There is no denying the radical transformation the World Wide Web has brought about in this generation. On one level it is a new, more efficient way of communicating, of distributing and accessing information, and doing business. On another, much larger, level, it has been a catalyst to globalisation, a dissolver of boundaries ... and a creator of virtual social spaces and communities that transcend geography. The market research fraternity has likewise benefited from 'web efficiencies'. In recent years, we have made huge strides in using the internet as a tool and a space to conduct research. We have learnt to adapt our questioning style to the limitations of cyberspace, to engage and motivate respondents online, we have a better idea of the segments and issues that lend themselves more readily to online research, and we've been experimenting (often quite successfully) with online focus groups. However, the focus of our efforts has really been on using the internet as a tool to conveniently and efficiently reach respondents. We have largely ignored another significant aspect of the web-that of the web as a social forum: a living, responsive, interactive community that is in itself replete with insights about the consumers we are interested in studying. Web ethnography-or webnography-is an attempt to look at the web as an object of study, and to search for insights into the 'natural conversations' that occur in various web forums. WHY WEBNOGRAPHY? There are some compelling reasons why webnography may be one of the most exciting new ways of accessing consumer insights in the years to come. Living on the Web ... More and more, the internet is becoming a place where people live a part of their lives. Web communities like newsgroups have been in existence for a long time, as have chat rooms, mailing groups and networking groups. But one phenomenon that has really given a fillip to 'living on the web' is the weblog. A weblog, like nothing else, bridges the gap between the private and the public. Bloggers, safe in the relative anonymity of the internet, feel free to discuss details of their personal life, comfortably air opinions on the mundane as well as the significant events that surround them, seek out like-minded friends and form enduring communities. Here is a description of a blog from www.bloggers.com: 'A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.' And a take on the interactive space that blogs represent, in the words of an avid blogger: 'As bloggers we update our sites frequently on the content that matters to us. ... by including features to allow readers to comment directly on a specific post, we allow our readers to join the conversation ... creating a real-time communication channel between the blog's primary author (its creator) and its secondary authors (its readers who email and comment).'

This paper summarises the presentation by Anjali Puri on “Webnography: its evolution and implications for market research” given at the IJMR Research Methods Forum: ‘Methods Matter: Interviewing and Beyond’, 25 November 2008, Royal Society, London.

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This paper reports on the classification of Hindi (language) words with respect to deep dyslexia phenomena as found during a linguistic investigation of specific errors as shown by children with dyslexia (CWD) during reading. The analysis is based on the data collected throughout an academic year from a total of forty-six children identified as dyslexic, having Hindi as a mother tongue or first language, and studying in class second to fifth. The findings are organised under four themes; first is similar meaning and the same language, second is similar meaning but different language, third is different orthography and different meaning but share a relationship, and fourth is different words but have some resemblance in orthography but differ in "matraa". One another possibility was also considered as fifth theme i.e. incoherent, but no details came under this out of the data collected. It was found that despite differences in the linguistic contexts of English and Hindi, deep dyslexia crosses language boundaries. The derived considerations are discussed which will perhaps work as a foundation, provide some reflections for further research, and hope to convey comprehension to some extent of how deep dyslexia reflects in words of Hindi language.

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