We've put together a brief survey that asks for some information about you, and your use and opinions of BetaNews. It will help the editors as we plan BetaNews' future, and collects some demographic information that's of interest to potential advertisers. Absolutely no individual information will be shared - only general data regarding the BetaNews audience. Please take a few minutes and complete the survey.
There was the freebie that no one will forget, the heebie-jeebies courtesy of Scott Guthrie, and a teensy bit clearer picture of how this cloud thingie should work.
The mysteries of just what Chrome OS is, and how much of an operating system it truly is, may be resolved today.
The effort to give users of the world's dominant Web browser the impression of quality, is a personal one for the man who leads that battle.
Maemo won't necessarily be replacing Symbian in the Nokia N-Series, but that's definitely a place where it will be found.
E-readers are hot this year, and a lot of compelling new products have been released, but are there enough electrophoretic displays to go around?
Sony has had many different download portals for movies, music, e-books, and games, and now it's looking to make a single shop for all of it.
Wide Angle Zoom: Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying....won't put an iTablet on the market.
If businesses are to improve their efficiency for next year, they need to stop and reassess the basic tenets of their job.
As AOL moves toward become an independent company again, it will cut nearly a third of its workforce.
Gartner issues its predictions for the 10 things our phones will be doing in 2012.
Mozilla has released the latest beta its Firefox 3.6 browser software, just over one week after beta 2.
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Regarding some comments below:
This is to get a profile of our audience for discussions with advertisers, as well as help us plan upcoming changes to the site. The reason the questions don't apply to everyone, and are IT focused, is that those are the things that potential BetaNews advertisers care about. We aren't trying to downplay the importance of those who aren't IT professionals or are still students; we just didn't want to waste your time asking questions that we couldn't use. Unfortunately, the tool we used is very easy to set up, but doesn't make it easy to skip non-applicable questions based on previous answers.
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|Shouldn't this be titled Please Take the BetaNews 'IT Industry' Survey!?
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|Took the survey. I appears to me it was geared more toward industry tech managers than the "average" John Doe who surfs the net. I agree with some of the opinions below, which company asked you to do this so they could or would adjust their advertising based on the survey?
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|I think the spam advertising at the very bottom of your pages "There is 1 update available for your computer
Your Windows XP may need a tune up.
Click "Start" to recommend improvements" makes your site lose credibility.
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|Not all of us are out of school haha. Hard to say " I can spend 100k on hardware + software" so... Should ask general age/education levle and base questions off that answer.The servey was specific, good. But need to be fit for ALL betanews members.
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|Well that was not a smart survey indeed smells like Betanews is doing this for someone else and making money out of this in the end. News site is good no doubt.
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|Survey was straightforward and simple. I use Betanews a lot, and have been a member for a long time. I would go so far as to say that it is my first and foremost technological news and information resource.
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|Survey sucks.
BetaNews assumes everyone works in a corporate entity. And there is no option for N/A. So I could not continue with the survey. Only completed one page.
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|Ditto. Moreover, the value of some questions are really dubious (education - there are completely different models in the world, the level of expenditure is relative, e.g. I worked in Japan and Ethiopia, one million dollars spent on IT is negligible in Japan but beyond any imagination of most scientific organisations I cooperated with). Anyway, I gave up with the survey.
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|This is an awesome site. Been a member a long time. Keep up the awesome job. Well done!!!!
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|I wish that the survey had included questions about the current commenting system.
While I enjoy the articles and news tidbits, the way the commenting system works may ultimately cause BetaNews to be banned by the school system I work for. While many posters use good sense and actually appear to have some social skills, there are a few people who abuse the commenting ability to launch personal attacks, use obscenities and make lewd or otherwise inappropriate remarks, or otherwise tarnish the usefulness of this site through inane, pointless, or combative comments.
Since it has pretty much been a given that some members will not police themselves, I feel that it is important for the staff to provide a more robust and active moderator presence. A site as useful and informative as this one should be encouraging and engendering useful commentary and not providing a cathartic outlet for people who get their jollies through grandstanding, insulting, and attacking.
I do not want to show up to school and find the dreaded "This site has been blocked due to inappropriate content" banner that other sites have fallen to; I need something quality to read in the 2 free minutes I have. I hope to see some form of response in either direction from the managers of this site.
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|I agree, part of this website was actually banned for me at my school for about a month.
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|Apologies -- the survey was set to close too early for some reason. It is now open again.
Thanks to everyone who has answered thus far!
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|Hmm, I check this site every day, attempted to complete the survey as soon as I saw it, but closed as you already have enough responses. In the space of 24 hours? Wow, that's going to be REALLY representative.
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|That was fast, I would have liked to help you guys out.
