Is Google Consumer Surveys a viable revenue stream for publishers?

Google announced Consumer Surveys earlier today, a new service that hopes to create an alternative and viable revenue stream for publishers, while providing near real-time accurate market research data for businesses.

Publishers get paid for hosting micro-surveys like a simple multiple choice question about cereal box packaging, for example. Micro-surveys exist between the user and the content they are accessing – a type of fluid paywall that gets removed once a single, simple question is answered.

Consumer Surveys will cost businesses as little as 10c per response, but what percentage of this is given to the publisher is unknown.

Responses given are “completely anonymous” and won’t be used at a later stage in targeted ads. The Texas Tribune, Star Tribune and Adweek have already begun testing the service on their sites.

The model is interesting and one that appears to adhere to everyone’s need; users still get to read content for free, publishers find an alternative revenue source and businesses learn more about what their customers want.