I have a methodology problems I've been struggling with, and was  
wondering if anyone on the list had dealt with this before.

I'm studying how ideas spread over the internet and physical space,  
things like internet 'memes' such as e-mail jokes, cartoons, think  
"all your base belong to us." Unfortunately, there is no real way to  
track these things. E-mails are anonomous and privite, so you can't  
track where one of those e-mail jokes has been.

In theory you could track IP addresses for web-site based things,  
like flash cartoons, but there are a few problems with this. You  
would need the IP logs, which are rerely saved and most websites are  
lothe to give out information like that. If I could make my own  
internet meme on demand, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you -  
I would be swimming in my pool of money. There are plenty of viral  
ads out there which are specifically designed to collect information  
about viewers, but I don't think marketing firms will give out this  
kind of information to researchers.

The only other way that I can think of would be to do a internet  
based survey, basically asking "1) Have you seen this thing, 2)where  
do you live," but in order to get good data it would need to be huge,  
something very hard for an internet survey.

Has anyone else successfully dealt with this problem or have any ideas?

Thanks,
--------
Ben Spigel
Department of Geography
University of Toronto