DJEVOLVE said:
JWeinCom said:
DJEVOLVE said:
If they had over 10,000 Receipts showing one or the other winning, This is actually a pretty large poll and I wouldn't expect it to be over 5% error, maybe 10% from that poll. However I'm not sure what there actual sample size was, obvious the bigger the better.
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You could have 100,000 receipts, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything if the sample isn't random.
For example, when I used to work retail, I worked in a community with a largely Russian population. Even when the Wii was dominating and the PS3 was sucking wind, we always had more PS3 sales. So, if you took receipts from our store, it would give you a really skewed view. There is no reason to expect it to be accurate to 5% unless you have some knowledge of their sampling method. Having worked on Black Friday, I can't imagine the sampling method was anything more complex then checking random receipts.
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This app would cover the whole country wouldn't it? Anyone can download it. So I'm sure it's pretty random.
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Random, in a statistical sense, means something different than random in everyday usage. In a statistical sense, random means that every member of your population (in this case the population means anyone buying a console this holiday) has an equal chance of being selected.
So, if it's a smart phone app, then already there is a bias towards certain people. For example, who is more likely to use the app. A 70 year old woman buying a gift for her granddaughter, or a 25 year old tech savvy customer buying a console for himself?
If the data collection method in any way skews the data by age, gender, income level, or any other factor, than it is not random.
