Attached Link: http://www.oddditty.biz/Survey/Survey_2006.htm

A couple years ago, I conducted a survey that was basically intended to get an idea of what everyone was using. I have, since then, expanded on the survey, and yet I'm still keeping the original intent, which is to provide efective information to all the users and merchants of Poser and D|S possible.
The purpose of this survey is to give the users, the sites, the companies, and the merchants that are all tied together in this community a baseline from which to draw as they move forward. It isn't about features in the various programs, but instead focuses on what we, as individuals, do with our stuff, and what sorts of people we are as a group.
This survey will be run from today (January 1st, 2006) through January 31st, 2006. Once the period has closed, I will remove the survey and prepare the results.
The survey helps Customers by Telling merchants:
What we want
Who we want it for
What we'll do with it
Where we'll do it at
The survey helps merchants by giving them the above, plus freeing them from trying to get information that they cannot get any other way other than guessing or laboriously going through the galleries, forum posts, and asking private questions that will usually not get answered.
The Survey is:
Anonymous
Honor based
Opt in only
Not limited to anyone -- everyone is free to fill it out and anyone can request the results.
The information gathered won't be able to identify you, specifically, in any way shape or form -- not to me, not to you, and not to anyone else. The Survey asks some questions that may seem somewhat personal:
age range
income range
language
gender
The Survey results will be freely available in raw data form (csv - comma delimited) to any and all interested parties, including sites and companies such as DAZ, Renderosity, E-Frontier, and others. Results will be made available 30 days after the close of the survey period or earlier, depending on available time for collating the information.
It is my personal hope that everyone will fill out a survey, of course. Please fill one out -- it will help the community to get something that there's no really efficient method for obtaining since the informationin it is the sort that's typically guarded fiercely.

You can reach the English language version of the survey here: http://www.oddditty.biz/Survey/Survey_2006.htm
You can reach the French language version of the survey here: http://www.oddditty.biz/Survey/Survey_2006_fra.htm
You can reach the German language version of the survey here: http://www.oddditty.biz/Survey/Survey_2006_deu.htm

There has been a kind soul who has done a spanish language translation that will be available shortly. I will add that to this thread when it becomes available.

I will also take suggestions for additional information to collect on the next survey, which is tentatively scheduled for June 1st, 2006.

Thank you,

Elle Talent
"ynsaen"

The survey is not affiliated with any partiular site, even though I'm hosting on the ODF domain. Had to -- I don't have one of my own, lol. THere are no ads or anything either. THis is a serious survey seeking to get good information for the betterment of all of us. Perhaps the next edition I should include questions such as "what age is this figure", however...

Well that was relatively painless!! ;) Great idea ynsaen!!!! Look forward to the Poser community improving!!! (It's already pretty awesome as is!!!) G

I tried doing the survey, but everytime I clicked "submit", I ended up with a popup sending me back to areas to add stuff.

Some things like "name your 3 favourite...." or your "least favourite".... don't always apply, and if they do sometimes you might have only 1, not 3. Instead of adding in information that wasn't true in order to fill a space, I gave up, sorry :(

Message edited on: 01/01/2006 20:04

It should be possible in each case to only select a single one, and the areas generally only have a required number of characters of 2. THere are two rewards for the effort at the end: free outfits for V3 and SP3

oh -- and incidentally, ain't nuttin stoppin ya from saying you are your fave ;)

It's very comprehensive. what method of IP logging do you use (to avoid multiple replies from a single source)?

I'm not my favourite artist. I don't have a favourite artist in the poser community. I admire people's art for various reasons. However, the question requires an answer. If I put my name, I would be lying. If I leave it blank I can't submit. That was but one instance. I filled out the questions to the best of my ability and was honest. Then after it being rejected 5 times for various things, I stopped bothering.

Actually, none other than the most basic. TO be perfectly blunt, ballot stuffing is reasonably easy to do -- which is why the honor system is important. Since I don't see the individual results myself (nor does anyone else) the only way I'll be able to see IP addys is at the collating stage, when the IP addy will be used to cull duplicates as reasonably as possible (which will catch some responses from members in the same household, unforutnately). However, there are algorithms I'll be using to account for this, and given it's a third party (and a poor one, at that) doing this, with the intent of as open a result listing as possible, it's one of the sacrifices that has to be made.

How do you deal with people whose ISP use transparent proxies ?

best way I can, lol. My own does that, which is compounded by the fact that within my own house I have a similar set up, so it's double blind. Thus the algorithms, which are rather complicated to someone as math challenged as I, but are used in the marketing industry for situations similar to this.

Hey Elle, I'm on a Mac and having trouble with the "CTRL + click" to select more then one option. I did find if I held down the command key it worked, except in the section entitled "How do you hear about new products?". Nothing works there to allow me to selct more then one option and believe me, I've tried, lol.

