Social Insight Connect created to give Facebook Fans a voice
Cologne, Germany, research company Globalpark has debuted Social Insight Connect, a solution designed to help organizations create value and brand insights from their Facebook fans. Going beyond social monitoring, Social Insight Connect aims to allow marketing and digital teams to create a private feedback channel within the Facebook environment to understand consumer needs and preferences; test and generate new products; and extend marketing reach using an at-the-ready audience. Participating Facebook fans provide feedback; engage in interactive forums; receive alerts for new projects; and redeem reward points without leaving the social networking site. For more information visit www.globalpark.com.
Mobile app turns consumers into research Scouts
Chicago consulting firm gravitytank has introduced a mobile research application called dScout that aims to enable researchers and decision makers at organizations to learn from their customers; spot trends; and gather real-time feedback on consumer behaviors and desires. The application is designed to help market researchers capture human behavior as it occurs in virtually any context and also to build a community of consumers who actively share their perspectives in real-time from their mobile phones. Referred to as Scouts, participants share their experiences through snippets - a series of Twitter-like photos that include date, time, location and description - depicting their thoughts and behaviors in relation to a specific topic.
In addition to the mobile application, dScout features a Web interface that allows businesses to set study criteria; monitor Scout feedback; and analyze the cumulative data in a centralized location. Researchers can sort the data by topic, keywords, location using mobile geo-tagging, timelines and more. It can be used in the U.S. as a standalone research methodology or in combination with traditional techniques and is best suited for researching consumer behavior regarding products and services, specific experiences, everyday routines and their motivations and inspirations. DScout is accessible for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and an application for Android is planned. For more information visit http://gravitytank.com.
Principles of Marketing Research course gets with the trends
The University of Georgia, Athens, in conjunction with the Marketing Research Institute International (MRII), Athens, has introduced new trends curricula in its Principles of Marketing Research course. This addition is part of the overall course and is available to all who enroll. The four major themes in the 2011 course material are the changing structure of the industry highlighted by the dramatic reformulation of marketing research companies serving the industry; the increased interaction with competitive intelligence issues; the rise of social media, data mining and other new data collection methods which have led to new government regulations, especially in the privacy area; and the industry’s response to issues about the quality of new data collection techniques. For more information visit www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/pomr.
New network to ignite on- and offline media research
Stamford, Conn., research company InsightExpress has launched the Ignite Network, a series of partnerships with online panel companies intended to strategically aggregate several sample providers to offer sample access, new data integration capabilities and greater methodological rigor to online advertising effectiveness and cross-media research.
The Ignite Network aims to revolutionize how online and offline media research is conducted with three significant benefits. First, respondents are sourced from the Ignite Network and recruited via e-mail, which provides greater control over sample criteria and frees publishers from using pop-up invites, resulting in an improved site experience. Second, the Ignite Network offers the ability to bridge attitudinal data with online behavioral data and offline conversion data. And last, the Ignite Network increases the data available for media analytics to provide an understanding of the impact of media.
The Ignite Network comprises over 10 million respondents. Enhanced privacy controls protect respondents while still giving clients the ability to match behavioral and offline conversion data at the respondent level.
One of the intended methodological benefits of the Ignite Network is the ability to survey respondents exposed to an online advertisement after a significant passage of time, in order to better understand issues like advertising decay. Due to prior limitations with cookie technology, this type of extended timeframe post-exposure research was previously impossible. For more information visit www.insightexpress.com.
USamp revamps SampleMarket panel platform
Encino, Calif., research company uSamp has unveiled the beta version of SampleMarket 2.0, the next generation of its panel access platform designed to offer real-time, self-service access to a U.S. panel of millions of respondents. The platform aims to serve as the next step in achieving fully-automated delivery of market research sample. SampleMarket 2.0 is intended to simplify research project management and creation while providing an application programming interface to allow users to integrate the platform into their own technologies.
USamp has planned full SampleMarket 2.0 support for mobile devices in the second quarter of 2011, enabling users to log in to their market research projects via smartphone; check on real-time feasibility and statistics; and stop or start projects from any location.
