[Update 7/25 6:30AM ET]: Our voting system is working again, since the 3rd party identity provider we were using has resolved its issues. We apologize for any inconvenience and we're working hard to add more identity providers in the next following days, in order to avoid having a single point of failure in the future. Thank you for your understanding.
With the launch of our first community research question on "What are the most valuable tools for HTML5", InfoQ is now providing a new service that we hope will provide you with up-to-date and bias-free community-based insight into trends, behaviors and technologies that affect enterprise software development. Unlike traditional vendor/analyst-based research, our research is based on answers provided by YOU.
These questions are not just surveys. We're offering you the chance to be your own analyst, you can share/direct link to your own answers as well as the over all community average. Ask your co-workers to vote as well, compare opinions vs. each other's, and the community average. We hope that the transparency in seeing each individual's answer will add credibility and educational value to this research.
The first question we've launched uses dot-voting techniques to allow the community to quickly take a large number of HTML5 technologies and sort them by value. The next question we'll ask next week will use an analyst style radar/wave widget where you can drag answers onto a pallette to graphicaly rank your opinion on two axes. We'll continue to develop more widgets types in the future.
InfoQ's purpose is to facilitate the spread of knowledge and innovation in software development. We believe that by asking the right questions and facilitating the community to collaborate to produce definitive, reference-quality results – these questions will bring transparency to areas where you need it, so you can see what is going on and what the community is really doing. We hope this service will solve debates, help you make adoption decisions, and continue our purpose, on an even bigger scale!
The success of this open alternative to traditional research is based on you... Is there something that YOU would like to ask the community? Let us know!
Community comments
excellent initiative!
by Mc V,
Re: excellent initiative!
by Dio Synodinos,
Has great potential, but be careful!
by Ethar Alali,
Dio, a well thought-out initiative.
by Abhay Bakshi,
excellent initiative!
by Mc V,
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I like the exptert/vendor/analysts reports - they can get you started with a technology and they are glossy ;-). So after you viewed some glossy material about technology X, as any naive and optimistic developer you jump on using it with the greed to learn it and apply it to your projects. At the end of the day you find out that it doesn't fit precisely to your needs and in certain areas it doesn't do what you expected.
Well, for you as a developer is not a big issue. But how about when your techlead or manager comes and says "you have to use technology X because I have heard it's good!"?
So, coming to the point, yes, community should give their opinion on these technologies.
Now, I hope infoq will make it in such a way that it will be something much better and organized compared with what stackoverflow is doing.
Good luck!
mc
Re: excellent initiative!
by Dio Synodinos,
Your message is awaiting moderation. Thank you for participating in the discussion.
Hi Mc V,
We'd love to hear from you any feedback and ideas you might have regarding this project. You can contact us at research@infoq.com.
Thanks!
Has great potential, but be careful!
by Ethar Alali,
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I am interested in this article because of the potential for a very wide sample of data that would make even greater research institutions envious. This can happen when the data is thoroughly analysed and in an ideal world, the responses are subject to the usual rigor of scientific study.
Some vendor content, whilst obviously geared to selling the product, does actually have some fairly valid comparisons to make. Asking open questions of the populus, such as 'top HTML 5 tools' is not (I don't mean to be critical) since a lot of respondents will not have used all the tools out there. Even simply restating the question as "What tool do you use?" and then compiling the top results from the randomised respondents will hopefully yield a more credible result set.
What I am worried about is that truly useful results will not be forthcoming due to lacklustre 'questionnaires' that are producted to capture that data on here and lack of good analytical skills. After all, the results of such studies are inherently statistical and I wonder how much thought will go in to eliminating type 1 and 2 errors as well as catering for odd, contradictory results (a la Simpson's Paradox). Also, strong analysis can yield results which not everyone would have expected.
However, if used correctly, this can be a fantastic mechanism of capturing and analysing large samples of community data. So I am pleased to see the initiative at least :-) Long may it continue and I look forward to seeing the research!
Dio, a well thought-out initiative.
by Abhay Bakshi,
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Dio, I am sure "community-driven research" is a well thought-out initiative.
(Keeping Ethar Alali's comment in perspective) I would suggest how about we (at InfoQ) make exact this one, that is "community-driven research", as our first item that people can vote on and speak up about? Then, as days go by, more people will have contributed their opinion. We will come back to the research item to see how the results have changed.
You may have already done this exercise; and if you did, sorry I missed knowing about that effort.