ESRI with four new offerings
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash., and Redlands, Calif., geographic mapping software company ESRI have collaborated so that ESRI’s geographic information system ArcGIS users will have access to the mapping and imagery content provided by the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform inside ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server. With Virtual Earth integrated into ArcGIS 9.3 Desktop, ArcGIS users are able to add base maps, which feature aerial and hybrid views, to perform data creation, editing, analysis, authoring and map publishing.
Users can preview Virtual Earth street maps, imagery and hybrid map layers at http://resources.esri.com/arcgisonlineservices. For more information visit www.esri.com/arcgisonline.
ESRI has released version 9.3 of ArcGIS. ArcGIS is designed to manage spatial information more efficiently, make better maps, send and receive information to and from the field, share common operating information and perform better planning and analysis. The new version also includes a new scatterplot matrix graph, new tools to help users understand how processes vary over space and a new vehicle routing problem. For more information visit www.esri.com/whatsnew.
Separately, ESRI’s latest version of BusinessMAP Financial includes up-to-date map and financial services data now compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista. BusinessMAP Financial 2 includes the following updates: BranchInfo and MarketBank data from RPM Consulting; credit union data from the National Credit Union Association; street-level North American map data; demographic data from ESRI including current-year estimates and five-year projections of census data; and ESRI’s Community Tapestry market segmentation system that classifies U.S. neighborhoods into 65 segments based on socioeconomic and demographic composition.
The feature updates are designed to allow users to create pie and bar charts on maps to compare data between areas; add data to the map by state and census tract as well as by county, zip code, address and latitude-longitude coordinates; create spider diagrams or desire lines revealing customer-to-branch preferences; add photos to specific map locations; and export map points and polygons to Google Maps or Google Earth. For more information visit www.esri.com/bmapfinancial.
ESRI has also published J. Allison Butler’s book Designing Geodatabases for Transportation, which details strategies to manage a highway, railway, mass transit or navigable waterway system. For more information visit www.esri.com/esripress.
CRS debuts new panel management module
Creative Research Systems, Petaluma, Calif., has launched its new panel management module for both Web and phone surveys. Integrating with the current Version 9.5 of The Survey System, the module is designed to create and administer databases of qualified participants who can be selected for specific surveys. Additionally, the module is designed to recruit panelists via Web site or e-mail; verify panelists using double opt-in; import groups of panelists; select panelists for specific surveys according to demographics, interests and past survey participation; track which surveys panelists received, started and completed; draw prize winners; let panelists earn and redeem points for survey participation; flag inactive panelists individually or based on lack of survey participation; manage panels through an administrative portal; view demographic data and survey participation by individual; and view statistics for specific surveys. For more information visit www.surveysystem.com.
Arbitron launches three product updates
New York research company Arbitron Inc. has introduced the PPM Passport Training Program, a series of advanced sessions designed to help advertising agencies plan and buy media using Portable People Meter (PPM) ratings.
The program consists of two prerequisite sessions, PPM 101 - Overview and Planning and Buying in a PPM World, followed by seven advanced sessions of which three must be completed: PPM Myth Busters; Going Beyond Ratings; Sports, Events and Promotions; PPM Radio and Ethic Audiences; Planning with PPM Radio Data; How Reach and Frequency Work; and PPM Software and Data.
At the end of the program, trainees will receive a certificate of completion as well as recognition on the Arbitron Web site as an on-staff PPM expert. For more information visit www.arbitrontraining.com.
In addition, Arbitron Inc. now offers a free, customized concierge service targeted to PPM survey participants between the ages of 18 and 34. The user-controlled, Web-based, telephone wakeup and reminder service is designed to improve compliance by increasing the day-to-day contacts between the PPM respondents and Arbitron’s ongoing panel relations efforts.
Called the PPM VIP Service, PPM panelists in New York, Houston and Philadelphia who live in households with a person age 18-34 in residence can use the personal digital calendar service to help keep track of their schedules. Users can simply visit their password-protected panelist Web page and register any phone number to receive customized alerts for any personal event.