BetaNews is awesome! Been a avid fan since the black layout. Remember that? :)
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|Time sure does fly :)
The survey is open again.
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|Well that was fast. Why was there a limit set on this thing? For once I feel like doing a survey, and I can't. :p
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|This survey is now complete. We've either reached the end date, or received as many responses as we can handle.
Thank you for your interest in helping to improve BetaNews.
That didn't take anytime at all.... ;)
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|Gee, a "thanks" at the end would be nice :)
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|me too :(
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|Awwwww....missed it. It says it's complete already. Sorry.
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|done
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|I'm Done!, But somehow the survey is short... I don't know I hope this little information will help.
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|Done! Glad to be of service.
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|I just took it.
Yay for me. :D
Oh one other thing..... I don't ever see any ads. :) I use Firefox + Adblock + Platypus + Greasemonkey. I can block anything I want anywhere I want.
I have never clicked on ads and I never will.
All they do is take up space. :)
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|If you don't show (or click) ads you won't help BetaNews stay in business. It is definately a huge part of their revenue.
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|maybe they need(/have) a better business model.
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|Done, anything for you.
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|It's a standard demographic survey to help target advertising. I'm happy to respond to it because it helps determine what ads I'll eventually see. I don't mind. At least BetaNews places their ads in two places rather than plastering them everywhere like PCMag does.
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|I'll take the survey because I enjoy the BetaNews site. But I wanted to point out that this is a case where dynamic text-link ads are a bad idea, and can result in poor performance of the intended call to action. And here's why...
In the text of this post the first instance of the word "survey" is linked to an advertisement by IntelliTXT (for me it links to answers.vizu.com). Obviously the intended result of this post is to get BetaNews readers to take the survey to improve BetaNews. But to an unsuspecting newbie, their initial reaction will be to click on the first instance of the linked text "survey", which will then take them not to the survey they expected, but to some other website and away from this page. Most likely they will never return to complete the survey since they are now lost in the ether.
What makes it ever more confusing to a noob is that the text link add is underlined (a tell tale sign that something is a link) where as the ACTUAL link to the survey has no underline.
I guess it boils down to what is more important to BetaNews? Ad revenue or user input?
< / 2-cents >
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|Intellitxt is horrible but Adblock is your friend.
--->IntelliTXT
Ad revenue of course - they have to make a living!
--->I guess it boils down to what is more important to BetaNews? Ad revenue or user input?
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|We've received a lot of feedback on these links, and are considering their future on BetaNews. At the moment, it is unlikely they will stay on the site with the upcoming redesign/revamp. We definitely understand the concerns.
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|Thank you for posting this Nate! -- revenue is important, however, I do not understand how IntelliTXT is effective advertising from the advertiser's side. The sites that it links to are seldom relevant and it's confusing.
Suffice to say, they don't really bother me -- I don't really notice them -- but when I do happen to notice them, I usually think that it's a link to another BetaNews article then remember it's just silly IntelliTXT.
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|1. Are you a flaming bas****?
2. Are you lying about not being a flaming bas****?
etc.
Oh, and why aren't the countries in alphabetical order?
Not everything starts with the US.
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|Well, if most traffic to this site if from the US, then they're just helping out the majority of us. I appreciated it at least.
Relax. You'll likely live through the immeasurable injustice of it all.
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|I just don't know if I will.
All those years learning the alphabet; all for nothing!
/overdramatics
Tip: Open the box and press 'u' and it'll take you there in the alphabet.
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|do i get anything for answering the survey ??
i felt my privacy was being violated ...
and a side of me .... kinda liked it ... lol
i think i might have a survey fetish
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|We were thinking of having a giveaway associated with the survey. The problem is, then it entices a bunch of folks who just want the free goods, rather than getting a broad segment of our true audience.
However, we have a big giveaway planned for the coming weeks (including copies of Vista, Adobe CS3, Office, etc.) so our faithful readers will have a chance to win some cool software :)
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|i didnt answer it because i wanted anything in return .... :)
and regardless of my posts always being silly and immature, i answered everything with all due honesty ...
(except the part where it asks why i come to BN)
LOL
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|If I could, I would raise the score of this comment :]
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|I know what you mean.
It's all fine if you're earning enough to be proud of what you're doing.
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|Delighted to participate, this is the first site I look at each day.
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|"However, we have a big giveaway planned for the coming weeks (including copies of *Vista*..."
Vista!? If you want to scare away as much people as possible, then offering Vista would be a good way to do it, but I don't think that's what you want, or is it?
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|No it wouldn't because, even though it may be hard to believe there are people out there that actually like Vista.
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|I wish I could have done the survey. I like to get annoyed at staff writers when their reporting lacks quotes and sounds biased =) I was hoping that there would be a survey question about that (grin)
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