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• QUALITATIVE TOOLBOX •
24 QRCA VIEWS WINTER 2005 www.qrca.org
Rethinking Blogs as a
Qualitative Research Tool
BY STEVE AUGUST
KDA Research • San Francisco, CA • steve@kdaresearch.com
W
eb logs, or blogs, have received a great deal of attention
over the past two years. These web diaries are easy to create
and update, and their use by consumers, professionals and
even corporations has exploded. In the context of market
research, the emphasis has focused on using technology to mine
information from publicly available blogs in order to identify word
Blogs offer of mouth or “buzz” on a particular category or offering. However,
researchers a blogs accessible only by participants and researchers that are set up
specifically for a research study can offer researchers an intriguing
compelling new new tool for gathering rich, in-depth qualitative data. This article
will explore how the unique capabilities of blogs can be harnessed
research tool, for the purposes of in-depth qualitative market research.
allowing researchers
Blogs and the Phenomenon of Blogging
to establish a rich Web logs, more popularly known as blogs, are essentially online
immediacy with diaries with dated entries, displayed in reverse chronological order on
a simple website. These diary entries can contain text, images, sounds
participants — and and even video.
The first blogs were created in the mid-1990s as ongoing journals
then sustain that of early web adopters, pointing others to links to sites of interest to
immediacy over days, the author, or blogger. While early blogs were manually updated, the
technology was later refined to automate the process of posting new
weeks or months. blog entries, categorizing and archiving entries, creating blogs and
updating interested readers when new entries were posted.
In 1999, several companies created hosting tools for would-be
bloggers and continued to refine the process of blogging over the
years until even non-technical people could easily create and update
Q U A L I TAT I V E R E S E A R C H C O N S U LTA N T S A S S O C I AT I O N 25
Rethinking Blogs as a Qualitative-Research Tool C O N T I N U E D
Blogs as a Tool for
In-depth Qualitative Research
Separating the technology of blogs from the
phenomenon of public blogging, blogs offer a
number of exciting capabilities for qualitative
researchers. As an online technology, blogs are
accessible to anyone with a connection to the
internet, erasing geographical constraints, and
allowing anyone to access information the
moment it is posted. It is easy for computer-
literate users to post text and images to blogs,
and users can post audio files. Blogs are capable
of interfacing with wireless devices such as
camera phones and PDAs, allowing participants
to report on their experiences as they happen and
enabling researchers to watch the experiences
unfold in near real time. Also, blogs make it
possible to sustain participant interaction over
time without the expense of keeping researchers
in the field.
While many of the above qualities have
contributed to the public blogging phenomenon,
for market research purposes it would not be
feasible to use public blogs because, among
other issues, the idea of publicly available raw
their own blogs. With the advent of text research data would be unacceptable to clients,
messaging and camera phones, people began to researchers and participants. However, it is
blog directly from wireless phones or personal possible to set up blogs with restricted access
digital assistants (PDAs). that can be viewed only by a designated set of
As the technology for creating and updating people. It is in this setting that blogs move from
blogs grew more sophisticated, so did the scope public phenomenon to compelling tool for
of topics addressed by bloggers. Starting with qualitative researchers.
the original lists of interesting links, blog topics To explore the possibilities of blog-based
soon encompassed every interest politics, hobbies, studies, KDA Research developed an online
family, self, gadgets, toys. People posted about system that enables researchers to set up private
their interests and what was happening in their blogs for participants, as well as message boards
lives with a surprising degree of candor and and chat rooms for group interactions.
openness. Businesses both large and small began
posting their own blogs to establish connections
with their customers. By 2004, especially with Case Study: Using Blogs to
the U.S. presidential election looming, blogging Understand Youth Wireless Behaviors
became a media phenomenon with millions of In the spring of 2005, the Consumer Electronics
people creating and reading blogs on almost Association (CEA) commissioned a qualitative-
every conceivable topic. research study. CEA wanted to gain an in-depth
Overwhelmingly, the attention regarding understanding of U.S. youth wireless-phone
blogs is focused on the phenomenon of people behaviors regarding usage, personalization,
creating these online diaries and sharing them transportation and accessories, as a first step
over the web. In the market research industry, in segmenting the youth wireless market. CEA
several companies now offer services that also wanted to explore how deeply phones had
monitor public blogs to track consumer buzz integrated into the day-to-day lives of teenagers.