Once a panelist activates the service, they can receive alerts and reminders on as many as five different numbers. The Web site allows a panelist to modify messages for each phone number, time of alert and personalize the content with exact text for every message they enter into the system. Later, when PPM VIP Service calls back at the designated day and time, an automated voice reads the same message the panelist input into the Web site.
Finally, Arbitron has launched a Web site for diary-measured markets. The site (www.arbitron.com/diary) is an information resource for subscribers in diary-measured markets of all sizes. The site is designed to provide visitors with access to online tutorials, on-demand training courses and other information focused on the needs of radio stations in diary-measured markets. The training options are designed to provide instruction on qualitative reporting, understanding research terminology and how-to information on building an effective radio schedule. For more information visit www.arbitron.com.
C&R debuts de-dupe tool
Creative & Response Research Services Inc. (C&R), Chicago, has announced the rollout of its DGID sample quality tool for real-time identification and removal of duplicate respondents from online surveys. DGID uses an approach that fingerprints individual computers when respondents connect to C&R’s survey portal and tags them with a digital ID tag, or DGID Tag, allowing them to be recognized and removed from the sample if they attempt to return. DGID is designed to sense and remove duplicates from samples within a single project, across waves of tracking projects or across multiple projects, independent of the sample sources being employed. The C&R initiative is intended to fill the sample management gap created when using multiple sample sources for online surveys.
DGID technology creates a machine fingerprint by exploiting minute variations in every computer’s hardware. This cannot be affected by users, by the operating system of their computer, by the software that’s installed or by the way they connect to the Internet.
DGID and DGID Tag have also been incorporated in the panel hygiene suite of C&R’s Panelator panel administration system, used to manage its KidzEyes, TeensEyes and LatinoEyes panels, as well as for managing client-owned proprietary panels. For more information visit www.crresearch.com.
TNS offers Insight to in-store marketing; Compete launches PRO online measurement tool
TNS, a Horsham, Pa., research company, has unveiled the TNS Insight Dashboard, a syndicated quarterly metric designed to track many variables over a period of time, enabling marketers to figure out which of their in-store marketing strategies are working hardest.
Insight Dashboard combines information about where shoppers are in a grocery store at any given time, tracking the number of seconds they spend at any display, the amount of time they spend with other products, and then overlaying it with sales information.
Separately, Compete, a Boston research firm recently acquired by TNS, has launched an online measurement service that combines site analytics, search analytics and audience measurement in a single service.
Compete PRO promises marketers a single repository for online metrics; offering access to data about consumers and tools to put that data into immediate action within their marketing programs. Compete PRO is designed to allow users to see where their Web sites fit in the larger landscape of the Web and on which sites to place ads. It is also designed to assess the impact competitors’ site redesigns are having on visitor engagement and which companies are doing the best job with the search keywords that are most important to their clients. For more information visit www.competeinc.com.
InsightExpress product monitors survey invitation process
Stamford, Conn., research company InsightExpress has launched its new Research Experience Monitor solution. The Research Experience Monitor is designed to allow publisher and portal partners to improve their users’ experiences by optimizing online research. The Research Experience Monitor is designed to help monitor, control and/or limit the frequency of invitations. InsightExpress advocates the use of a standard, vendor-neutral programming interface that is embedded into the research invitation process. InsightExpress is offering the solution to all clients free of charge. For more information visit www.insightexpress.com.
TrueSample rolls out in Europe, forms council
MarketTools, a San Francisco research company, has initiated the rollout of TrueSample across Europe, starting with the U.K. TrueSample is designed to ensure that each survey respondent is real, unique and engaged and to increase the quality of online market research. TrueSample validation provides six layers of fraud prevention and data cleansing that typically removes up to 25 percent of prospective panelists.
MarketTools’ TrueSample draws on methods used in other industries to solve similar problems of authenticity. It works with MarketTools’ own ZoomPanel, as well as those sourced from Certified TrueSample Panel Partners.
