

Instant Reaction to Paul Ryan at the RNC (via Google Consumer Surveys) - sadow
http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=aj5x3nhprnuvm&question=7&filter&rw=1y=aj5x3nhprnuvm&question=7&filter&rw=1

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rauljara
So, this is the first I've heard of Google Surveys. Here is Google's
information on them: <http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/how>

From what I was able to gather, they only ask a participant a single question
in exchange to be able to access some premium content. Because it's just one
question, they don't ask you demographic information. That what those
"inferred age/gender" things are. Google gives a best guess as to what your
demographics are based on other information they've collected about you.

The fact that its google's guess about demographics + only data from people
actively seeking to avoid paying for premium content biases the results
somewhat. I'm not entirely clear what the premium content is, but if the
content consistently appeals to one type of person over another, it would
definitely be a source of bias. Google's guess about your demographics
probably just increases the error a little bit, but I'd be surprised if it
consistently skewed the results in one direction or another.

So, not a perfect scientific survey, but miles above most web based surveys
out there.

But intellectual concerns about accuracy aside, my initial emotional reaction
is one of terror at google's apparent omniscience. I mean, I already knew they
know a lot about us, but this is pretty visceral reminder, complete with very
pretty charts.

The use that's presented here is fine. Data in aggregate is fine. But there
are questions that advertisers could ask that would be much more valuable to
them if they knew who answered which question what way. Google could make a
ton of money passing on the emails of people who answered questions in a way
that makes clear that they'd be likely potential customers. They'd make more
money selling other information along side the emails. Information about
things like political leanings, sexual orientation, health concerns, if not
already in google's database couldn't be too far away. Target already has a
system for determining if a woman is pregnant:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.html?pagewanted=all)

Can google resist the temptation of selling that oh so valuable information? I
really hope so.

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nickadams
Good stuff. At first glance, it certainly seems to match up with the fairly
standard post-convention bump -- usually about 4%.

For a really impressive data dig, check out this recent Nate Silver article:
[http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/measurin...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/measuring-
a-convention-bounce/)

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sagarm
It's pretty cool that this data can be so easily collected and shared. Some
results:

\- Gender: Women were less impressed by Ryan's speech

\- Age: the 35-44 and 65+ segments really liked Ryan's speech; 18-34 were
unimpressed.

\- Geography: slightly better response in the South and West

\- Urban density: Rural areas reacted much more positively than urban/suburban
areas.

\- Income: the poorest respondents (0-25K) actively disliked the speech,
75K-100K were unimpressed, and 25K-50K liked it.

Most of these results are not statistically significant according to the error
bars, but the trends largely agree with my intuition. This kind of information
would be well worth $20 (if it was $0.10 per response).

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kmfrk
The survey asks the same wrong question as everyone else does: "What do you
think other people's reaction to X will be?"

If it doesn't specifically ask the person of their own opinion, it's not going
to be a useful survey.

 _However_ , we would not know about the shortcoming of the survey, if Google
did not provide the exact phrase of the question, which I think is a huge
advantage over many other surveys.

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mbateman
I don't really know or care about the relevance of these results, and I don't
know why it's at all relevant to Hacker News, but damn, Google consumer
surveys look really nice.

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andre
High prices: General population: $0.10 per response, Demographic targeting:
$0.50 per response.