on specific topic areas. To gain this understanding, CEA wanted to
While the monitoring of public blogs for follow a number of youths over the course of a
consumer attitudes may provide useful week, having participants keep detailed records
information, the blog technology that sits at of their usage, as well as participate in a variety
the heart of this public phenomenon offers an of exercises to provide information on various
intriguing set of market research capabilities aspects of their relationship with wireless phones.
separate from the phenomenon itself and from Given the goals of the study (especially the
tracking buzz. need to understand behavior over a period of
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C O N T I N U E D Rethinking Blogs as a Qualitative-Research Tool
time) and the target participants (youths who During “No Phone Day,” participants were
are so very comfortable online), KDA suggested asked to go through a day without their phones.
using the online research system. They were allowed to keep their phone with them
for emergencies, but they were not allowed to use
Study Setup them with the exception of three “cheats.” At the
For the study, 36 youths were recruited to end of the day, participants were asked a series of
participate in the study. Three main segments questions and asked to post their responses and
were recruited: tweens between ages 10-12, reactions in their blogs.
middle schoolers between ages 13-15 and high Because of the objectives and the seven-day
schoolers between ages 16-19. Within those duration of the study, having participants
main segments, teen participants
were recruited from a mix of
genders and a mix of suburban,
urban and rural environments,
as well as from a mix of
geographic regions.
Each participant was given
his/her own private blog on a
website set up specifically for
the study. Each blog was
accessible only by the
participant and the research
team. Participants could post
entries to their blogs through
the website, by email or by
sending a text message directly
from their cell phones. Project
moderators could post messages
and comments to participants’
blogs to probe further on any
topics of interest or clarify any
questions regarding study tasks.
Over the course of the week,
participants were given a
variety of tasks to complete and
were asked to post their work
in their blogs. The exercises
consisted of “Day in the Life,”
“Reporter Day” and “No
Phone Day.”
For “Day in the Life” days,
participants were asked to
record in detail aspects of every
usage. Participants were directed
to record time, type, duration,
other party, purpose, social
circumstance and location.
Participants with camera phones
were asked to take and post
pictures of the locations of their
phone uses.
On “Reporter Day,”
participants were asked to
report on the way they and
their friends have personalized
their phones, how they carry
their phones and the kinds of
accessories they buy and use.
Rethinking Blogs as a Qualitative-Research Tool C O N T I N U E D
complete daily tasks correctly and in a
timely fashion was crucial to the results.
Using the online interactive nature of
blogs, moderators monitored and
engaged participants each day during the
study. If a participant fell behind,
moderators would contact the
participant through their blog or via
alternate channels such as email and
instant messaging (IM) to make sure the
participant was clear on the tasks and
deadlines. As participants lived in
different time zones, and participated at
different times during the day, two
moderators worked in shifts to answer
any participant questions, ensure that
participants correctly completed their
tasks and posted their information, and
probe on any areas of interest that the
study revealed.
Over the course of the week, 33 of the
36 participants recruited completed all of
their tasks, producing a large volume of
data. Participants recorded 679 distinct
phone uses and 89 items regarding
personalization, transportation and
accessories, as well as a great deal of
unstructured writing in response to the
“No Phone Day,” including a poem
written by a despondent participant who
greatly missed his phone!
Participant Examples
Two specific examples from
the study stand out that may illustrate
the usefulness of blogs as a research tool.
First, on one day of the study, one of
the participants was recording his phone
uses, and he posted to his blog by
sending text messages directly from his
wireless phone.
On this particular day, the participant
had a short school day and had called
his mother to meet him at home. The
sequence of posts to the participant’s
blog began with him contacting his mom
to meet at home, his mom calling him
back to let him know she would meet
him, his leaving school, arriving at
home, finding himself locked out and
then playing a game on his phone to kill
time until his mother finally arrived to
let him in. Researchers were able to
watch the sequence unfold in near real
time as the participant posted his text
messages to his blog. This example
illustrates the benefits of blogs’ capability
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C O N T I N U E D Rethinking Blogs as a Qualitative-Research Tool
to interact with wireless devices
and provide researchers with an
almost immediate access to
participant experiences. This
instance would have been
extremely difficult to observe
even with a live researcher in
the field, as it would have been
difficult to have the researcher
present at school. Also, since the
instance came in the middle of a
seven-day period of ongoing
observation, it would have
logistically difficult and
expensive to have a researcher
observe the participant in situ
for that duration.