Additionally, MarketTools has formed the TrueSample Quality Council, a group of executives from consumer, marketing and research organizations dedicated to improving and standardizing the quality of online sample, including 12 inaugural members. For more information visit www.markettools.com.
Valient launches COST FX cost-reduction tool
Valient Solutions, a Rochester, N.Y., research company, has debuted its Internet-based COST FX market research platform designed for conducting cost-effective consumer and business-to-business market research. Typically, this cost-effective market research solution provides clients a 30-40 percent cost reduction opportunity over their current market research cost levels.
Key features of the Valient Solutions COST FX market research platform include access to over 10 million U.S. and global consumers and over one million business-to-business global contacts available via Valient Solutions’ online panel partners; low-cost customized HTML and Java Flash online survey development; multipath and dynamic logic survey path routing; flexible survey branding for identified and blind research studies; video, audio and static image embedding; multilanguage hosting capabilities; real-time data reporting; SPSS and Microsoft Excel compatible data output formats; in-depth analysis and advanced analytics capabilities; and results reporting in Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat formats. For more information visit www.valientsolutions.com.
RelevantID aims to provide fraud detection
RelevantView, a Westport, Conn., research company, has released RelevantID, a marketing research service designed to assure and certify that data collected is high-quality, credible, reliable and free of suspect respondents.
RelevantID is a digital fingerprinting and watermarking technology that gathers public data points about a respondent’s computer. The system is designed to provide certification of a user’s uniqueness, while remaining in full compliance with codes of conduct issued by the major market research organizations. Data that might personally identify respondents is not collected and data is not repurposed. For more information visit www.relevantid.com.
SPSS offers new stats software
Chicago research software company SPSS Inc. has introduced SPSS Statistics 17.0, the latest version of its troubleshooting software suite. SPSS Statistics 17.0 software is designed to analyze information and present results with tabular and graphical outputs. SPSS Statistics 17.0 has been updated with enhanced features in data access, data preparation, analysis and reporting.
New SPSS Statistics 17.0 software functionality includes improved research and reporting tools with new multiple imputation capabilities and the Syntax Editor, which is designed to eliminate errors commonly associated with syntax-driven analysis. The integration with Microsoft Office is designed to export results and create reports and presentations. The software also includes greater accessibility for beginners; increased functionality for experts; improved visualization capabilities; and enterprise integration, deployment and management.
Deeper integration with the SPSS Predictive Enterprise Services platform and SPSS Predictive Analytics data mining technology is designed to allow users to streamline analytic processes across the enterprise. Also, SPSS Statistics 17.0 provides extended administration tools to allow organizations to deploy SPSS Statistics in client/server configurations for teams and departments, giving them control over configuration, troubleshooting and measurement. For more information visit www.spss.com/statistics.
Kinesis makes three updates
Austin, Texas, research company Kinesis Survey Technologies’ survey software, Kinesis Survey, has added an additional option to its real-time reporting capabilities. The new option is designed to allow clients to build brandable reporting portals (Web sites) that contain preconfigured reports that can be refreshed in real time.
Additionally, Kinesis Survey now supports a second programming mode - offline. Offline programming is designed to enable multiple parties to work on a single project concurrently, allow programmers to work in locations where they do not have or do not desire Internet access and support continuous workflow efforts during catastrophic events, such as lack of Internet access or slow Internet access in the office. Once programmed in offline mode, surveys can be uploaded and tested at a later time. For more information visit www.kinesissurvey.com.
Kinesis has also added support to Triple-S XML-based export formats. Kinesis will offer support for both export format versions 1.2 and 2.0. For more information visit www.triple-s.org.
Techneos now serving SODA for mobile research
Techneos Systems Inc., a Vancouver, B.C., research company, has introduced the beta version of its Survey On-Demand Application (SODA) platform for mobile phone surveys. SODA software is built on the wireless Internet infrastructure and is able to operate offline.