Among the enhancements included in SampleMarket 2.0 are a complete redesign with a simplified user interface; project, group and e-mail wizard pages; access to panelists from uSamp’s U.S. panel for clients with or without their own panel; fielding parameters for the uSamp channel, with the ability to control daily quotas or directions; the ability to define group quotas by channel, such as a desired amount from a client’s own panel and another amount from uSamp’s channel; and real-time cost per interview (CPI) monitoring and CPI limits with e-mail alerts. For more information visit www.samplemarketbeta.com.
SurveyApp released for mobile research
The research collaboration msw loop from MSW Research Inc., Lake Success, N.Y., and Loop Analytics LLC, Oldsmar, Fla., has launched SurveyApp for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch; Android; and the SurveyApp Mobile Panel. SurveyApp is a mobile market research platform designed for companies to conduct market research with respondents who earn rewards every time they participate. The SurveyApp business model is free to download, and respondents earn money for taking surveys or by completing a comprehensive behavioral and attitudinal profile. SurveyApp aims to allow marketers and advertisers to tap into the mobile market for surveys, with targeting capabilities, result turnaround and accuracy. The platform capabilities are also available for installation directly in client apps to collect observational analytics and administer surveys using a non-disruptive methodology. For more information visit www.loopanalytics.com.
Company debuts first Facebook management tool for businesses
Ridgeland, S.C., social media technology company mediafeedia has introduced a social media management tool exclusively for Facebook. Companies can access the digital tool at no charge from mediafeedia’s Web site and use its dashboard to manage and publish content on their Facebook pages.
Using a Web-based interface, mediafeedia does not require downloads to operate. Users are able to create a mediafeedia account and import Facebook business pages that they currently administer. These pages will be added to the user’s mediafeedia dashboard and synchronized with Facebook. The dashboard features a selection of free functionalities for businesses on Facebook, including the ability to manage multiple Facebook fan pages from a single dashboard; receive e-mail notifications about comments on fan pages and respond directly via e-mail; post real-time Facebook status updates that include text, images, links and link attachments; schedule future wall posts for specific dates and times; view and edit scheduled messages in a central location; share Facebook page responsibilities with other administrators; and grant administrators access and permissions for specific pages. For more information visit www.mediafeedia.com.
QuickQual offers ‘assisted’ qualitative research
20|20 Research, Nashville, Tenn., has released QuickQual, an offering built around 20|20’s QualBoard online bulletin board platform designed to use proprietary processes, technology and a qualitative assistant to deliver 14-day (or less) project turnaround on consumer studies in the U.S.
The 14-day clock starts when 20|20 receives the project specifications. The process starts with an up-front planning session with the qualitative assistant, and the assistant will write the screener and provide guidance in writing the discussion guide. The QualBoard can run for up to three days. The qualitative assistant will load the discussion guide and provide limited probing as needed. The qualitative assistant will tag key content in the discussion for use during analysis and deliver a daily highlights report. Upon project completion, 20|20 will send incentives to participants and the assistant will provide a complete, customized report and transcript package. For more information visit www.2020research.com.
Briefly
FocusVision, a Stamford, Conn., research software company, has enhanced its video-editing tool which is integrated into the online archive FocusVision provides after every project. Improvements include a playback feature to facilitate fine-tuning of clip content; an updated interface; and pop-up Tool Tips. Once created, users can combine their video clips into highlight reels and insert them into PowerPoint presentations. For more information visit www.focusvision.com.
Revelation has released its Visual Activity Scheduler, an upgrade to Revelation Project designed to make online qualitative research easier and more visually intuitive using drag-and-drop functionality. The interface features aim to allow users to gain a holistic view of activities across segments and participants; review activity progress; and schedule, remove or delete online activities. For more information visit www.revelationglobal.com.
Menlo Park, Calif., research company Knowledge Networks has expanded the number of young adults and Hispanics involved in its KnowledgePanel. In 2011, Knowledge Networks intends to more than double the number of young adults (ages 18-24) and increase Hispanic representation by more than 40 percent. For more information visit www.knowledgenetworks.com.
