In general, each package will have the following features, to some level of ease:

• installation and integration of software into a system

• supporting documentation, such as online help, tutorial, or a guide on how to make a survey

• the ability to add, edit, and manage templates provided

• options for building single- and multiple-page forms and branching to other questions within or between pages

• ability to scan e-mail or data files as the results come in

• file management features such as importing and exporting data, data cleaning, and record keeping

• the ability to post surveys on the Web and provide support to a server

• data analysis tools and types of analysis available

• options to chart and present data

• overall ease of using the product and its user interface

Today, anyone with a cyber address is inundated with unsolicited messages and unnecessary communications, often originating from within their own organizations. The exponential growth of junk e-mail in

recent years is a phenomenon termed “spam” (noxious, unwanted e-mails). Using current communications technology, a single cyber-marketing company can send half a billion personalized ad mails via the web every day. It is estimated that it costs Internet users worldwide $US 9-billion ($CDN 14-billion) annually to receive junk e-mails (Hargreaves, 2001). In this environment, people may not bother to open unsolicited e-mail or to agree that a survey be sent to them.

The low response rate for online surveys might also reflect a general mistrust of electronic communication. For example, unbeknownst to users, their consumer information may be gleaned while they visit Web sites. Then this information can be sold for large sums of money and so it escalates. Having been damaged by tempting messages, such as the “I love you” virus, computer users may now be more cautious of electronic invitations, limiting their willingness to participate in online surveys. This would apply to wide-cast cyber-

surveys, and less so to e-surveys sent through an organization’s proprietary network/intranet.

There are Web users who pay for their time online. That could deter some from spending valuable minutes to fill out a survey. Eliminating these potential respondents both lowers the response rate and might also add a bias based on income.

On the other hand, the cost to connect is steadily coming down and there are increasing opportunities for the general public to access the Internet. Businesses such as easyEverything <www.easyeverything.com>, Kinko’s <www.kinkos.com>, and Get2net <www.get2net.com> are filling storefronts in city centers. At easyEverything in Manhattan there are 800 terminals with Internet access and one dollar ($US1) buys two hours of connectivity. According to Pike (2001), there is an interesting cast of characters accessing the net at 11PM on Saturday night at the Times Square location. Kinko’s offers a fast connection to surf the Internet and use Microsoft’s complete Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) for thirty cents a minute. Get2net has free Internet kiosks at select locations, however keyboards are awkward, access slow, and there’s lots of advertising.

The number of people accessing the Internet continues to increase at a phenomenal rate. In 1995 The Internet Society estimated that between 20 to 40 million people around the world had access to the Internet. Nua Internet Surveys (Nua, 2001) estimated that number to have grown to 201 million worldwide in 1999, and up to 407 million by 2000. See Table E-2.

Early Internet users (circa 1995) tended to be young, white males with high socioeconomic status. Recent studies suggest that as more people use the Internet and World Wide Web, there is a demographic shift and that Internet users are beginning to represent more of the general population. More households have Internet connections. The US Department of Commerce (1999) reported that the number of households connected to the Internet increased from 18.6% in 1997, to 26.2% in 1998.

The take-up of electronic communications is faster than any other “disruptive technology” of the 20^th century—namely electricity, the telephone, and the car. In general, a medium is considered a “mass medium” when a critical mass of people (about 16% of the population, or 50 million for the USA) has adopted the inno

vation (Markus, 1990). It took 38 years for radio to reach this level of adoption. Television took 13 years and cable television reached a critical mass in 10 years. Depending on the various estimates on the number of Internet users, the medium has already reached critical mass or will certainly be there by 2002, just 8 years after its emergence as a consumer medium (Neufeld, 1997).

Although a large number of people access the Web, in 1998 they accounted for less than one third of the overall USA population (Kaye and Johnson, 1999). Estimates vary, and as much as half the USA population may be connected. The fast take-up of this medium is rapidly changing the profile of who’s online, making less relevant some of the lessons-learned and sampling issues from earlier work. The trends suggest that the number of users will continue to grow, will better reflect the overall population, and that upwards of 80% of Internet users will access the system daily. Such a user base would provide a reliable population from which to sample and generalize findings.

Hargreaves, D. 2001. Junk e-mail costs online surfers $14-billion a year: EU report. Financial Post. February 3. p. D9.

Kaye, B. and T. Johnson. 1999. Research Methodology: Taming the Cyber Frontier. Social Science Computer Review. Volume 17, No 3, pp. 323-337.

King, N. 2000. What are they thinking? PC Magazine. February 8, pp. 163-178.

Markus, L. 1990. Toward a “critical mass” theory of interactive media. In Fulk, J. and C. Steinfield (eds.) Organizations and communication technology. pp. 194-218. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. 2001. In Infoworld. March 12, p. 16.

Neufeld, E. 1997. Where are the audiences going? MediaWeek. May 5, pp. S22-S29.

Nua Internet Surveys. 2001. http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online

US Department of Commerce. 1999. Falling through the net: defining the digital divide. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. 27 pages.