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July 3, 2003 New York Times article Opinions to Spare? Click Here The article goes on about how people are getting paid to participate in online surveys, which are becoming more economical for those looking to measure the pulse of public opinion about issues or products/services. Beyond the economics (data collection and analysis is automated, without transfer costs), the growth of online polling is also a response to the ongoing decline in response rates for other methods, like telephones and direct mail. Preserving privacy and fighting the ‘noise’ in our lives has reached a tipping point, to where it’s changing the behavior of marketers.

Driving the growth are the limitations of the old technology and the promise of the new. Everyone wants to know what’s on the consumer’s mind, but traditional survey methods have become more expensive and time-consuming. People beg off from face-to-face interviews and discard mail questionnaires as junk. Consumers often decline to respond to phone surveys as well, or pre-empt them with caller ID and other devices. (The new federal do-not-call list for telemarketing exempts telephone surveys and polls.) Moreover, cellphone numbers are not included in random surveys.

I worry about whose opinions get heard. If I use caller ID (I do) and aggressively avoid telephone surveys and polls (usually), and others like me do, too… how do our views and opinions get disseminated? How do we change the landscape, political and commercial, if we limit our willingness to share our beliefs and convictions (strongly held or otherwise)? I use “our,” “like me,” and “we” somewhat broadly, by design. I think I mean those who are technically savvy, who are making enough to cover more than the bare essentials (computers and caller ID and the like cost money… less all the time, fortunately), and who are ever more protective of their time and attention. This categorization crosses the political spectrum, which I’m grateful for… but I don’t know how evenly. I vote in every election, but so much of the representation that results from our representative democracy seems so unresponsive, even on the time-scales (years) of elections. So who continues to share their opinions in forums (unlike this blog) where aggregate results boil down to a pointer about which way to go? And, selfishly, do I agree with those opinions? Something to watch… this trend is not slowing down.

By the by, that parenthetical comment at the end of the quote above, that telephone surveys and polls are exempt from the new do-not-call list, is disappointing. Sounds like a large loophole to me.

I like this idea: a bicycle repairmain who makes housecalls. Found via Chuq, which I found via Scoble.

This merger of two RSS search engines happened nearly two weeks ago, but I missed it. I think Feedster was a one-man band: “Although Feedster admittedly started as a “Wouldn’t this be cool technology experiment”, Feedster is now a real business…” rssSearch, admittedly, wasn’t much bigger, but interesting to see an idea move from hobby to business in three-plus months!

The engineering staff and technology of rssSearch merged with the market appeal of Feedster to produce a stronger, more compelling product for the market. (from the press release)

Why my interest? I own the domain searchrss.com. I registered it a couple of months ago. I don’t really have the time or energy to do anything, but I’m interested, and still curious.

From a quick visit yesterday afternoon to the San Francisco Zoo, two giraffes (click thumbnail for full-size image). About time I added an image here, although it will be rare. When family goes home, I won’t have time for so much noodling around here.

Was pointed to this Amazon blog via Scripting News. Made me realize that Amazon, like Google, really is anonymous to outsiders. I don’t know if this is deliberate, and it is common at big companies, in general (including my own, to some extent), but it’s refreshing to get any look ‘inside the curtain’ at companies that everyone knows and uses. EBay would fit the same category. As Microsoft blogs spring up like wildflowers (or so Scoble’s linking would make one think, at least… maybe they’ve been there all along), the lack of voices at other companies — at least, internet/software companies — becomes more and more noticeable.

What’s hard for companies is that voices do not always match brand. While authentic personalities and voices can forge stronger connections between readers/consumers and the company in question, those same voices can annoy/offend. I expect for most companies the risk of opening up does not overcome the rewards of turning away potential customers. Bland = safe. And, to be fair, blogs, like the people who write them, are not necessarily consistent. Consistency is a good company attribute, especially for younger companies, which have not yet earned the lifelong trust of their customers.

I still don’t know if blogs strengthen businesses or not, but they do make life more interesting for us corporate voyeurs. 😉

Mark Johnson opines that Stephen Ambrose is the “Michael Jordan of historians“.

Since his comment system appears to be broken (but isn’t, I’ve learned, so my initial post is there twice — Mark, fyi), I’ll post my response right here:

Doesn’t the fact that Ambrose has done a bit of plagiarizing bother you? (one report of details)

Greatest historian of all time is not only too strong for Ambrose, but a travesty to many stronger writers, storytellers, and scholars given his penchant for borrowing the words of others. I’ve read only one Ambrose history, Nothing like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869, and it was a decent story, but it didn’t sing. It was a good survey that made me want to read the originals, but nothing more.

By not doing work work, I’ve caught up some with home stuff. At least, the stuff that was on my list, like updating the kids’ websites and finally upgrading to NetNewsWire from the Lite version. I’m on vacation, in name, anyway, so it should be more like this — although newborn != vacation. My sister Laura has now joined (briefly) the family visitors, which is great.

Chris Sells talks about Learning to Learn
I recently had to teach a tool I don’t use every day to others, and it was illuminating. (first post via NetNewsWire)
[Sells link found via The Scobleizer Weblog]

Oddly enough, there didn’t seem to be a map interface to the info. There is for each individual site, but not in aggregate.

Working to add GeoURL information to the site. If that works, then I’ll do the GeoTags equivalent. Why? Why not!