Why a Lot of Digital Magazine Surveys Suck

I was interviewed at length about my frequent complaining about digital magazine studies like this one and this one that report what readers say they do compared to what they actually do.

Most dismaying, perhaps, is that the links I’ve provided aren’t to the studies but to the major news outlets who considered the data accurate enough to be published.

It’s interesting – we’re a Google advertiser and I get a lot of surveys from Google asking me about their service, with lots and lots of questions. But not one of these questions asks me things that Google already knows the answer to: they don’t ask about CTR, page views, etc. They do ask about what my experience is as an advertiser and those are good questions. But to ask about things that data can confirm (or, more likely, refute) in a heartbeat is just silly.

Disclaimer: the interviewer is Peter Houston, who works for a Nxtbook customer, though in point of fact I don’t think he ever personally chose to work with Nxtbook, though I do hope we make it easy to do so.