Blog
Mobile phones are all around us. As of 2012, 6 billion people around the world have mobile phone subscriptions (1). And while mobile phones might have originally been used solely to make calls while on the go, they have since evolved, providing on-the-go internet access, storage for all of our information, or entertainment from music, videos, and games. However, one of the most popular features worldwide, if not the most popular feature, of mobile phones is text messaging (2). Just in the United States, as of 2011, 61% of adults use the text messaging function on their mobile phone.
Social science researchers face the challenge to send gift card codes to online survey participants immediately without buying all codes upfront. In the blog post, I explain how this can be achieved using the Qualtrics API and python. I describe a program that checks Qualtrics continuously for new responses and then sends each new respondent a code via email.