Forum Market research?

[RonaldS]

Hey guys, I'm doing a project for my college regarding to IM, and in a section on the advantages of forums, wanted to know whether it would be illegal to mine forums for potential research (to get a feel of what is currently the trend and what members of forums speak about, do they hate it, like it?).

Also what are its benefits, for instance I assume that of every 100 posts only 1 would be a really qualitative one, so does it make sense to afford the costs of mining? Would members have objections (I doubt it because most forums are free to use) and is there any way to ensure that the data from the forum is specific to a particular region or that it is accurate?

 

[nickycakes]

Nobody with any real amount of success in online marketing is posting about what they do on public forums.

 

[productionhead]

MINE ME BRO

 

[momchil9]

Nobody with any real amount of success in online marketing is posting about what they do on public forums.

[x] Reading comprehension

ontopic, you can't make that happen for tons of reasons, like noise, deliberate misleading, trolling, outdated information and lack of manpower to clean everything of the above.

Also you would need to spend tons of time reducing everything to simple formulas and then making deductions and correlations, only to see that there isn't one. But that is the only way to make something meaningful out of it all.

So yeah, basically if you have 2+ years, go ahead.