You might not be willing to fork over a monthly subscription fee to read some of your favorite news sites, but would you answer a survey question?
That’s what Google and a handful of well-known online publishers are aiming to find out. On Thursday, the tech giant unveiled “Google Consumer Surveys,” which allows publishers to glean a little more revenue from their content by serving up short surveys to readers. These surveys function like paywalls: When a reader lands on an article page, he or she will have to answer a question or three to view the full text of the article (see it in action here). For every response sent to Google, publishers get $0.05.
The program has launched with around 20 online publishers, including Pandora, AdWeek, the New York Daily News and the Texas Tribune.
And what happens to those survey responses? They’re collected by Google and sold to businesses seeking low-cost market research. Responses targeting the general U.S. population cost businesses $0.10 per response, with a minimum order of $100, according to Google’s pricing page. Questions that are more finely targeted, either by demographic, region or through screening questions, cost $0.50 per response. Lucky Brand Jeans and King Arthur Flour are already clients.
To finish reading an article, you may have to answer survey questions like this one.
The product, it turns out, isn’t that well built. PaidContent‘s Laura Hazard Owen already discovered that the surveys won’t appear for users who have the AdBlock browser extension enabled.
What do you think of Google Consumer Surveys? Do you think it’s a good alternative to paywalls for publishers and readers? Or would you automatically skip any articles that required you to answer questions?
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RonBailey
Source: Mashable
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