I have a friend who joined blarry.com which is an online survey company located in San Fransisco. Blarry House Research doesn’t use questionnaires they use focus groups which meet either by telephone or on the internet. The participants are asked to give candid responses about their hobbies, professions, and even breakfast cereals.

The focus group is comprised of people from similar backgrounds or that use the same products. She says she has found them to be honest and professional and she likes that they pay a decent amount of money to individuals for their time and your not limited to how many focus groups in which you can participate.

It’s open for USA residents older than 13 and only 1 person per household is allowed to participate in each of the focus groups. It is one account per home, but depending on the focus group anyone in your family could be the participant. It could be a family project for special occasion funding.

However the only drawback to participating is that you can’t expect to participate on a weekly basis. But the more you answer “yes” to the general questionnaire you complete upon joining the site makes you eligible for more focus group participation. Payment is sent to your home in the form of a check. It usually ranges from $40. to $150 dollars for participation in the focus group.

She told me that it was a nice survey company to join and she really liked it and it reminds her of a survey group she participated in before the internet. She said she has only done one so far an that was on the internet and the chat session was lengthy, but paid well.

Most of the focus groups meet in the evening so for those that work outside the home during the day could still participate and get paid well for an hour or so of your time. Since the company is based in California and if you decide to check it out and if you decide to do the teleconference forum, you would want to have unlimited long distance service on your phone otherwise you could end up paying more for the call than you earn in the survey.

The positive points she tells me is that they don’t try to sell her anything and they don’t spam her inbox. She’s only received a few emails. She did her focus group in a chat session which she enjoyed and said it was painless. She doesn’t get telemarketing phone calls because Blarry.com will not sell your information and maintains your privacy.

She says if your looking for a legitimate way to earn a few extra bucks and like to give your opinion in front of other people that you will like this, but don’t expect to retire or quit your day job and remember if you live on the East coast, you have to account for the three hour time difference.