playful or silly. From the article: 'According to Pew, 45 percent of online teens do not have profiles at all, a figure that contradicts widespread perceptions that the nation's youths are continually on MySpace.'"

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A Cambridge company that pays doctors to post medical observations on its website, including reports of drug side effects, has quickly incurred the wrath of pharmaceutical makers.

Sermo Inc., founded by a surgical resident-turned-entrepreneur and backed by $3 million of venture capital, is promoting the website, sermo.com, as a novel Internet community. It's a password-protected private forum where raw postings by doctors can be viewed, for a fee, by Wall Street investment firms.

With its debut two weeks ago, the Sermo site generated debate by prominently featuring postings from several doctors saying that Pfizer Inc.'s cholesterol-fighter Lipitor induces vivid and repeated nightmares in some patients as well as a posting by one doctor that said the diabetes drug Byetta, marketed jointly by Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly and Co. , was associated with "sudden death" in 50 patients.
Via: Boston Globe
Via: Sermo

Simple Survey Structure and Standardization

In organizational development, carefully constructed survey instruments are often used as the basis for data gathering, organizational diagnosis, and subsequent action planning. Some OD practitioners (e.g. Fred Nickols) even consider survey guided development as the sine qua non of OD.

Advantages of Surveys The advantages include:

• It is an efficient way of collecting information from a large number of respondents. Very large samples are possible. Statistical techniques can be used to determine validity, reliability, and statistical significance. 
• Surveys are flexible in the sense that a wide range of information can be collected. They can be used to study attitudes, values, beliefs, and past behaviours. 
• Because they are standardized, they are relatively free from several types of errors. 
• They are relatively easy to administer. 
• There is an economy in data collection due to the focus provided by standardized questions. Only questions of interest to the researcher are asked, recorded, codified, and analyzed. Time and money is not spent on tangential questions.

Disadvantages of Surveys The disadvantages include:

• They depend on subjects’ motivation, honesty, memory, and ability to respond. Subjects may not be aware of their reasons for any given action. They may have forgotten their reasons. They may not be motivated to give accurate answers, in fact, they may be motivated to give answers that present themselves in a favorable light. 
• Surveys are not appropriate for studying complex social phenomena. The individual is not the best unit of analysis in these cases. Surveys do not give a full sense of social processes and the analysis seems superficial. 
• Structured surveys, particularly those with closed ended questions, may have low validity when researching affective variables. 
• Survey samples are usually self-selected, and therefore non-probability samples from which the characteristics of the population sampled cannot be inferred.

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Online Simple Surveys

• can use web or e-mail  
• - web is preferred over e-mail because interactive HTML forms can be used 
• response rates sometimes 90% before 2000, but have been dropping fast since then (now 2% - 30%) 
• often inexpensive to administer 
• very fast results 
• easy to modify 
• response rates can be improved by using panels - members of the panel have agreed to participate 
• if not password-protected, easy to manipulate by completing multiple times to skew results

Tactics used to increase response rates

• brevity - single page if possible 
• financial incentives  
• - prepaid in advance 
• - paid at completion 
• non-monetary incentives  
• - commodity giveaways (pens, notepads) 
• - entry into a lottery, draw or contest 
• - discount coupons 
• foot-in-the-door techniques - start with a small inconsequential request 
• personalization of the request - address specific individuals 
• follow-up requests - multiple requests 
• claimed affiliation with universities, research institutions, or charities 
• emotional appeals 
• bids for sympathy

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