In an IPSOS study using the Techneos mobile platform, hundreds of smartphone owners have been asked to participate in a mobile digital ethnography study, sharing their feelings, photos and other ‘point of experience’ information that will track how the general public interact with the British Monarchy at the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Katherine Middleton.
The study will be used to gather information in real time on people’s perception leading up to, during and after the event.
Rather than coding the social media content that is freely created, the mobile survey, which is optimized for smartphones, asks direct questions about where people are watching the Royal Wedding to their mobile enabled panel.
The survey asks respondents how they feel about the British Monarchy, who they’re watching the Royal Wedding with and to take a photograph with their smartphone of what they can see now.
The information is uploaded in real time using the respondents’ mobile network carrier and their smartphone - whether they use an Android, Apple iOS, RIM or Windows Mobile operating system.
The mobile survey is taken by each respondent multiple times over the course of the day on their smartphone mobile device. Within the app they capture photos, GPS location and answer survey questions that you’d see in a typical ethnography project. The information will provide real time data on people’s thoughts and experiences that is not possible to be captured in real time using other research methods.
“We’re excited to be working to be working with Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange on this once-in-a-generation project,” said Dave King, Techneos CEO. “On Friday many people will be sharing their thoughts on social media through their mobiles. Ipsos went one step further and used our SODA app to gather structured data from people who are in London watching the wedding, at the point of experience, unobtrusively, in real time.”
The results will be published after the project has been completed.
A mobile digital ethnography project of this kind is particularly well suited to the United Kingdom, where smartphone penetration is at 31% (Ipsos Media CT Report Q1, 2011).
Will you be watching this historical event? Where and who with?
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