2001 UCLA Internet Census

Merry_B.Buck writes: "UCLA's Center for Communication Policy has finished its second annual survey on Internet usage. Some interesting claims: online shoppers believe prices are lower in brick-and-mortar stores, and experienced Interneters are less likely to use chatrooms, play games, and download music than their newbie counterparts. An unrelated report from Forrester Research claims that Internet newcomers tend to gather at LookSmart and MSN portals, while old-timers prefer InfoSpace and Yahoo. [I'm suspicious of both surveys -- neither had a Cowboy Neal option.]"

Comments

Proper Online Usage

[bonzoesc]

The link in my sig will help you optimize your online usage. It's helpful for exploring a larger portion of the Internet than normal.

Re:Proper Online Usage

[Anonymous Coward]

Click here if you need more time [alexchiu.com]

lol, isnt he the guy with the infinite youth machine or something? comedy page - brought hours of fun back at uni....

Re:Proper Online Usage

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, yes he is.

Re:Proper Online Usage

[Anonymous Coward]

Merry.B_Buck writes: "The university of UCLA, yesterday made an announcement at the new building in the Center for Communication Policy that it has finally finished the rest of the long awaited
second annual of the year 2001 survey about Internet and its usage.
Some interesting claims indeed have been put ahead by the people at UCLA. For example only a few of them: online shoppers actually believe that prices as well as connection costs are not lower in any way near brick-and-mortar stores, and unlike all inexperienced Interneters are more or less rather unlikely
to ill-use chatrooms, or play games, and download music and p0rn, or crapflood innocent little sites like slashdot.org and others than their newbie counterparts share the same will to learn and soon contribute their most beneficial efforts to it.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, a completely unrelated report which appears to come from Forrester Research Center, seriously claims that
Internet newcomers as well as the experienced Interneteers usually have a tention to gather at vairous random shaites, portals, MSN portals, while on the other hand old-timers as well as their new-commer counterparts usually prefer InfoSpace and Yahoo respectivelly (the latter). [Personally, I'm a bit suspicious of both surveys because neither of them two had a Cowboy Neal option. Ed,] "This is unbelievable" officials commented. "Is that a dream?" or "You remember when we were in Italy?" are some more comments made by the officials. "Did somebody actually sat down to write that?" and "what? can you repeat that please, I didn't hear your question sire" as well as "why???" and "But Census means 'hairy pussy' in korean" and similar comments attracted our interest during the announcement"
-1

Re:Proper Online Usage

[flufffy]

yes, the very same alex chiu who has been interviewed on slasdhot.

but no relative of gene ray.

ph1rst p0s1!

[Anonymous Coward]

see subject

Re:ph1rst p0s1!

[Anonymous Coward]

dammit

Re:ph1rst p0s1!

[Anonymous Coward]

bwahaha, no, its not :p

Lets make a law!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's make a law - all new surveys reqire cowboyneal.

who am i

[Anonymous Coward]

what

Price

[Jonathan]

Having a lower price isn't really the advantage of Internet shopping -- the point is that brick-and-mortar stores quite often don't have the products you want. I simply can't find the books, movies, or CDs I want to buy locally, so I buy on-line.

Re:Price

[ajuda]

I would argue that lower prices are found on the internet. It's a real hassle to comparison shop in lots of brick and mortar stores, but to check a couple of websites... piece of cake!

Re:Price

[Anonymous Coward]

Low prices are here, and you can't find this stuff in RL stores.

Re:Price

[Lars T.]

And on behalf of all the privacy paranoids out there: they don't know who bought what.

Re:Price

[spudnic]

I did almost all of my Christmas shopping at Amazon this year. I got in when they where doing their free shipping deal. It works out great for me because I was able to find items that I think people would like and I didn't have to spend hours (days?) stuck in some horrid mall. The prices are fairly competitive, and with the no tax/free shipping combo, it's hard to beat.

I had all of the presents wrapped and sent to my parent's house. It's much better than having to deal with bringing packages cross-country. When I go home for Christmas all of the presents from me will already be under the tree and I will have more time to spend doing other stuff.

.

I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[jcapell]

I used to use Yahoo exclusively until they started placing search results higher for pay. Now I use Google, and will until they start doing the same.

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[Microlith]

Guess who handle's Yahoo's search engine now?

Google!

Yahoo is more a directory in tandem with google, and they provide a ton of services that google (sanely) doesn't.

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[theancient2]

I used to be a fan of AltaVista, until Google came along. However, since Google wasn't so great with phrase handling, I still went back occasionally. That ended when I used AltaVista to find a list of songs on the Snatch soundtrack, and was greeted by two pages of paid advertising for... well, just don't try it at work. (Animations and everything.)

Try the same search on Google, and you get what you'd expect.

It's interesting to note that AltaVista's search engine did find the results I was looking for; however, this example illustrates quite well the problem with paid placement.

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[andrew.hill]

Yahoo is a portal. google is not. old timer?

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google _does_ do this. just try a search for online shopping

also try clicking on the "advertise with us" link.

This is the only way google gets money. At least yahoo has banner ads, so they don't do this as much (or maybe they do, and just have a higher profit margin than google).

-gunkaaa, too lazy to create an account.

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[aengblom]

Umm. Google does. It has "Sponsered Links".

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[jeremyf]

By 'old-timer' I'm pretty sure he meant 'senile' :-(

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[LMariachi]

Google's ads are clearly separate from the ranked search results. Hardly the same thing as, say, this.

Re:I'm an 'old-timer' and...

[muffen]

I think most people here qualify as 'old-timers'.

I don't think any searchengines would list slashdot.org high on their lists when searching for "illegal music" or "free porn", which I correctly asume is the only thing new internet users (didn't call them newbies) search for.

In any case, I don't think the study meant to show who uses what searchengine, but who uses which portal!

Niche Market

[kawaichan]

Online will always be serving the niche market, not the mainstream, I mean I rather drive down to the nearest futureshop to get my stuff rather ording it online and have to wait for it.

If oldies don't download music, p0rn, what do we do? paying 40 bucks a month just for slashdot?

I personally don't use any of those crappy portals, Google all the way!!!

Re:Niche Market

[Mr. Sketch]

paying 40 bucks a month just for slashdot?

Well, yeah. It's about the only site I really frequent while at home on my DSL connection.

But seriously, I typically use it for ftping ISOs of new linux distributions and CVS.

