There was a post yesterday on Web Worker Daily about Hey! Nielsen, a new social networking place on the web… yet another one. Hey! Nielsen has been launched by the Nielsen Company behind ACNielsen and Nielsen/NetRatings.

The idea of the website it seems is to leverage on all the people who would like to participate in Nielsen research and let them voice their opinions online. Participating in research cannot be done on a voluntary basis as this would go against random sampling of participants. Nevertheless, people who leave insightful comments on the website may then be asked to participate in some research. As they state on the Nielsen website:

Furthermore, users who give rich, insightful, and frequent feedback may be asked to participate in other surveys and webcam interviews for tv, movies, and commercials.

On the social networking side, this website could work, although in the end the incentive to leave opinions is rather limited. If it gains traction and gets recognized as THE place to leave opinions, then it could work. The fact that Nielsen is behind the website can surely help in that respect.

On the other hand, in terms of research, the website is really scary. Opinions are very personal and it will be very hard to build a coherent whole out of everything people write. For example you need an important number of people to react on an opinion to make that opinion relevant.

Moreover and most importantly, this is a website. Let’s say I really want to participate in Nielsen research, what will stop me from leaving opinions there and ask my friends to react to these opinions so that I would be selected. I was thinking people could even organize competitions with their friends: “Guys, the first one who gets on a Nielsen study wins!!!” This would terribly bias the results and may lead Nielsen giving too much weight to some non-significant reactions.

To me, although the concept is interesting and appealing, opinions on the website will be way too out of control to be of any use to Nielsen’s clients. Maybe the company knows that and just wants to use to website to gain more awareness and create a buzz. If that’s the objective, then it could very well be a success.

Below are some reactions about Hey! Nielsen itself…