As was the case with survey research, many market researchers engaged in focus group studies readily saw the inherent benefits of the Internet: "lack of geographic barriers, lower costs (about half as much), faster turnaround time, and intangibles such as increased openness on the part of respondents when they do not have an interviewer staring them in the face" (McDaniel and Gates, 2002). Yet, despite such demonstrable benefits there are other researchers who maintain that without direct, person-to-person interaction, focus group research will always come up short. After an exhaustive review of the pluses and minuses of online focus groups