Re:Niche Market

[Tuzanor]

Future shop has got to be one of the worst places to buy anything. If you look even somewhat at any prices that aren't in thier flyers, and you'll see what a rip off they are. The sales people are all commission driven and nag and chip away at you. If i see a good deal on CD-Rs i'm usually asked by 2 or 3 people to get to buy a damn computer and they don't stop at using every dirty trick in the book to get a sale!
If you are buying a brand name product(like a logitech mouse or something) then you can't really go wrong if its cheaper there, but thier computers are SHIT. They are all integrated with some of the worst computer components out there. I've seen some fucked up mobo/CPU combos coming from computers from that store!

Re:Niche Market

[Kwil]

I'm the exact opposite. I'd rather order it from home and get it in two-three days than piss around with traffic, bad store layout, sales-drones, crowds, and out-of-stock goods.

I figure I not only gain the time that comes from avoiding all those things, I also add a few hours on to my life by avoiding the stress.

Plus, I don't impulse shop as much.

Charts?

[The Great Wakka]

One of the charts looks like this, I kid you not...

All of the different education levels rose in percentage from 2000 to 2001! Apparently in 2001 381.7% of people on the internet had some level of education... hmm...

Re:Charts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say that 80% have high school, 50% have college, 15% have a post-graduate degree. These three numbers are not mutually exclusive, you know.

Re:Charts?

[Anonymous Coward]

We know which non-mutually exclusive catagory he belongs in :)

MSN is only popular

[Starship Trooper]

because it's the default homepage for Internet Explorer, and as we all know, 90% of people don't bother to change their defaults. I wonder how many of those MSN hits are people who actually stay on the site, compared to those who just let IE load it up on startup then immediately go somewhere else.

Re:MSN is only popular

[HMC CS Major]

because it's the default homepage for Internet Explorer, and as we all know, 90% of people don't bother to change their defaults Unless you buy your computer from an OEM, such as HP, which sets their startup page to a yahoo based, but HP customized portal.

Re:MSN is only popular

[Anonymous Coward]

also, if you enter an address in the adress bar, IE will try to search for it first (at MSN) rather than just going there. You can disable address bar searching, but even then, you'll sometimes go to MSN.

Re:MSN is only popular

[Kwil]

Unless you buy your computer from an OEM,

Which lasts until the first time the user upgrades their IE, Office, or Windows version - at which point the homesite resets to MSN. I expect we'll be seeing MSN get a large bump in hits over the next six months or so.

Re:MSN is only popular

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you enter a non-properly formed URI.
If you enter 'slashdot.org', it'll search (by default), but if you enter 'http://slashdot.org' then it'll just hop to the site. A simple traffic sniff confirms this ;)

Re:MSN is only popular

[Josuah]

Whenever a student in CS150 here at UC Berkeley launches IE while logged into a lab computer, MSN's home page comes up. Of course, we immediately go to the CS150 home page, but the MSN page does pop up first. If you add that up for a few months, that's quite a few MSN page views that shouldn't really count.

And then, we had a Microsoft guy come to the last day of class to give out prizes to groups with the best projects. Hm...

Re:MSN is only popular

[RayChuang]

I respectfully disagree. :-)

You're forgetting that many online users do not default to the MSN home page due to the choice of ISP they use.

Remember, EarthLink/Mindspring users (that includes me) default to http://start.earthlink.net; AOL users default to http://www.aol.com; and other ISP's use their own selection of start pages.

Anyway, experienced 'Net users will choose their own choice of start pages or even start on a blank page (a pretty popular option for very experienced users).

yeah right

[vsync64]

online shoppers believe prices are lower in brick-and-mortar stores

Working in a brick-and-mortar store, let me just tell you:

HAHAHAHAHA!

We routinely sell items for at least twice the PriceWatch price. And people continue to buy from us.

Re:yeah right

[boopus]

While I agree that most of these "customers" are clueless, they aren't all clueless. Brick-and-mortar stores serve at least one purpose, that is nearly instant availablitiy. When I'm being payed $30 an hour and need something now, I'll pay the $35 they want for a NIC. Why? Because in the end it's a better deal.

Re:yeah right

[Pussy Is Money]

Yeah, tech stuff. Other stuff can be quite expensive, especially if you include s&h.

Re:yeah right

[jeremyf]

The prices on Pricewatch are routinely twice as much as from other places on the web, but people still seem to buy there too :-\

Re:yeah right

[vsync64]

Do you have URLs for these other places?

Re:yeah right

[jeremyf]

nah i was lying =(

survey techniques.

[Alien54]

somehow surveys that just ast what a person does without asking how they feel seems a little off base.

a better example is one I 've seen at radio free nation, where the current survey asks if you stongly support the war, or is it worried support, or relectant support, or conversly strongly oppose, or is it worries opposition, or reluctant oppsition.

There's a bunch of folks who think everyone's crazy!

This woould show soft the support for a position is. I can imagine a similar survey on the internet experience, Micorsoft, or Open source, or whatever.

How many people would have reluctant support of Microsoft, or are frustrated by their ISP?

more than one way to skin a cat.

Re:survey techniques.

[imrdkl]

I think most support delivery of justice (by 12 of us together in agreement, or by one very intelligent and wise Judge...) to criminals everywhere, whether they are terrorists, corporations, or governments.

And as to support? Well, for some issues, polls mean nothing until judgement day.

yahoo.leland.stanford.edu

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of miss the old days of yahoo.leland.stanford.edu, which later became this yahoo.com startup.

Also, one often wonders about slashdot users. Not only it is interesting to see if they've been online more than 3 years, but I'd like to know how long they've been using Linux and Windows. I hate making a pro-Windows comment like "in the last 4 years, I've found my Windows and Linux servers to be equally stable and fast", only to be flamed by a kid who has used Linux less than 6-months flame me for not knowing what I'm talking about.

Growth of the Internet itself

[bstadil]

These report is pure drivel. There is a very interesting report / Rebuttal from Odlyzko of University of Minnesota about the growth of the Internet itself. It seems that the numbers banted around is between 400% year and Zero. Second the makers of these reports can't do basic math.

Re:Growth of the Internet itself

[sam_handelman]

These report is pure drivel. There is a very interesting report / Rebuttal [umn.edu]from Odlyzko [umn.edu] of University of Minnesota about the growth of the Internet itself. It seems that the numbers banted around is between 400% year and Zero. Second the makers of these reports can't do basic math.

Odlyzko's rebuttal has nothing to do with either the UCLA or Forrester reports. It is a rebuttal of a report by caspian networks which is about traffic/bandwidth, the costs and revenues of IT firms generally, and not about personal usage patterns at all! Caspian networks actually states that interest in the internet is down (UCLA comes to the opposite conclusion) - although I think by this they mean internet shopping, which UCLA agrees is down. Odlyzko doesn't even address that part of the Caspian network's reprot, but is about Caspian's methods of measuring bandwidth usage on internet backbones (I agree with Odlyzko that they're flawed.)

