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Along with other Web 2.0 market intelligence tools, online idea competitions can provide essential input for decision making in the early phases of product innovation. However, in order to use online competitions effectively, it is essential to know when to use which method, how to use it, and to what extent virtual and conventional research techniques can be used interchangeably or complementarily. A first step toward assessing the power of Web 2.0 techniques is to compare them with traditional ones. We compare the expense and results of online idea competitions with focus groups for idea generation in the market for senior citizen mobile phones and services. We find that idea competitions lead to more and better ideas at a lower cost per idea, while focus groups yield richer interactions with users.