A tale of three types of cheating. If you are going to fudge the numbers, you’d better be very clever. Last December’s Annual Year in Ideas issue of the New York Times magazine included an idea titled “Forensic Polling Analysis” describing how Nate Silver analyzed results published by a polling firm called Strategic Vision. Silver decided to take a look at the results because Strategic Vision had been censured by the American Association for Public Opinion [...]

The press release for a study by Mintel, a world-wide market research firm, states that "people still prefer real-life recommendations to online". The study was intended to test the idea that real-world referrals are still more important than those received online.  Mintel's results show that only 5% of people buy based on suggestions from bloggers or chatrooms, while over 5 times as many buy on recommendations from friends, relatives, and spouses or partners.

I don't [...]

Professional secrets for do-it-yourself surveys In this half-day interactive training class, attendees will learn: How to increase the number of people who open and respond to your survey How to reduce the number of people abandoning your survey How to ask the right questions for your business issues and get useful answers If you are already running your own online surveys you know that there are lots of reasons to survey, from [...]

Proctor and Gamble UK has been forced to pull a TV ad due to misleading claims based on a poorly designed survey.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority felt that the survey results were too likely to biased by the invitation process, which included providing free samples of Clairol Nice 'n' Easy (the advertised product) prior to the survey and a entry in a drawing for a photo shoot in New York. The ASA also felt that surveys might have been completed by [...]

Sunday's New York Times Magazine has an article about a new program being introduced by the Hyatt hotel chain intended to stimulate real loyalty in the form of future business through gratitude generated by generous acts such as having [...]

A couple of interesting studies relating on newspaper issues have recently come across my screen.  Combine with continuing speculation on how long the Seattle Times will last, and the segment on the Daily Show about the New York Times last week, it's time to share.

The Pew Internet and American Life study on online classifieds contains no big surprises.  Use of [...]

SurveyMonkey is being acquired by an investor group.  Dave Goldberg, who previously led Yahoo's music business, will take over as CEO, but founders Ryan (current CEO) and Chris Finley will remain with the company according to the [...]