Now, Caspian/Odlyzko are still both fascinating, but the previous post needs to be modded down as offtopic in the worst way.

Which is not to say that I don't have problems with UCLA's report.

The part of their own report which they think is most fascinating (UCLA, pg 18) is total nonsense. Of course people who've been using the internet for less than 1 year are more likely than people who've been using for more than 5 to play games/chat, and less likely to use the internet at work. They're more likely to be children and not have jobs!

Anyway, buried on page 59 of the report is an actually fascinating finding about children's behavior on-line. Children are 30% likely (compared to 10% or so generally) to think that it's easier to meet people on-line than in person. That's a fascinating trend, for those of us interested in how technology impacts human social interactions. It also means that some of those 14 year old girls I've been flirting with on-line probably aren't FBI agents.

Re:Growth of the Internet itself

[jeremyf]

Like the other guy said, your link has nothing to do with anything. How is this report drivel? Do you think the guys at UCLA made numbers up so that they could further their agenda of making the American populace believe that newer Internet users chat online more than vice versa? How devious...

Believe it or not, some non-Linux geeks are smart and know how to do statistics. Their downloadable report is obviously not a formal scientific article that would be published in a journal, and it probably didn't go through peer review. That doesn't mean it's a bad report.

pdf - bah humbug

[nodrip]

and they use a pdf instead of html. go figure.

Internet usage:

[Anonymous Coward]

Trollwave 2001 -- an endless space odyssey in time.

Trolling power inside your pants. Happy new troll year!

Troll network associates.

Just because you have a PHd

[rufusdufus]

doesnt mean you have a clue what you are talking about! These things are clearly confused, misleading, and just plain dead wrong.

Re:Just because you have a PHd

[Anonymous Coward]

"These things are clearly confused, misleading, and just plain dead wrong."

It's UCLA
What did you expect?

Re:Just because you have a PHd

[ThatComputerGuy]

And it's done by people from EUKLA! EUKLA! What good can it be if it's from EUKLA?!

(Just a little ribbing from the Cal Bears. Remember, a Bruin is a baby bear... now, who's yo daddy??)

Re:Just because you have a PHd

[theMacDude]

Yeah, but at least Stanford beat UCLA this year. ;-)

*Ouch, that was _way_ off-topic.!*

How we ran the census

[Anonymous Coward]

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pulpits button completion honors Ness jutting reliving forfeited industrials lockups Missoula rookie impart

check this out

[Transutus]

If you thought that was interesting, then you really need to read this.

Remember the Alamo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this is interesting:
The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around
larger stars visible from here) (founded 5,000,000 years
ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion
or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass
implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack
(Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos
(Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in
boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas
and there "packaged".

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading
data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.

When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people)
captured him after six years of battle and put him in an
electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone.
The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length
and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation
never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by
pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This
liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.

One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is
approached as precisely outlined. The "freewheel" (auto-
running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one
dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given
and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a
time.

In December 1967 I knew someone had to take the plunge. I did
and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only
one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data
now, but only that given here is needful.

One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself
or to the body.

One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident
I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good
auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any
preclear. Some large, some small.

Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary
error. Good luck.

Downloading music

[__past__]

Experienced net users are less likely to download music?

I think it's more likely that experienced users just create a pseudo-
newbie indentity on the fly, rather than waiting for a friendly
lawyer to speak with them about the advantages of Digital Rights
Management...

Re:Downloading music

[spudnic]

It would be interesting to see the -source- of downloaded music based on experience. How many new users even know that newsgroups exist? Or that you can find just about anything on irc? Or that irc isn't Instant Messanger?

.

Re:Downloading music

[Anonymous Coward]

Or worse yet, java-based single-site chatting.

Re:Downloading music

[jeremyf]

Ummm, this is a self-report semi-anonymous survey. Why would someone spend the time to create a false identity and lie on a volunteer survey? Not all experienced Internet users are paranoid crankheads (most, but not all)!

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if it was found experienced net users were less likely to download music.. all my friends who don't have computers always tried to find napster and download songs when they first got on my computer (or got one of their own). It's pretty cool to download a collection of 8gigs of songs on your hard drive, but after a while, most people realize they wasted many hours of their life doing this..

Re:Downloading music

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this marked as a troll? It seems a very valid comment

I chat on Yahoo! all the time.

[corr]

I chat in Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris:1 all the time on Yahoo! Chat.

good survey

[WildBeast]

it's true, as an experienced internet user, I don't use chatrooms nor download music. However I do play online games; not the browser based ones.

This will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

Santiago

manipulate

undaunted

ironical

bereavement

geometrician

inexperience

tractive

humidifier

Quezon

avalanche

forgivable

Sheila

repeats

indenture

presiding

quintillion

shrews

defective

Sophie

gilt

secret

reelected

antiseptic

accelerators

Oberlin

bearing

astonishing

Viking

Justinian

comfortable

replications

asteroids

buffs

deathbed

Cetus

logarithm

ranker

bearably

wringer

Hooverize

chained

fluorescent

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perturbations

contemplation

interpreted

atomizes

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splint

conferrer

Bayreuth

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quantify

distinguish

Metrecal

said

hawk

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upholder

wanders

Malone

anyhow

visualizes

abrades

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exercise

depleting

budgeting

cloudiness

coronet

Salish

spreaders

histories

differentiates

touchily

implemented

juggles

anal

internationally

femininity

Dana

Minos

chrysanthemum

violation

strikingly

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duels

miscalculation

propounded

dims

bronzes

replaces

damn

Budweisers

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mooning

glowers

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ruffles

organisms

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outcries

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mumbling

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Shelley

instantly

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mechanically

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dichotomize

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solicitous

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Danizes

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valence

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bobbin

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molar

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saddens

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groaner

unraveled

horrified

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Macaulay

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await

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amounting

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untidiness

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nasally

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Uzi

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Manhattan

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decomposition

Missy

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Floridian

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Lydia

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sympathizingly

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Blomquist

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coarseness

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dedicating

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Kanarese

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Emanuel

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sterilizes

subsidies

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systematizing

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Leon

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Birminghamize

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Ada

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Galilee

Re:This will never work

[dfeldman]

Brings new meaning to the term "dictionary attack," eh?

I knew I should have left my threshold at +1.

df

Re:This will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorist! Terrorist!

Those words could be used to guess people's passwords... and they have no commercial purpose...

