One hears a lot these days about social networks as potential sample sources. One version of the argument says we need them because they can deliver a demographic that is hard to come by in surveys, even with other online methods. Another says we can increase respondent engagement either by replicating the social network setting or actually interviewing people in situ.
My morning email included a link courtesy of Computerworld to a piece with the eye catching headline, “Facebook user satisfaction ‘abysmal.’” The report is based on a report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, a group that has been measuring customer satisfaction with an ever increasing number of companies and government agencies for the last 15 years. (Here I disclose that my company does a hefty share of the ACSI work, although not this particular study.) Facebook and MySpace both had scores in the low 60s while YouTube and Wikipedia were around 15 points better.
To quote from CW article, “When asked what they didn’t like about Facebook, users reported privacy concerns, advertising, interface changes, navigation problems and constant notifications about “annoying” applications.” I leave it to you to decide how survey requests might play in that context.