As reported in The Australian, the high profile Internet researcher YouGov is planning to launch an Australian Internet panel with up to 50,000 members. They claim that they can predict the result of the federal election to within 1 percent.

Newspoll chief executive Martin O’Shannessy was dismissive of online polling, saying it was less statistically rigorous because it was not random, such as a telephone survey. While there is some truth to what Martin has to say it would be wise not to underestimate YouGov.

YouGov has done well in the UK and have performed better than the telephone pollsters in predicting the outcomes of the elections in Great Britain. Revenue growth has been strong and they are now about to double in size.