The only reason to have a list of words like that is to hack!

Terrorist! Terrorist!

Re:This will never work

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you have to admit there's more information there than in the average Slashdot post...

Hey ...

[halftrack]

I know that prices are lower in Brick-And-Mortar stores.

Re:Hey ...

[Anonymous Coward]

blanket statements are always wrong.

interesting claims or obvious claims?

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't find it "interesting" that newbies use chat, music swapping, etc. more than old timers. the internet was hyped for that. Newbies get in, do that sort of stuff, overdose, then find better things to do (real world again) as they become experienced.

Old Timers vs. Newbies

[GreenHell]

*cough* *cough* I would like to point something out about this article vs. the item it points to, and I quote:

Some interesting claims: online shoppers believe prices are lower in brick-and-mortar stores, and experienced Interneters are less likely to use chatrooms, play games, and download music than their newbie counterparts.

While I haven't reached the stats on online shopping yet (at 95 pages, this thing is massive), but I would like to point out to the submitter of this article a few stats from one of the charts (new users (those less than one year) and very experienced users (five or more years in 2001) that is located on page 18):

1. Chatrooms:
   • New users: 6.5%
   • Experienced users: 1.6%
2. Games:
   • New Users: 5.7%
   • Experienced Users: 2.8%
3. Download Music:
   • New Users: 2.0%
   • Experienced Users: 2.8%

Now, last time I checked, 2.8% > 2.0%, so while, yes, newbies do play games and hang around chat rooms more (geez, they had to do a survey of that? I could have told them that), it seems that the 'old-timers' are (slightly) more likely to download music.

So let this be a lesson for you: Always make sure your facts are correct when submitting an article, it's a little less embarrasing.

Re:Old Timers vs. Newbies

[ThatComputerGuy]

Now, do you think by "chatrooms" they're including irc channels?

Seriously. I know damn well a lot of "experienced" people that are always on irc grabbing the latest mp3 packs or other warez on irc.

Taking that into account, I'm skeptical of the results for at least chatrooms.

Re:Old Timers vs. Newbies

[GreenHell]

And then, don't forget that this is as a percentage of time spent online, and seeing as people with 5 or more years online spend twice as much time online as people with less than one year online... so remember for the close ones, that means for sure that the experienced users spend more time, just not a larger percent of the time.

I'm not in the mood to work out the actual hours based on the percentages, but yeah, I know a few who've been online for years, and spend most of their time is spent hanging around irc.

Re:Old Timers vs. Newbies

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps experienced users are less likely to admit to downloading music? How do you know the difference between a marketer with a survey and a policeman with a survey who looks like a marketer?

Re:Old Timers vs. Newbies

[tomknight]

Hmm....

I suspect that the union of the sets of "New Users" who play games, visit chatrooms and download music is greater than a similar union of sets "Old Users", performing these activities.

In that respect, the statement "experienced Interneters are less likely to use chatrooms, play games, and download music than their newbie counterparts" looks to be valid. Let's face it, you're nit-picking, and that pettiness over 0.8% is pathetic.

If there's anything appalling about the statement you've taken exception to, it's the way that the noun "Internet" appears to have been made into a verb. Interneters, indeed....

Tom.

Re:Old Timers vs. Newbies

[GreenHell]

I take great pride in nitpicking, thank you very much... Anyways, if I really had wanted to get picky I could have pulled out the fact that this is a percentage of time spent online, and 'Veteran Users' spend slightly over 2x as much time online as newbies. Which means that the 0.8% actually represents a difference of a much higher magnitude.

Personally, the real reason I brought it up was all the people who started posting 'Yah, I spend much less time downloading music now than I did when I first got on the internet' (possibly because if they actually downloaded music 5 years ago, it probably took them a lot longer on their 28.8 and 14.4 modems) without having even looked at the article in question.

I'll pay that...

[Slurpee]

It sounds about right.

I'm not convinced online stores are cheaper. Often if you shop around you can get as cheap, or cheaper prices. Also, even when an online store is cheaper...once you add in postage etc, it often works out more expensive.

I still shop online though...its definately more conveniant!

Re:I'll pay that...

[mcplusplus]

When making expensive purchases, I've found online stores to be cheaper. 6 months ago I purchased an engagement ring from Mondera.com that was much cheaper than ones at jewelry stores, largely because there was no sales tax.

Seems fairly accurate

[beefstu01]

When I was a newbie, all I did was chain mail, chat, play games, and go to flashy sites. Now that I've been surfing the web for 7+ years, I tend to play fewer games, block span and chain mail, only use messanger from time to time, and use Yahoo for all my searches. I don't know about you, but I seem to fall right into the experienced web users groove.

Re:Seems fairly accurate

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW you're gay!

Re:Seems fairly accurate

[ferratus]

"...and go to flashy sites"

Ahhh...the good old time when "flashy" sites used to mean an HR tag, some cool javascript [heck, maybe a rollover effect in NS2] and PICTURES ! Yep, no more text-only web pages. Now we could have pictures. 1994-95...the year of the evil OS.

Ok, you're right....I may be pushing it a little. After all, was NS3 out back then ? What's really amusing is that look at most geocities web sites and they are STILL pretty much at that level.

Gotta love those pink background with animated gifs everywhere....

Portals?

[The Ape With No Name]

MSN

Looksmart

InfoSpace

Yahoo

Personally, my portal is Google for searching, Mutt and Sendmail for messaging, and /. for lameness....

Re:Portals?

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite portal is much better than those portals.

Re:Portals?

[Transutus]

But what about this?

Re:Portals?

[damiam]

My portal only works with Galeon. :-)

Re:Portals?

[spencerogden]

Tagert! Where's froggy?

Re:Niche Market - nah

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha, then maybe you should look at this. Anyway, I find shopping online to be much more useful than real store shopping if I don't need something right away. I think it will come into the mainstream as people get a little braver about the interweb. You can't argue with better prices and selection forever. And hey, there's always that shopping from your lazy arse thing. People are lazy, so lazy shopping methods can only attract more people.

Online shopping *can* be more expensive...

[bnavarro]

...If you have to pay for both sales tax AND shipping.

I have found living in California, where many of the e-tailers are, that having to pay CA sales tax (& sometimes even being forced to pay the higher Los Angeles city rate, even though I don't live there), and having to pay $2-$5 for Shipping & Handling per item, totally wipes out any online discount off of the retail price for a product.

See, B&M Stores do bulk shipping from major distributors, so the actual shipping cost is low enough to them so that they can "eat" the cost -- actually, the cost winds up being built into the retail price nicely for them (Plus, you pay the cost for the "final mile" shipping, by driving the merchandise to your house).

