A technique we have used successfully before is the participation in internet ‘chatrooms’, as a form of online focus group. Our approach is to post an innocuous question about the subject at hand, and letting the conversation flow from there – submitting comments just as a focus group moderator would, i.e. prompting response yet not leading it.
Care has to be taken to ensure that the choice of chatroom does not result in ‘extreme’ viewpoints. Online chatrooms are an ideal, cost-effective way to ‘test the waters’ on a given subject but cannot be said to be highly representative.