Mario Menti of msurveys.com recently posted a note on his blog describing how easy it was to create a survey, solicit responses, and then compensate the respondents in SecondLife. A very interesting, unique and possibily even useful experiment to be sure.

Second Life is a virtual community much like a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) such as World of Warcraft, Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies except that instead of fighting monsters and completing quests your objective is…well…there isn’t really one. You buy property, meet people, simply fly around or create things. In fact, using the basic building blocks provided by the software you can create just about anything if you have enough patience and skill.

While most people build digital representations of physical things (like buildings, sculptures or stargates). Mario used his time and skill to create an online survey. In fact, he even set it up so that individuals who finish the survey are rewarded with in-game money.

Think about this in context with the recent findings of the Pew Internet & American Life project, where 52% of a broad-based, national sample agreed with the following:

"By the year 2020, virtual reality on the internet will come to allow more productivity from most people in technologically-savvy communities than working in the "real world." But the attractive nature of virtual-reality worlds will also lead to serious addiction problems for many, as we lose people to alternative realities."

The entire report (entitled "The Future of the Internet II") is fascinating and contains a number of interesting predictions for the future (along with what people thinking of them). Definitely worth a read.

I love Mario’s experiment. And while it is probably true that it is just a little too early to jump on this technological bandwagon (unless you’re trying to do a survey about virtual communities and the people who use them, it is probably going to be difficult to come up with a sample that is relevant to your research questions) I think the time won’t be so far off when data collected in environments such as Second Life is the norm.

Read about Mario’s Second Life survey experience on his blog.
Watch a video of someone completing the Second Life survey.

Roy Poynter of The Future Place has posted a fascinating, thoughtful note about a session he led at a recent meeting of the World Association of Research Professionals (ESOMAR) in which the topic of discussion was the degree to which marketing research is being changed by the Internet. I won’t rehash the entire post here (it is eloquently written and worth the few minutes it will take to read) but I think it is worth identifying a few highlights.

First point: the fact that surveys are easier to conduct and that people are participating in more surveys doesn’t necessarily mean that the resulting data is less valid. I agree. In my experience, while it is of course necessary to think about the questions you are asking in the context of the respondent base you are using (whether a rented panel or your own in-house list), there is no reason to think that the results you get from an online survey will be any more biased than the results you get from calling those same people on the phone or visiting them at their homes.

Second point: Shorter time lines caused to some degree by the availability of quick data collection capabilities, easy to use tools, and smaller research budgets may be leading to less time spent on thoughtful analysis. While this is certainly possible in some environments, I would argue that this doesn’t always have to be the case and that the same tools that are making things so quick and easy may be eliminating much of the grunt work and leaving more time for analysis. Plus, as we move forward, better analysis tools will do even more of the work leaving more time for thinking.

There is more: such as a discussion about the role of online panels, the growth of outsourcing and what marketing research will look like in the "Web 2.0 era" (Research 2.0).

One last point that I thought was especially thought-provoking:

"A key conclusion of the session was that Research 2.0 will need new skills and a greater understanding of how people are taking over the Internet. It was also clearly understood that any researcher who wishes to be competent at Research 2.0 will need to master conventional research."

Read Ray’s full post and view the slide show.

Read a summary of the event at mrweb.com