Online stores don't have that luxury. Their shipping costs are much higher. So they have to tack on the shipping costs, or lose a bundle, and go dot-bomb up.

I have no problem with this. But, when I am also forced to pay sales tax, the price of the product is likely to be un-competitive with the final B&M price, even though they have to charge sales tax too.

So every time I hear mom & pop stores and state governors whining about lost revenue to Internet sales, it really boils my pot. Because if they have their way, and ALL Internet sales are charged state sales tax regardless of point of origin (to say nothing if the govt. one day decides to levy a special federal level Internet tax on purchases), all online shopping will be un-competetive price wise, and nobody will buy anything online except for those hard-to-find items. And guess what, people? those hard-to-find items won't be there if companies can't make money off of common items as well!

Re:Online shopping *can* be more expensive...

[jandrese]

The trick is obviously not to live in CA. I live in the Northern Virginia area (in the "rich" suburbs of Reston) and the brick and mortar stores are almost always more expensive than ordering online (especially with Pricewatch scouring the net for low prices for me. The shipping costs are generally similar to what I would have to pay in sales tax. The worst part is that the shipping costs have gradually decreased over the years (adjusted for inflation) while the sales tax has increased. Still, if you are buy cheap items ($25-50 or so) you need to make sure the shipping isn't going to kill you, but how many people buy really cheap items online, or even comparison shop at the local brick and mortars? Most people I know just go down to wherever is convienent and pick it up. I'll probably never buy a standard NIC online because the local Best Buy sells nice Tulip based cards for $5-10. There's no point in really comparison shopping at that point.

Jews Had To Be Good For Something

[Anonymous Coward]

Alight I was reading a couple stories and I just decided to share this little
story about the time I hit it with a Jew girl using deception and cunning. LOL.
I mean it's not real hard to act like another person or make others believe you
are.

When I was a senior in high school last year not long before my 18th birthday I
was just cruising through school. After we changed classes at the end of second
semester I got into a class with this really hot girl named Cindy who I was
sitting by in the seating chart, well I knew from the first day I was gonna try
and hit it with this girl, but I didn't think it would be nearly as complicated
as it turned out. One day in class we had to pair up and do this project (it was
history class) and it was on the Cold War, well into the convo we started
talking about those Jew Rosenberg's selling the atom bomb and I said "well what
the hell do you expect for those fucking kikes?" and she looked at me and said
"what did you just say?" and I repeated myself and she said, "You ignorant
asshole I'm Jewish," and I looked at her and said, "Well sux to be you" and
started laughing. Well we didn't talk the rest of the project, I just let her do
the work then I guess to be a dick I acted like I was scratching my arm and
pulled up the sleeve to show my Neo-Nazi tattoo to her (I am a proud and loyal
NNLR member) and she said, "I can't believe I am sitting next to a Nazi," and I
was like, "I am unfortunately not a Nazi, I missed the good old days," and
started laughing and man was she pissed.

To go on, well we went through the next few weeks barely saying anything to each
other and me and A.J. (a fellow NNLR in my class) would sometimes say some shit
to her. Well it pissed her off enough to try and get her boyfriend after me so
he came up to my table and asked me about some shit and I ended fucking him up
in the lunch room, I mean it was a weak fight with some Jew-loving soccer player
against me a pure Aryan linebacker. LOL. I ended up getting 10 days out for
drawing blood and I just cruised through that easy as hell.

When I came back I ound out that sometime when I was gone she had broken up
with her boyfriend. I am not sure why, but it figures he gets his ass beat for
her and she dumps him later for something. Typical Jew. In class, she eyes me
when I sat down and didn't say anything to me, I started razzing her and was
like, "how's you boyfriend doing?" and she's like, "I am not going out with him
anymore but I am sure he's doing fine," and I said, "broke up with him after he
gets his ass beaten for you, that some kind of Hebrew thing?" and she said, "Oh
shut up you asshole, I am so tired of hearing you talk about that," and I razzed
her a little longer. Anyways, later in the month we had a project we had to do
out of class, and it had to be with my desk partner she was mad, but she's a
crazy A student and she asked me, "Well do you want to do the assignment at my
house or yours?" and I said, "Well I am not allowed to have Jews at my house"
and me and AJ started laughing, I was like, "Why don't you just do it?" and she
said, "'cause you're not getting an A for my work," so we ended up going to her
house well it's a typical Hebe home, with the 8 candle stuff and I knocked on
the door and her mom answered, "Hi, are you Luke?" and I was like, "In the
flesh," she said, "Come on in Cindy is in her room," and I looked around and saw
all this Jew stuff and I sort of scoffed, anyway I went to her room and she's
like, "Alright lets get started," and I was just looking around, "I don't think
I'll be able to concentrate in this Yid hol,e" and she's like, "Well then I'll
tell Mr. Deen that you didn't do anything," so I had to sit there and figure out
the project with her.

I wasn't really doing anything but nodding when she said something. While I was
sitting there I was scoping her and thinking what it would be like to get a
piece of Jew ass, I was thinking it the whole time I mean is there really
anything wrong with using one for sex? I mean not dating just fucking? and I
thought about that the whole time.

The night after I went home I was looking at my ceiling and thinking the whole
night on how to fuck Cindy, I was going over some ways and though well maybe
I'll be like in the movies and act like I changed and then after I fuck her,
just tell the bitch about it and break her little kick heart. LOL. I talked it
over with Tom, AJ, and Rob, they all wondered why I wanted to fuck the Jew, but
they knew she was hot and stuff. I decided to act like I didn't want to be a
NNLR anymore and have like AJ and them act like I changed in front of her. Not
to go into much detail, but it was a good plan to tap that ass.

At school the next day I went over to her and was like, "How you doing?" She
seemed a little surprised, "I'm alright," and then AJ walked by and we sorta
gave each other this fake little mean look that we made sure she noticed. She
was like, "Are you and AJ mad about something?" and I was like, "I don't know
he's a dick," she goes, "I thought you guys were good friends?" and I'm like,
"We were but the NNLR are starting to piss me off," and she's like "Is that so?"
and I'm like, "Yeah I am thinking about getting out," and she's like, "That's
good, maybe then you'll stop being such a prick." I wanted to say something but
I restrained and continued the charade.

