The future of TV
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/03/nielsen-family-is-dead/
So I read this article tonight and it covers a number of highly relevant points. I'm not going to cover everything, but I do want to talk about the first point they bring up, that is, how network executives measure the popularity of a show is shifting. Rather than surveying the habits of random households, some companies are now just sampling the available data on twitter. It means going from a sample size of 25,000 with a good deal of selection bias to an entire, worldwide demographic of millions of people, also with some selection bias.
It speaks to the complacency of companies when they aren't constantly trying to innovate and improve, only maintain share price that they didn't start doing this sooner. What is really interesting though, is whilst it's starting with TV shows, there's no reason the traffic on twitter can't be used measure a whole range of social phenomena. Journalists are already tweeting details of events, court cases live and generating interest and discussion. As more people become involved, the information that can be gleamed from twitter analysis will become more reliable cross sections of public opinion.
There is definitely self selection bias though, the demographic of older people or those without reliable access to the internet are unable to make full use of the power of social media. It shouldn't be solely relied upon just yet, but for now it's large enough that institutions can no longer ignore it. I'd like to think that in 30 years time, when the older generation has passed away, that the entirety of the population could be reliably sampled through the internet, there'd be no need to rely on phone polls, face to face polls. Polling companies themselves would have shifted to big data analysis on trends from twitter or facebook. Public opinion on legislation could be reliably sampled by simple search query, or a tweet asking for opinions from a popular politician or celebrity.
I'm excited about the efficiency of the future, I can't wait for it to get here.