I just ran across a really nice project: We feel fine. It collects ‘feelings’ from the internet (defined as phrases containing ‘I feel’ or ‘I am feeling’). These data are coupled with other statistics, such as gender, age, location and even the local weather at the time the item was posted. Nice to know: although people feel more often bad than good (93 thousand versus 76 thousand) most people feel better (128 thousand). The interface is nice and playful – I particularly like the mobs and murmurs.
Additional thoughts
(July 12, 2008)
A more serious note on this topic: when you ask people what they think, or how much they like your product, it can be very difficult to interpret the results. If possible (and if it makes sense in the context) I prefer comparisons (which color is nicer, blue or red) above open-scaled questions (how much do you like blue?). Of course, there are many other tricks to get meaningful results.
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