It lasted much longer than that to her, and I'm not going to go into depth but
in the next few weeks I made it look like I had gotten out of the NNLR's and to
her I wasn't hanging out with them anymore well we had to do another project and
I was like, "Let's do it at my house" and she's like, "I thought you weren't
allowed to have Jewish people there?" I sorta gave a sad face and was like "I'm
not like that anymore," which she thought was true. That night I had to
rearrange my room take down all my party and NNLR emblems and stuff and I made a
great effort to make it look like a typical room. When she came over she was
like "Wow your house is nice," which it is since both my parents are business
workaholics and I'm like "Thanks, it's alright." Well we got into the project
and after it was done we started watching TV on the couch. We got into a deep
convo about the NNLR and I had to say some bad things that it was hard to say
and eventually when she was leaving I talked her into a date with me for
Saturday, I was gonna kiss her but I didn't really feel like pushing it since I
was hoping to get in those little kike panties this weekend anyway.

As the week went on we talked in class and stuff until she probably thought I
was a very tolerant ex-bigot that was pushed into joining the NNLR because of
bad parenting and a need for acceptance. LOL. Not bad huh?

As Saturday came along we went on our date and went to a real expensive place
and ate then we went to a movie, and we held hands and walked around the mall, I
could tell their was no way I was going to get in her pants on the first date
for some reason and I was a little pissed, but I figured it will come
eventually, the date ended that night after making plans for another and we went
into a french kiss in front of her house. She went inside and I wiped off my
mouth, damn I hated kissing the Jew, I just wanted to fuck her. LOL.

We had two more dates before anything real sexual happened and that was when we
were in my car outside her house after going to another expensive restaurant
(damn Jews) and she gave me a decent blowjob in the car. I came all in her mouth
and she swallowed every drop like a good Jew, we made plans for another date the
next weekend and I had the feeling I was finally going to fuck my Jew.

I picked her up and we went to see a movie, then after we went to eat and talk
and junk like that you gotta go through to get laid, I talked her into coming to
my house and I knew I was going to fuck her, well we got into it on the couch
and she gave me another decent blow job and again swallowed like a good Jew.
Then I got her into the bed by like fake tackling her after she stood up we
started laughing and she's like "stop it" and I undid the buttons on her shirt
and we started kissing. So much for stopping it, I got her bra off and sucked on
her tits, then got her jeans off and was about to pull off her panties and she's
like, "Stop it Luke!" and I stopped and looked up all sad faced like, "Why
what's wrong?" and she said, "I never had sex before."

I was rock hard, by the end of the sentence I had the opportunity to pop a Jew
girls cherry I started acting all nice like "Well I don't care if you're a
virgin you'll like it I promise," and she sat up and I kissed her and started
talking about never doing it and eventually I got her to lay down through some
good talking I might add and I took off her panties and finally got a glimpse of
her bush which was pretty fine I might add, I started thinking about a condom,
but then I was like are you stupid? Don't wear one, I mean she's probably not
even thinking about that, and pulled off my underwear and prepared to put it in,
then she asked about a condom and I said don't worry I'm sterile, LOL. I don't
know why she believed me but she didn't press the issue.

She looked a little scared but I wasn't really going to hurt her anyway in that
fashion 'cause I just wanted to fuck the kike bitch. I don't have a monster cock
like it seems everyone else in these stories have but I am very proud of my 7
incher and I led it to her very very tight pussy. I mean I had fucked tight
girls before but never a virgin, and I put it into her and she started like
sorta startled moaning and when I reached the hymen her face was all like all
closed up so I just rammed it in and busted the hymen, she screamed pretty loud,
but then I start inching it in and she was moaning sort of, well I continued the
pace figuring I'd fuck her again later and just went in and out till I came in
her. After I was done I looked at her and she was like all sweaty even worse
than me, and I don't know how much she enjoyed it, but she put her arm on me, I
fucked her again like 40 minutes later and this time I felt her orgasm, she
called her mom and said she was staying at a friend's, and then she fell asleep.

I laid on the bed thinking about how to show her that not only had I just used
her Jew body, but I was still a very loyal NNLR, so while she was sleeping I put
my room (which is my entire basement) like it was before that night she came for
the project, and I had my swastika flag over the bed and the Fuhrer and my SS
posters and stuff back up, and I even put my swastika screen saver on, then I
laid down next to her and dozed off.

I woke up the next morning before her when it was light and decided on another
thing to do so I left a note on the lampshade next to her all it said was
"Thanks for the easy fuck last night, I did enjoy it, when you wake up please
leave my room I don't want your Jewish bitch ass here longer than that. Claiming
NNLR 4 Life" LOL.

I sat in the living room and a little later I saw her walking on the side of our
house where the basement is onto the sidewalk to walk home and she was like
crying hard I mean like her face was so red. LOL. I loved it and the fact that
she lives a 10 minute drive from me and she had to walk all red and stuff home.

When I went to school on Monday I found out that she had asked Mr. Deen for a
new seat and talked him into it and I got to sit my AJ which was cool as hell. I
looked at her but she just sat there and didn't look back. I heard later from
friends she had to go through therapy and all this stuff and her Dad like almost
came after me with a gun when she got home that day, and I wish he would have
I'd have dropped his ass with my .45 as soon as he stepped foot on my property.

online == cheaper

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, brick and mortar just isn't cheaper for most things (especially hardware :D).
Have people acutally looked at some of these places?

Plus there's always eBay if you want something really cheap.

Summary got it wrong.

[vondo]

According to page 18, the very experienced users (more than 5 years online) are 40% MORE likely to download music. And about 1/4 as likely to use a chat room and 1/2 as likely to play games.

Of course, this is all as a percentage of time spent online, so if the very experienced spend more time online, all bets are off....

Am I the Only One

[SevenTowers]

who thinks that portals suck? What kind of experienced user uses a portal? I'm just curious as wether somebody can enlighten me on this. I'd think experienced users know what they are doing, meaning they go directly to the most relevant specialised site that gives them the info they are looking for at that point in time. Personally, google is my choice. Fast, reliable, popup and ad free, and it contains a link to absolutly everything I could want (or almost)... I'm interested to hear your thoughts on why anybody experienced should use a portal.

Re:Am I the Only One

[kozm]

I'm not entirely proud about it, but I do have Yahoo set as my portal with autologin from my laptop (my only hardware allowed to have MS installed on it).

A yahoo account is rather useful to me now, as it can accept incoming mail forwarded, as well as outgoing forwards. I've just finished school and though I used to have a server and get email at my own domain... I don't anymore. All my parents have is a lame ol' AOL account. Talk about deprived!! (dsl not avail). Anyway, I use the myYahoo page, since I can display my newest messages, some dumb movie listings, the latest on Osama, and my Yahoo! online dating responses (all them girls at yahoo suck anyway, btw) but it's moderately useful. Yahoo can also zap my cellphone when I have new mail with filters... although it's not 100% reliable.