So it won't let me submit my survey until I select more then one option in that section. Any ideas as to how I can complete the form? And where is the "mahnah mahnah" option? ;)

oh dang! mahna mahna!!! Must include that one!!! Hrmmm... ok -- it appears you caught an oversight on my part which I'm correcting, and the command+ click should work there now (and in a couple moments for the other languages as well)

and there is now a skill set for mahna mahna... sigh can't believe I left off something so critical...

LOLOL!!! And thanks for teaching me the CORRECT way to spell mahna mahna! ROTF while I take another try at getting this submitted! :D

clutches ancient copy of "The Muppet Show" album and hods back tears at it not being available on CD I dunno if it's correct, but it's surely the way they have it on the album I've got, LOL! :D

Yippee - it worked so thanks heaps memsahib and also for the goodies! :)

severe green jealous envy....you have the album?! That could be worth millions on ebay ya know, but it would be blasphemy to sell. ;) Aaargh. All I have is the original Partridge Family album.

Oh wait.
I can't believe I just admitted that...=:-O

Sell? Hell no -- it'll be buried alive with me...

Good move, chica. I'll let you get back to work now...;)

Mac person here. I'm also having trouble with "control click." How does one select more than one option with a MAC and IE 5.1? bB

"I did find if I held down the command key it worked. -- Ariannah." I believe a command+click willdo it in MAC, but mac's IE function is, well outside my purview, lol. Been a Long time since I worked on a mac, bB, and it predates IE's appearance there. I've updated the english form to note this sorta haphazardly until tomorrow when I can address it more accurately. THanks for bringing it to my attneiton, both of you -- I tend to make my own bad assumptions from time to time...

Certainly a comprehensive survey; thanks for the gifts!

Bast, I'm running OSX 10.3.9 using Safari. All I did was hold down the command key and select whatever was appropriate and the survey let me select multiple items. Just to clarify, I did not use it in conjunction with the CTRL key. Just held it down and it worked like a charm. Hopefully this will work, but I only use IE for uploading to galleries so can't say for sure. Hope this helps.

While I don't want to more or less interpret the information for other people once it is collected, you can most certainly be sure I'll provide som capsule information at all the sites I've visited in tyring to build support and interest in this project, whih I feel will have strong, long term benefits to us, the customers and members of the sites (yes, even including my own) and the people of the community as a whole. But then, I am crazy, so...

I really tried to fill this one, but upon submiting it allways sent me back to some other question I had failed to answer for some reason or other...I gave up

Message edited on: 01/01/2006 22:24

Thank you for the gifts. I've never seen such a well thought out survey. You listed sites and utilities I've never seen before even after years poking in and out of forums and asking about that kind of stuff. Amazing.

ariannah, Thanks! That worked! I'm OS9. So, Mac People, just hold down the command (aka apple key) and that's all. Also, if you want to select everything from A to Z, just click on A while holding down the shift key, then click on Z with the shift key still down. That should select everything from A to Z. bB

Bast - cool, glad it worked!

Tried, gave up after getting to the halfway point,by then I really started to miss the "none of the above" option.

It is great of you to make this effort. You will announce here when the survey report is published I hope.

Thanks for the little present. Very curious about the result. Loved the question about the naked girl with the sword ;-)

Cool survey and freebies, Thanks! Looking forward to the results!

All completed. Many thanks for the freebies :)

Singular3d, Absolutely will announce when the results are in. I'll be posting a brief overview of them as well (highlights, really) and then making the raw data available to everyone openly and freely. There will be a lot of cool info in there if ya look at it in differnet ways, and I'm sorta working ona way to help make some reading of it all a little easier for most folks.

Great idea and thanks for the gifts. I can't believe you left out Raunchy Minds though sniff

LOL I knew you'd call me on that! LOL truly, it was a total space until the last minute, when it was really too late. But it'll make the next edition, I promise :D

hehe well.. at least you gave me an opportunity to MENTION Raunchyminds here. And I mean.. it's not that hard for people to put that.com after it and figure out the adress eventhough it's of course not allowed in the TOS here to actually link to an adult site...