Another example from the
study was a sequence of “Day
in the Life” entries posted by a
participant. The participant was
a heavy cell-phone user, and
over the course of one day, she
recorded 19 cell-phone uses to
her blog. Using her camera
phone, the participant included
photographs of her location
during her phone uses. Entries
allowed researchers to see in
vivid detail the participant’s
day unfold, from home in the
morning, to school (including a
picture of her math class when
the teacher had turned his
back), to afternoon shopping
and finishing the day with
dinner with her boyfriend and
back home to retire for the
night. The sequence of 19
entries created a rich textual
and pictorial document of how
the participant’s wireless phone
functioned in the participant’s
day-to-day life. Because the
participant posted this
information to her blog, the
data was available to
researchers the same day.
Lessons Learned
A number of lessons were
learned from this study about
the nature of the data that
blog-based studies can gather,
as well as the requirements of
conducting and managing blog-
based qualitative research.
Rethinking Blogs as a Qualitative-Research Tool C O N T I N U E D
In terms of the data captured by blogs during scattered all over the country and working at all
the study, one of the main lessons learned was times over the course of a blog-based study. For
that blogs can stream tremendous amounts of the project with CEA, moderators set up one
structured and unstructured data to researchers, system to manage participants, using one
and strategies for managing and analyzing the moderator to lead the topic work and another
data need to be well thought-through in for technical issues; it was quickly realized,
advance. For example, the “Day in the Life” however, that both moderators should split the
exercise generated nearly 700 distinct usage day and work in shifts. Online patterns of
records, each with 14 fields denoting the participants by time zone were identified in the
characteristics of the specific use (participant, early days of the project, and shifts were set up
time, date, type, location, etc.). The number of around times of the most concentrated periods
data points generated around usage required of participant activity. Given that moderators’
creating a database and mining it for patterns. responsiveness to participants’ input needs to be
This contrasted greatly with the textual analysis balanced with the time and budget spent on a
required by the unstructured data generated by given project, moderators will need to carefully
33 “No Phone Day” responses. Based on this plan for blog-based projects, and be flexible
experience, researchers in blog studies need to enough to work with each set of participants in
have different analysis approaches in place to the way that will prove most successful for the
accommodate the different types of data that given project.
is collected. The biggest lesson learned, though, was how
The other lesson for researchers is the need well the blogs worked for this project. The blog
to carefully plan for and manage the nearly format enabled researchers to not only achieve a
constant flow of feedback from participants rich interactive immediacy with geographically
30 QRCA VIEWS WINTER 2005 www.qrca.org
C O N T I N U E D Rethinking Blogs as a Qualitative-Research Tool
dispersed participants, but also to sustain that In summary, blogs offer researchers a
immediacy over the course of the study. The end compelling new research tool, allowing
result was that the researchers and end clients researchers to establish a rich immediacy with
were able to observe in rich detail (within the participants — and then sustain that immediacy
limits of self-reporting) the wireless-phone habits over days, weeks or months.
of 33 youths from all parts of the U.S. over the
course of seven days.
Summing Up
As researchers are at the
very beginning of utilizing the
capabilities of blogs as a tool
for qualitative market research,
there is still much to explore.
While this study was conducted
entirely online, blogs can serve
researchers in other situations.
The blog format
enabled researchers
to not only achieve
a rich interactive
immediacy with geo-
graphically dispersed
participants, but
also to sustain that
immediacy over the
course of the study.
For example, blogs offer
many advantages over paper-
based diaries and homework
exercises, in that researchers can
monitor study participation as it
happens, engage participants
earlier and enable researchers to
identify patterns and areas for
further exploration before an
interview occurs at an offline
focus group or observational
visit. Also, combining the
individual orientation of blogs
with group-oriented online
technologies such as bulletin
boards offers researchers new
possibilities in engaging
participants online.
Q U A L I TAT I V E R E S E A R C H C O N S U LTA N T S A S S O C I AT I O N 31
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