Once I'm on my own again sure I'll have my linux box do the mailin' and alertin' and all... maybe I can even make the mailer forward urgents to my cellphone. but how practical is that for even *most* people that consider themselves experts??

a smart expert might just do what's convenient if he's in a hurry

Re:Am I the Only One

[}{avoc]

I just made my own portal*. Simple, fast, and gets me where I want to go without having to spend time typing URLs.

*By portal I mean HTML file with a bunch of grouped links.

Re:Am I the Only One

[Hal-9001]

all them girls at yahoo suck anyway, btw

Is that a bad thing? ;-p

Re:Am I the Only One

[bnavarro]

Portals are like the Yellow Pages of the Internet. They have categorized areas, and you generally have to ask to be included. Back in the Day at least (when Yahoo was the only game in town, and portaling was all they did), they made a decent alternative to search engines, which I have always equated with being the "white pages" of Internetland. If you want to find websites that fit into a known category, a portal can sometimes cut the wheat from the chaff better than a search engine can.

Search engines are great for specific lookups. For more generalized lookups, portals can sometimes be helpful.

Re:Am I the Only One

[Anonymous Coward]

I find google's directory very usefull for non specific searches and their newsgroup feature sure makes life easy.

Re:Am I the Only One

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much every nerd I know has their homepage set to google.co.uk - is that not a portal?

Superb!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an amazing job my fellow AC. Keep up the great work!

What about Pricewatch / Shopper / etc?

[Hobart]

Brick and mortar stores have cheaper prices than online, eh?

• I guess that
• these sites have
• a lot to learn
• about that then ;-)

How often do you use chatrooms? CowboyNeal!

[zztzed]

I'm suspicious of both surveys -- neither had a Cowboy Neal option.

Funny, that would actually give me more confidence in them.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your command of the English language is so terrible, I cannot understand what you're attempting to communicate.

Re:Proper Online Usage (deja vu)

[Anonymous Coward]

jbp123 asks: "So I am building a new house Ok ?. Dig this: Once the electrician person has already run through all the phone lines I want to run through the cat5e ethernet ring cable thing that came free with the cookies. Ok? So, I thing "what the heck?" anyway, just about then, I figure two of the drops to each one of the 6 rooms found hereinthere with PHONE lines. PHONE lines, for christs sake. Hahahaha. I've never before done this in my life, but my major plan is still to try and run through each one of the ethenet cables found here through the SAME path (hahahah) that the phone lines follow it. Again! So, I figure, "hey I'll just use up the remaining of the 1000Km foot spool by running a third cable to each and every of the rooms", Ok? Now, ethernet cable is generally cheap. Yeah, so I was told at least. But noooooo. I found a whole solid cat5e 1000Km foot spools for $60 with instant delivery at home so the decision to run cat5e cable is a big brainer. Do I run fiber? I really don't know anymore. For instance, how much the cable costs since I don't know what cable to use in the first place. The technician person is now in the WC (he's been there for an hour tho..) It is not so much easier to run cable behind the drywall goes in so I want to make an informed decision now. Ten years from now will I need/want the fiber ? What would you do if you were me? Did somebody actually sit down to write that? Why? "
-1

Who Did They Survey?

[Amerist]

How did this Internet surveys even get off of the ground? While MSN and Yahoo are certainly two of the most prominent search-engines around I myself still shun Yahoo because of its commercialism and MSN because I never know if I can trust the outcome of what I'm searching for.

Ever since I first discovered AltaVista I used it over Yahoo. Then, ever since I discovered Google I used it over Altavista. One would expect that as an Internet user "matured" they would move away from gaudy directory services and see the appeal of a less complex and more raw interface that brings them more direct information like Google.

I find it extremely hard to believe that Google didn't show up in the top two of "mature" Internet users.

(Of course being able to set my language to Gaelic on Google didn't hurt either.)

Amerist.

Re:Who Did They Survey?

[tupps]

Beind able to set the language to bork bork bork or elmer fudd is what makes google truely worth while!

Re:Who Did They Survey?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me tell you, MSN skews it's search results -- BIG TIME!

Why, just the other day I searched for "unixware" and "getksym". It came back with a single link that when accessed simply said, "Use of Unixware has been deprecated, please migrate to Windows XP to prevent obsolescence."

Re:Who Did They Survey?

[datatrash]

Of equal importance, perhaps, might be the question who did they survey who was not online? I would like to meet the person who gave the answer to the question "Why not online?" (p26) I found the information I needed, so I don?t need it anymore This man or woman must have tapped right into the godhead and accessed the answer to life, the universe and everything. I wonder what search engine they use?

Test

[Genghis Troll]

nt

Except..

[GiMP]

Many of your Joe-Windows-users likely said they were experienced.. Who decides the person's skill level? If they aren't chosen by the person being tested but rather by a selective approach.. what constitutes experienced? The testing for if someone is experienced or not could end up rigging the voting process. Anyway, this is probably answered on the webpage if only I bothered to read it.

I vote you must grok this to qualify as experienced :)

Re:Except..

[spudnic]

I'm assuming they could determine experience based on the number of years a user has had Internet connectivity and how much time they spend on the 'net in an average week.

.

wow is that true....

[tq_at_sju]

When i first really got involved with the internet i used those search engines because they are easily accesible (i.e. MSN is your default start page). In addition, in college I downloaded a lot more music in my free time while on the computer, and in my early days on the computer i visited chat rooms a lot more, I think the survey is at least on the money for me. What about the rest of you slashdotters?

Weasel words

[Pussy Is Money]

Not to disparage too much what you're saying, because there's a lot of truth to it, I can't help but observe that the addition of emotionally charged qualifiers such as those you've mentioned, also has a lot of drawbacks.

Were you to ask me if I supported the war or not, I would tell you that I support it. If you offer me the choice between whether I support it strongly or relucantly, I would be apprehensive about your motives in asking the question like that. Why do you want me to commit strongly or weakly?

The suggestion that comes to my mind is, "strongly" and "weakly" are weasel words that the surveyors can use to nudge the outcomes of the survey any way they like. For example if it proves beneficial to the surveyors to show that people are in some way divided in their support of the war, then it suffices for them to show that, even though the overwhelming majority of people supports the war, only (say) 10% does so strongly (considering that most people, when offered the choice between committing strongly or weakly, will commit weakly).

So all things considered, I'd prefer surveys to just ask people what you need to know. And leave the weasel words out of it.

