For decades, polling meant calling people at home during dinner. Harris Interactive, owner of the famous Harris Poll, bet that the internet could do it faster, cheaper and at far larger scale. By the time it filed to go public in late 1999, it had built a panel of millions of people willing to answer surveys online. The polling industry was watching to see if the method would hold up.

Buying the Harris Poll

Gordon Black founded his research firm in Rochester in 1975. Later he bought Louis Harris and Associates, the pollster behind the Harris Poll. His bet was that online panels could replace telephone surveys for much of market research. Online surveys cost less, could show images and video, and could reach thousands of people in days instead of weeks. It was a bold move for a firm with a famous brand to protect.

Elections, Then $2 a Share

Harris Interactive priced at $14 a share in December 1999. Many people doubted its online polls at first. Then the polls performed well in several elections, and internet research went mainstream. Over time, cheaper online survey tools pushed prices down, and the company lost money for several years. In 2014 Nielsen completed its purchase of Harris Interactive for $2 a share, about $117 million.

Cover: Crowds at the Year-end Fair at Kinryuzan Temple in Asakusa (Asakusa Kinryuzan toshi no ichi gunshu), from the series "Famous Places in the Eastern Capital (Toto meisho)", Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a holiday crowd at a temple fair (public opinion).