Microsoft paid about $486 million for a survey company, and what it wanted most was a European shopping site. Greenfield Online, based in Wilton, Connecticut, started by moving market research onto the internet. It built large panels of people who agreed to answer questions online, and research firms and brands paid for the answers. Market research had long meant phone calls during dinner and clipboards in malls. Greenfield went public in July 2004.

Panels Replace Phone Banks

Greenfield bet that the internet would make surveys faster and cheaper than any phone bank. A large online panel, with known details about each member, let researchers reach the right people in days instead of weeks. Online panels became the standard tool of market research in the years that followed. In April 2005 Greenfield bought Ciao, a European site where shoppers compared prices and wrote reviews. Ciao brought shopping referrals and its own survey community.

The Ciao Prize

Greenfield Online priced its IPO at $13 a share in July 2004 and listed on Nasdaq under the ticker SRVY. Ciao grew into a major part of the company. In 2008 Microsoft agreed to buy Greenfield for about $486 million, mainly to add Ciao to its search and shopping efforts in Europe. Microsoft later sold the survey business to Toluna for $40 million.

Cover: Poppy Field (Giverny), Claude Monet. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a green field.