Re:Weasel words

[Pussy Is Money]

Another way to put this, is that using words like "strongly" and "weakly" biases the survey to place disproportionate value onto what is fundamentally a rather arbitrary decision (do I support something strongly or weakly? But then what does either of these really mean? -> Whatever).

Reasons for use

[owenc]

The top reason for use according to the report is to get information quickly. The second was this "other" catagory.

pr0n hun?

akebono.stanford.edu

[Anonymous Coward]

come on, if you want to be a true yahoo geezer, you have to reference jerry's sumo site on akebono. that's where it all started - the guy started collecting sumo links.

Cowboy neal conspiracy

[vax]

perhaps this is another chapter in the governments plot to throw out cowboy neal options everywhere.. !break out the tin foil and start wrappin fellahs"!
VAX

.

Thou shalt not criticise Slashdot

[Sanity]

It has been noted that you criticise Slashdot in your post. You are clearly not aware that the purpose of Slashdot is to spread criticism of Microsoft, it is not intended to spread criticism of projects considered cool by the majority of readers, and it is definitely not permitted to criticise Slashdot itself.

Take note in future, any posting which expresses an opinion other than that held by the majority of Slashdot readers will be moderated down as "Flamebait" or "Troll". We don't want any debating on our website!

How to Spin Surveys

[Alien54]

The suggestion that comes to my mind is, "strongly" and "weakly" are weasel words that the surveyors can use to nudge the outcomes of the survey any way they like.

Mosty professional surveys by politcal consultants do that anyhow, by prefixing the survey question with biased viewpoints.

For Example:

1. Are you in favor of Advancing Technology?
2. Are you in favor of Innovation?
3. Are you in favor of Making Computers Easier to Use?
4. Would you consider supporting Microsoft if I told you that Microsoft was a Leader in Innovation, Advancing Technology, and Making Computers Easier to Use?

You would? Could you sign this petition?

End result: Most People support Microsft for being a Leader in Innovation, for Advancing Technology, and Making Computers Easier to Use

You can see how the biase was applied. you list out all the good things that people agree with, then align your candidate, product, company etc with the desired characteristics. This is far more complex then finding out how people really feel about something. But most posters are truly clueless about reading human emotion, and so you use a simply list.

For example "Strongly supporting the war " covers a world of sins, including Strongly supporting with an Evil Laff, or with Anger, or with Pain, or with Joy (happy to go to war) or what ever.

So it really depends on what the purpose of the survey is. Simply put while a majority of Americans do support the war, many do so with some kind of second thoughts. It is definitely not "Rah Rah Rah!" for this whole thing.

While surveys should ask what you "need to know", what you think you need to know, and what you really need to know often differ. To say that 90% of the people support the war is misleading if you do not know that many people have reservation, and will cut someone to ribbons when they start to really screw up.

Re:How to Spin Surveys

[Pussy Is Money]

Yes, but we weren't discussing this kind of "leading the witness" spinmeisterschaft, characterized by the suggestive nouns you mentioned.

This is about offering people an arbitrary (because the cost is nil) choice, then inferring from that what they will do if the cost is non-nil.

The point is that a wealthy person who declares only a weak commitment might (through taxes) end up being a much stronger supporter of the war effort then a poor person declaring a strong commitment.

Everybody is a strong supporter of environmentally friendly products as long as they don't end up paying for it.

Re:How to Spin Surveys

[Alien54]

This is about offering people an arbitrary (because the cost is nil) choice, then inferring from that what they will do if the cost is non-nil.

Well then the survey question would have to account for the circumstances, such as "if Bin Laden had killed your Significant Other, would you support the war?" Which is somewhat difficult to gauge as far as the validity of the result goes.

The actual effective support of the war via taxes verse the support vs votes and expressed opinions are mixing two classes of support. And the amount of opposition of needed to actually withhold payment of your taxes in opposition to a war is great indeed. Most people pay their taxes.

So the only way to conduct a survey that would satisfy your conditions would be to put people under an actual test. This could be considered cruel, given how many people are simply supported by social mechanisms, and would have a hard time without them.

From the questions, note that they do not ask people what they would do, but how they feel.

which is not invalid.

Re:How to Spin Surveys

[Pussy Is Money]

Well, you just can't solve unsolvable problems. If you cannot do a test because it is not practical to do so, then the solution is not to keep changing the test until you arrive at something practical, but simply to accept that the subject is basically untestable.

It is quite valid to ask people how they feel about something. Whether it is relevant how people feel, or to what extent their feelings affect their behaviour is quite another matter.

Do experienced users answer surveys.

[n-baxley]

I wonder how much these studies were skewed by the fact that most very experienced Internet users stopped filling out surveys years ago. They're either too busy, too paranoid, or have burned too many times by "surveys". How many of the people here would have contributed to this survey if asked. I'm sure somewhere in these 95 pages it talks about this, or at least gives the numer of experienced vs newbies, but I didn't read it all the way through. Will there ever be a poll that accuratly shows what experienced users do?

Forrester's logic is confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Forrester claims that Looksmart is "the most popular among novices", but they really mean that it has the lowest average years of experience per user (read: users leave ASAP). That's because LS is mainly distributed through ISP's' installed-with-browser homepages, a la MSN. The upshot of this tactic is a miniscule 2% reach, as the report states, *not* a number one rating in any sense of the word.

LS itself has no interest in having users at all any more (honestly, the CEO said this). They now envision themselves as the middleman in paid listings, but that's another sad story.

-- an insider

Looks hit-or-miss to me...

[ncc74656]

experienced Interneters are less likely to use chatrooms, play games, and download music than their newbie counterparts

I can buy two out of three...I had my fill of IRC eons ago and I've never been much of a game player (online or off). I'm not so sure that J. Random Newbie would know where to go looking for music, though; your average AOLer won't want to tie up his phone line for hours to download an album (assuming that his connection doesn't get dropped halfway through each file). MP3 downloaders usually have fat pipes available to them; your average new user won't want to fork over the extra $$$ for cable or DSL at first.

An unrelated report from Forrester Research claims that Internet newcomers tend to gather at LookSmart and MSN portals, while old-timers prefer InfoSpace and Yahoo.

My homepage is set to about:blank, the CowboyNeal of portals. :-) Their idea of an old-timer must be like Las Vegas' idea of an old-timer (if you've lived here at least two years, you're considered to have lived here forever). Real old-timers don't fart around with portals...if you have a homepage set at all, it's something useful like Google.

All right...

[da5idnetlimit.com]

As you said, all "the presents from me" will be there.

And where are the presents FOR me ? 8)