But the survey didn’t really include me as a respondent, so I didn’t complete it. I know the blog is mostly for students, but it could be useful to know how many non-students find it useful as well.

However, I think there is a weakness in the survey. Although college kids might buy things from places like “Target” or “AT&T,” it doesn’t mean that we *like* these brands. These sorts of things will vastly unchecked IMO. A better question might be whether we’ve purchased anything from these brands in the past 12 months or something.

Thanks!

I figured I would weigh in here since I’m actually the one that wrote the survey. I tried to keep the survey as light-hearted as possible and meant no offense in my choice of diction. I wanted to keep it short while extracting the most pertinent information possible. Compared to typical market surveys that I’ve seen, this is pretty tame (Hell, why do you think they _pay_ people to take surveys? They are almost always a pain.) Some of the questions might be a little misguided or presumptuous: not all readers of Study Hacks or HackCollege will still be in school, but we assume that most of you guys still are.

Surveys like these rub me the wrong way a little bit too, but as far as I understand it they are a way of participating in the business. The reason why we ask the heavy-handed “name some brands you like” question is to be able to approach these brands and say, “Hey, our readers are already interested in buying your products so why not advertise with us?” This might seem a little backwards, but it’s the way old media ad buyers are set in their ways. Since they are signing the checks, we have to play by their rules on idiosyncrasies like this.

The reason why we are doing this form of advertising is to provide something that’s more targeted and more comprehensive than just simple banner ads. Google AdSense works for many blogs, but I find it tends to advertise things that I would rather not be making money from like student loans, student loan consolidation and online educations (note: my personal opinion). By pooling our resources we are able to work with companies that actually care about students to do something more than just an eyesore on our front pages. Once we get the ball rolling, you will see a difference among the quality of sponsorships on the sites.

Hope this clears up a few of the misconceptions regarding the survey. If you have any other questions or concerns, shoot me (kelly@hackcollege.com) or Cal an email.