Nice survey. I did go thru it even though I had to fill in some more fields a few times. Just one point: you have one (two?) sets of three lists which ought to be identical but are not ("sites you frequently visit", "sites that you sometimes vist", "sites that you never visit"). This has led me into giving inconsistent answers to that tipe of questions. Merci

The survey helps Customers by Telling merchants: What we want Who we want it for What we'll do with it Your survey is an excellent idea and I can't wait to see the results. Plus, the freebie are an excellent idea... even though I selected S3 and V3 as my "least used figures". ;) And I hate to be a party-pooper, but I seriously doubt the survey will help tell merchants what customers want. For one, you're missing the most important question: What will customers pay for?. You can ask people all day long what they wish for and what they would like to see, but after you make those items, how many "wishers" actually purchase the item? Second (whether we like it or not), we can tell what paying customers want, just by looking at the Top Selling products here at Renderosity. Does everybody want these items? Maybe, maybe not... but they are best-sellers. --John

Heya John :) THanks, and sorry for the gifts not quite working out for you -- it kinda all I could do in the time I had. I'll do better next time, though I'll be hard pressed to match some of your vehicle work! As for your comments, however.. For one, you're missing the most important question: What will customers pay for?. You can ask people all day long what they wish for and what they would like to see, but after you make those items, how many "wishers" actually purchase the item? Actually, that's precisely what I'm asking except I'm asking it about categories of products, as opposed to specifics -- which is more useful to the greater number of merchants and provides a greater breadth of information. While one can use this information to say "What sells the best", as you noted, that sort of thing can readily be found without much effort. What this allows you to do, however, is compare the "what sells the best" to the "what do they want the most" and also to see what the interrelationships between various areas are. A cursory glance at Renderosity's top sellers is misleading and isn't based on the customer's interests, it just shows what they spend their money on here. What sells well at Renderosity does not sell the same way it does at DAZ or at Poser PRos -- and this isn't about Renderosity specifically, this is about the marketplace as a whole, which, ultimately, is considerably larger than just renderosity or DAZ. And, if the marketplace is to grow inusabuility and function beyond just the present state, the additional items need to be present int he marketplace -- this will help us to see where those potentials lie more clearly than trying to guess them out. Second (whether we like it or not), we can tell what paying customers want, just by looking at the Top Selling products here at Renderosity. Does everybody want these items? Maybe, maybe not... but they are best-sellers. As noted above, that only shows the Rosity picture. DAZ has done a yearly list the last few years as well, but neither of those elements give us an idea of who (in a demogrphics sense) is buying them, what type of person they are, how much disposable income they have, and where they cetegorize themselves -- all of which is essential data to effectively market your products (assuming, of course, you have a location to do so, which is something else I'm working on as ya know). So it's not an effective, efficient, or even reasonably accurate form of market research. THe survey is collecting information and data that can be sorted and broken down into a wide range of possible questions, and can provide answers to those queries better than one mght readily percieve from a glance at it. In closing -- don't knock it until ya see it finished. Aside from doing the obvious stuff (who all uses poser 5 or D|S, how much do people spend on average, etc), it can tell you the more interesting stuff as well -- like what sorts of things are the people who like science fiction vehicles interested in besides scienece fiction vehicles. Pretty handy to know that from a merchant perspective ;) Fromt the customer side of things, it's trading a bit of time now for a reward down the road. What sort of reward and how is that reward gained? THe reward is that things you wanted to see more of will find their way into the market, and at a price that you will tend to prefer to see overall. This is becuase the merchants who pour over the information will be able to see, from the answers that we provide (because I'm a customer too), things that we may not realize individually, as noted above. This will have the effect of increasing the available choices we have inthe marketplace, and potentially increase competition (which is good for us). It also helps us, as a group of people who use a certain class of programs that often are sorta snickered at, see what and where we can grow and develop in order to improve that. It's not something that can happen overnight, but this is the first step in doing that. The second step will likely come around June ;)

let me first say that this is a really comprehensive survey and doubtless will serve as a helpful tool to many people in the community, not just merchants. actually, you don't ask what people will pay for. you ask what they want. that's completely different. for example, i actually noticed as i was filling it out that i can't represent at all that i tend to buy and pay more for utilities that do centralized tasks. do i want a utility? i can't think of any i need right now, no. but if this year is anything like the last one, more than one person will come up with utilities that i absolutely need once i learn about them. what i actually want before i see products is only midrange on my buying criteria. i think it's actually pretty low on most consumer's buying criteria. that's why advertising works. the top merchant listing in rendo kind of shows that it's not about type of products. BAT, face_off, morris, ratracer and posermatic all make totally different types of products, but they sell well because they're all viewed as "quality" merchants. i didn't get to say anything in your survey about how i determine a product's quality. if you wanted to find out why people spend money on different things, you might have a quickie poll like the ones on the aery soul site some time ago. they asked what was most important to people: (sorry, the polls are gone, have to do this from memory) realistic folds, movement morphs, fit morphs, textures, etc. and ask about past buying behavior, not what people think they. also, people very rarely predict their own behavior accurately. if you do any quickie polls (instead of this well-thought out and complete survey), you might ask more about past buying behavior. why do i post all this? because i don't buy at all at odd ditty foundry. i always want to because of the spirit of the people behind it. i always look at odd ditty product promos in the daz forums. the type of items are right, the prices of the items are right, and i still have 0 urge to buy. and i don't think your survey points to any of the reasons i spend money on what i spend on. please don't take this as just being negative about your survey. i think it's very good, and very thorough. i'm impressed at your work. but my responses are very far from my own buying habits and criteria, and the questions are far from my observations of buying behavior.

