Infosurv debuts on-demand prediction market for concept testing
Infosurv, an Atlanta research company, has released Infosurv Concept Exchange (iCE), a program to help companies conduct market research concept tests in two weeks by offering on-demand prediction markets. Prediction markets have been shown to have enhanced predictive validity, which may allow iCE users to more accurately determine which products and services will succeed.
Under the iCE framework, decisions from respondents are rationalized as reward values tied to specific outcomes (e.g., Concept C is best). The current market price is then interpreted as a prediction of the probability of the event. With a prediction market, only the “right” answer is rewarded.
Infosurv’s Web site features a free white paper, Prediction Markets for Concept Testing: An Innovative Way to Improve the Speed and Accuracy of Online Concept Tests, which aims to demystify this new approach. For more information visit www.infosurv.com.
New technique to help forecast product launches
Ziment, a New York research company, has introduced Sequencez, an analytic technique for modeling order-of-entry effects in new-product research and forecasting. Sequencez is designed to assess the effect of launch sequence and time to market on peak market share.
“Modeling order-of-entry has always been especially hard for market researchers. It is just too difficult for respondents to estimate how they will react when a product that has not yet launched enters a future market containing other products that have also not yet launched, but are expected to have been available for, say, six or 12 months at the time the product in question is approved,” says John Tapper, CEO, Ziment.
Sequencez is based upon dynamic new-entrant parsing, a technique Ziment has developed to address the forecasting issue. The technique combines uptake-curve modeling and time-series analysis to help estimate the impact of time on market for existing products on the share available to new entrants. For more information visit www.ziment.com.
GoReport offers enhanced survey reporting and analytics
Greenfield Online Inc., a Wilton, Conn., research company, has launched GoReport, a Web-based reporting and analytic tool designed to enable clients to access data in real time to begin conducting analysis of data and verbatim responses while their survey is still in-field and to provide users with an interface and the ability to drag and drop data into PowerPoint slides.
GoReport is provided as part of a standard offering to clients using Greenfield Online for survey programming. GoReport integrates with GoClient, the company’s client portal. For more information visit www.greenfield-ciaosurveys.com/goreport.asp.
Collaboration tool mixes social networks and research
A Toledo, Ohio, research company, c8mr, has launched Forum360, a social collaboration tool that uses social networking and online marketing research to create discussions among consumers. Forum360 uses online social conversations among customers or target interest groups with the goal of understanding consumers in context and applying social collaboration to spot trends; develop products; create customer communications and advertising; engineer the customer experience; or explore brand image, loyalty and positioning.
Forum360 uses professional community managers to develop an engagement plan, balance the community membership according to client information needs, host the online interfaces and facilitate communication with the community. For more information visit www.c8mr.com.
Vovici updates EFM suite with Vovici v4
Vovici, a Dulles, Va., research company, has released Vovici v4, its latest suite of enterprise feedback applications. Vovici v4 is designed to bring online communities, business intelligence and survey software to a common platform by allowing managers to write their own online surveys in conjunction with internal mentors and by allowing employees to develop and customize their own analysis of surveys reflecting their domain or geography.
With v4, customers can manage workflows and approval cycles; create custom online panels for segmentation; create and interact with online communities; conduct and share survey analytics; and integrate data from online surveys into internal applications and CRM systems.
Vovici v4 has also expanded on the online community functionality, providing new modules for respondent profiles, private messaging and tag clouds. Community members can discuss ideas with one another in the enhanced forums module. For more information visit www.vovici.com.
Firms partner to deliver telephony platform
Confirmit, an Oslo, Norway, research software company, has partnered with Magnetic North, a Norwalk, Conn., research software company, to deliver a hosted telephony platform intended to reduce the cost of telephone research projects and feedback programs and avoid the need for dialer hardware installation. The telephony service will be integrated with Confirmit’s new software platform and is designed to become a multi-channel platform, suitable for any size and complexity of feedback program or market research survey.
Using Magnetic North’s hosted on-demand outbound dialing and call-recording technology, Confirmit will provide users with preview, progressive and predictive dialing, autodialing, call recording and real-time audio-visual monitoring of telephone agents. The solution is expected to serve geographically-diverse operations, as interviewers need only an Internet connection and telephone line or VoIP connection. Addi-tionally, the solution provides “burstability” for call-center operators and other telephone operations, meaning new interviewers can be added to the system without the need to purchase and install new hardware. For more information visit www.confirmit.com.
Briefly
Quick Test/Heakin Research Inc., Jupiter, Fla., has launched OmniView, an in-person omnibus conducted once a month among a demographically-representative sample of 500 U.S. adult respondents using its net-work of mall-based data collection facilities across the continental U.S. For more information visit www.quicktest.com.
Research Now, London, has launched OmniTaxi for the U.S., designed to provide clients with a flexible alternative to omnibus research. OmniTaxi is not conducted according to a set weekly or monthly timetable, and clients are allowed to choose their sample target from a list of prescreened options. OmniTaxi does not enforce deadlines on respondents, and results are available from 48 hours after survey question submission. For more information visit www.researchnow-usa.com/omnitaxi.htm.
Sage Books, a Vienna, Va., publishing company, has released the Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods, which includes descriptions on the components and methods for building survey-costing calculations. Both business and scientific elements are described and combined to derive calculations that can be used to estimate survey costs. The book is sponsored by Nielsen Media Research, New York. For more information visit www.sagepub.com.
IPC, a Bannockburn, Ill., electronics association, has made all market research reports created and commissioned by the IPC Executive Market and Technology Forum program available to IPC members. IPC members will have full access to the library through www.ipc.org/membersonly. Additionally, selected presentations have been recorded and synchronized with the author’s slides. These multimedia presentations are also available at the members-only Web site. For more information visit www.ipc.org.
Healthcare Landscape, a London research company, has made its patient and caregiver panel available to U.S. agencies. The panel was launched in 2005 for European pharmaceutical and medical market research agencies to access when conducting focus groups, in-depth interviews, ethnography and online studies. Panel members are drawn from the firm’s recruitment portal The Patients Voice, as well as from its health care social network site icarecafe. It comprises around 290,000 patients and caregivers and covers at least 400 conditions. For more information visit www.healthcarelandscape.com.
NeoEdge Networks, a Mountain View, Calif., online gaming company, has launched NeoMom, a service created to collect survey data from female online gamers ages 25-54. A series of seven or eight survey questions appear as a Flash file in games that run on the NeoEdge network. The questions appear in natural breakpoints in the game platform where gamers would typically see an advertisement. The platform reads an XML document. For more information visit www.neoedge.com.