Slashdot Mirror

This is not new and pioneering technology. There are companies that take similar surveys for market research purposes. Have you ever been asked to take a survey at a mall? Have you ever been at a bar when a beautiful woman with a tablet computer asks you to take a survey about cigarettes? I have. The Government is wasting billions of dollars to develop technology that has existed for years.

Why doesn't the government just outsource the whole census to a market research company and be done with it?

Look at the general population at wal-mart

If I look from here (Europe), that is much the same as if I look at the entire US-population (Quote: "While the Wal-Mart banner has 83% of total U.S. household penetration, ...).

CC.

Nielsen make their money conducting market research surveys.

Actually it is.

Many of the sales made at places like Wal-Mart are made there by people other the person who is going to actually play the game. Like parents grandparents or other people looking for a gift. The Wal-Mart market is primarily not made of gamers.

This market is not filled with informed buyers. These people are not reading review and watching preview to decide what they buy. They are not making a purchase based off of what they want they are making it off of what looks good. If your game is not there, they don't go to another store; they pick up someone else's game.

Granted this is not all of the purchases but I would bet that it is the main share. According to ACNielsen only 13% of Wal-Mart shoppers actually shop there because of what they carry. Primarily the rest are there because of convenient location and prices/deals.

Source:
http://www2.acnielsen.com/pubs/2004_q1_ci_walmart. shtml

And it's not like Nielsen doesn't track this type of data for thousands of other products, not just beer. Looks like anheuser-busch is just keeping track of the data themselves, instead of paying someone else to do it, which everyone has been doing for decades.

I found it interesting that Mr. Kyanka just tossed in:

Every attempt to collect data on visitors has resulted in a media backlash, comparing networks to a Orwellian "Big Brother" and claiming viewers' rights had been violated.

Examine the situation in terms of TV's demographic knowledge, however: TV gets that knowledge by inviting households to allow their TV habits to be monitored---allowed explicitly. Does Mr. Kyanka think TV should simply do what web-based advertisers want to do: instrument the system so they know who's watching what programs at all times for all people. That would get some backlash for you!

Maybe, just maybe, web advertisers could take a clue from the other Neilsen in play here, and ask people to sign up for monitored surfing for a limited period. I suspect you'd get many folks willing to do so, and no cries of pain from people who think their surfing habits are nobody's business but their own.