I don't take it as being negative about the survey as all, Coboaltdream. In fact, I just responded (ynsaen time -- before interruption that lasted a few hours) to a series of posts elsewhere with some similar thoughts. Let me note that yes, you are right. It doesn't ask specifically what it is you are buying. This is mostly because, in order for any sort of meaningful community wide askign of that, there needs to be a general basis from which to compare and extrapolate when doing analysis. That's the purpose of this survey. In June, there will be a follow up (that takes many of the design lessons learned from this one into account to make it easier to fill out) that will address this a bit more specificaly, but requires, first and foremost, enough information to start from in order to make it effectve. Why wait until June? Well, for time to get this information that we're gathering now sorted, mostly. While it won't take long to collate and make it presentable and distibutable and do a general analysis of it, it will take a bit of time to do any sort of in depth study of it. This is a general overview of the market. As a public utility, one simply doesn't exist for everyone. That general overview is essential to have, becuase when you do get specific, you need to have something to correspond and reference with. Elements such as quality, promotional design (admittedly a failing of mine, personally, but one I'm working on :D), and behavior patterns are all worthless if you don't have the general market sussed out. All are important, and all will be included in the June survey, but first things first. As far as ODF is concerned, there's no doubt that I'll use some of this information in my own work, and that my parterns at ODF and I will do the same -- but this survey is most specifically not about ODF. IT's about my strange sense of helping the community to get things it lacks, and to help out in a different way than the norm. I carry that over into ODF as the easiest tool, often, but I'm really trying to step outside of it with things like this survey and the Magazine. Thanks though, for bringing this up. IT does help me to make sure that the survey's follow up will be the best possible one, and with everything I've already gotten so far, it's going to make sure that we have a significantly greater amount of information available to the public than ever before available. I think it'll be really cool. But, then again, I am...

i think it'll be cool too. i love that this is being done, cause i'm kinda curious. i'm glad to a part of it, and i hope that i do see products in the marketplace of the type i'd like (of which right now there is little). i can tell we just have different opinions of buying habits. most of the questions are form and content questions. equivalent asking what type of films people watch or what type of restaurant they frequent. but i think those are secondary at best in determining buying patterns. i think people buy mostly based on style (or in the case of restaurants, atmosphere and access) and rationalize the rest. i think it's mainly looking at promos or galleries and thinking "wow! that looks awesome! i want that!" you seem to be thinking people know what they want and buy based on that. i don't think people are nearly so rational, especially in this community ;D. if everyone bought based only on the renders they already had planned or were even likely to do, the poser economy would implode. and i wouldn't see so many posts asking for the identity of a product in an image, and, after getting a response, a subsequent post saying, "oh, i actually bought that 2 years ago and forgot about it!" if we bought rationally, there wouldn't be so many products out there that could be duplicated by applying a trans map, displacement map and texture to a catsuit. 8^) but this is a kind of theoretical conversation i'm sure no one else is interested in and gets away from the topic of the survey, which is a very cool tool. and i should stop conversing and get back to actually using poser. it's a pity renders take so long that i end up talking too much in the forums.

LOL -- oy, ain't that the truth... And, actually, we think much alike on that point regarding buying habits. The catch is that before one can know what irrational is, one needs to get a good grasp of the rational baseline...

Checked the Survey - and decided not to participate. Not only is it annoyingly repetitve - I can't see any user benefits at all. Nothing that asks for much needed improvements of the product or even a hint of it.

I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps the June survey will have more of what you hope to see in it. Would you care to define "much needed improvements", however, so that I might be able to address, specifically, your areas of concern...

um, kjpweb, poser isn't open source. the community can't really make changes to the product. we can add, via python, but we can't really change what exists. the community's merchants can make products that better fit the community's customers. and so most of the questions revolve around the content. i took the quiz and repeated no questions. maybe they seemd repetitive at a glance, but it didn't seem so while i was taking it. the user benefits? as someone who doesn't like vicky or m3 at all, loves miki, aiko and david, and likes the new features of p5 and p6, i was really glad to have the opportunity to be counted by merchants. i've already voiced my opinion as to whether this will help merchants make popular products (that may be questionable- if it were easy, advertising and marketing companies wouldn't make so much money), but as a tool to help customers tell merchants what they want, it's excellent.

When are the survey results going to be posted??

The survey is running through the 31st of January, and then the basic grabs will be posted I'm guessing around Valentine's day or so, with the actual data available shortly before that :) Raw data isn't entirely useful in a general forum sense, so I've got to sift through it all and come up with some neat "factoids" for us all to wonder about , lol. I do expect some interesting results to come out of it, and, still, will absolutely share the results with anyone and everyone.