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. and Hailey, Idaho, business solutions company Marketron have integrated Arbitron’s TAPSCAN Web, a Web-based sales proposal and analysis system, with Marketron Exchange, the media ecosystem platform for connecting buyers and sellers electronically to share orders, invoices, performance information, ratings information and more. Linking the two systems is intended to give radio sales executives an efficient, all-in-one sales and traffic solution. For more information visit www.arbitron.com.
New York research company Ipsos North America’s omnibus division has added cell-phone dialing to its Ipsos U.S. Express Telephone Omnibus. The omnibus also offers weekly Spanish interviews at no additional charge. For more information visit www.ipsos-na.com.
Stamford, Conn., research company InsightExpress has launched LiveInsights, a real-time campaign measurement, optimization and reporting tool for brand marketers. LiveInsights is designed to eliminate fundamental issues with existing real-time reporting options, namely the need for weighting. Results are available to clients via a customized dashboard that delivers data using Adobe Flash technology. For more information visit www.insightexpress.com.
ProsperChina, a Worthington, Ohio, research company, has introduced InsightCenter, a consumer-centric dashboard intended to deliver the responses of 19,000+ consumers who participate in the ProsperChina Quarterly survey. Users can choose from thousands of data points to display the latest shopper insights. For more information visit www.goprosper.com.
London research company Skopos has launched the MTrack/TabTrack/ChatTrack syndicated tracking application to measure and track the commercial and collective impact of mobile, tablet and social network channels. Every quarter Skopos will survey 500 U.K. citizens on their awareness and usage; opinions and evaluations; drivers and barriers for the mobile and social networks as channels for buying, shopping, connecting, socializing, entertaining, etc. For more information visit www.skopos.info.
Israel research company Dooblo has released version 1.31 of its SurveyToGo software. The upgrade is provided free of charge to all SurveyToGo customers. New features include live quota support; free-form sketching questions; SPSS Quantum data format support; and live image capture from the laptop client. For more information visit www.dooblo.net.
C&R Research, Chicago, has a debuted market research online communities called ParentSpeak, designed to bring together parents of children up to 18 years of age for client-sponsored research. Among the research capabilities offered through ParentSpeak are online immersion and advisory sessions, including online chat sessions and focus groups, bulletin boards, exploratory surveys, photo and video journals and voicemail shop-alongs. For more information visit www.parentspeak.com.
Chennai, India, research company Rightrack has launched Easy Research Pro, an online business research tool that uses a social media style of participant interaction and multimedia streaming. For more information visit www.rightrack.net.
Kinesis Survey Technologies LLC, an Austin, Texas, research company, has updated its Kinesis Survey solution to include built-in support for Google Analytics to allow users to track survey respondent activity by each survey URL for all survey projects. For more information visit www.kinesissurvey.com.
Glastonbury, Conn., marketing communications agency Cronin and Company LLC has added an analytics component including reporting and analysis; search engine optimization; and Web analytics to its media offerings. For more information visit www.cronin-co.com.
Experian, a Costa Mesa, Calif., research company, has expanded its marketing services with Experian Hitwise in India. Experian’s Internet measurement service is intended to help domestic and international marketers operating in India to improve their online marketing, content development, affiliate strategies and search tactics. Experian Hitwise reports on 200,000+ Web sites across 119 industries and over six million search terms, based on the anonymous and aggregated Internet activity of an opt-in panel of Indian Internet users. For more information visit www.experian.com.
GfK Research and Technology, Nuremberg, Germany, has launched GfK Network Intelligence Solution (GfK NIS), designed to monitor mobile Internet usage and user behavior in real-time. GfK NIS uses data from operators’ IP traffic to produce insights into daily mobile Internet usage. NIS aims to measure user behavior on all Web sites visited using any mobile Internet device. For more information visit www.gfkrt.com.
Reston, Va., research company comScore Inc. has released Video Metrix 2.0 in the U.K. The online video measurement service features several enhancements, including the ability to filter video viewing activity between advertising and content; a reach/frequency tool to help agencies plan against online video; additional reporting metrics; and ranking of video advertising networks by actual reach of ads delivered. For more information visit www.videometrix2.com.
Orem, Utah, research company Opinionology has launched panels in Italy and Spain. For more information visit www.opinionology.com.