One of the recurring elements of my criticisms of big media websites is that you have to learn Web 1.0 before you try at Web 2.0. Uploaded stories from newspapers still don’t have clickable links, URLs are way too long, related stories aren’t linked to each other, etc.

Another example of this comes courtesy of Quebecor’s Canoe.ca website, which is presenting a “survey” with Quebecor-owned TVA/LCN, Quebecor-owned Journal de Montréal and Corus-owned Énergie 98.5 FM. The survey asks people questions in order to track down differences between Baby Boomers and younger generations (or more precisely, find out what the generations think of each other). Certainly no surprise for the Journal, which prefers to create divisive scandals rather than report on news that’s already out there.

But the version of the survey published online is ludicrously low-tech. Rather than have visitors fill out a web form (a technology that we’ve only had for about 12 years), it presents the options in barely-formatted paragraphs and then asks readers to cut and paste their answers into an email (that they format themselves).

How about I save everyone some time: Young people think Baby Boomers are old, boring, intolerant, stubborn and out of touch. Baby Boomers think young people are impulsive, irresponsible, weird, stupid and disrespectful.

Now where’s my Pulitzer?

UPDATE (Jan. 20): The first results are in, and ranking of priorities shows no real difference between the age groups (though I’m sure they’ll try to find one). Continuing the we-don’t-know-this-technology-stuff motif, the full results are a PDF focument of a scan of what looks like a bad photocopy of a fax of printed sheets of computer-generated charts. Have these people never heard of email?