In addition to the mobile phone survey engine which runs on each user’s mobile device, the SODA platform provides a set of project management tools designed to meet the needs of survey research projects. A Web-based customer portal allows researchers to deploy questionnaires to any number of mobile users and to monitor data as it arrives in real time. Survey data can be pre-populated, and partially-completed surveys can be reassigned to other users, allowing for a broad range of both self-complete and interviewer-based survey methods. For more information visit www.techneos.com.
Briefly
Capture Research LLC, Boston, has introduced Capture OnSite, a wireless video-based technology designed to allow observers to watch streaming video of on-site interviews in real time. The technology provides clients the opportunity to watch on-site research happening in most locations, including in stores, offices, customers’ homes and moving vehicles. The technology is equipped to work in over 300 markets in the U.S. as well as in Latin America, Europe and most of Asia. For more information visit www.captureresearch.com.
Wilton, Conn., research company Greenfield Online Inc. has launched new Duplicate Response Detection (DRD) technology to help ensure the continued flow of unique respondents across multiple respondent channels. The DRD technology is designed to prevent respondents from participating in surveys more than once. It assigns a unique, global ID to all respondents that becomes resident on their PC and stays with the respondent. For more information visit www.greenfieldonline.com.
E-Tabs, a Batavia, Ill., research software company, has launched a plug-in for the SPSS Dimensions suite of analysis products. The E-Tabs plug-in is designed to provide enhanced printing, viewing and reporting links for Desktop Reporter and other products within the SPSS Dimensions suite. E-Tabs has also launched a version of Enterprise, which automates graphs and charts within the Office 2007 suite. For more information visit www.e-tabs.com.
Market Equations, a Bangalore, India, research outsourcing company, has released its online survey software application. Some of the features of the application include: visual customizations through templates; progress visuals on each question; integration of response options; and a customized reporting interface. The survey application will be available free of charge. For more information visit www.marketequations.com.
The Analytical Group Inc. (TAG), a Scottsdale, Ariz., research company, has released its new WinCross Executive tabulation and reporting software, which generates tabulations using point-and-click design and publishes reports directly to Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word. WinCross Executive uses an SPSS format data file and will convert other data types, such as delimited and fixed ASCII files, if necessary. WinCross table and banner specifications can be imported for further data mining and exploration. WinCross Executive includes comprehensive statistics, significance testing, weighting, filtering and data recode capability. For more information visit www.wincross-executive.com
A Des Moines, Iowa, research company, iEmergent, has debuted its new line of demographic mortgage forecast reports that assess lending opportunities and show loan distribution patterns among various home-buyer and loan-type segments including ethnicity, race and gender. For more information visit www.iemergent.com.
Menlo Park, Calif., research company Knowledge Networks has launched KnowledgePanel Latino, the first online panel that enables researchers and marketers to conduct statistically-balanced Web-based surveys on the full U.S. Latino population. The new panel includes those who identify with Hispanic culture and values, as well as Spanish-speaking-only individuals. For more information visit www.knowledgenetworks.com.
Lightspeed Research, Basking Ridge, N.J., has launched a new personal care and grooming specialty panel in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Germany, with plans to launch across its other global panels. The panel gives clients access to nearly 100,000 online consumers, profiled on their purchasing behavior of personal care products, toiletries and cosmetics. For more information visit www.lightspeedresearch.com.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, research company Itracks has launched a new online panel in Canada. The panel, www.canadatalknow.com, is designed to complement the company’s online qualitative and quantitative software applications and supply the marketplace with insight into Canadian consumer behaviors. It has been developed internally by Itracks’ custom panel team and built to meet the industry guidelines put in place by ESOMAR. For more information visit www.itracks.com.
The NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., research company, has launched its BeautyTrends panel in Spain to measure the prestige beauty market through retail sell-through data. NPD BeautyTrends and Chicago research company IRI’s InfoScan have also joined efforts to collect data of the Spanish beauty market - prestige beauty by NPD and the beauty mass market by IRI. For more information visit www.npd.com.
Research Now, London, has launched an online panel in India, the latest to be added to the company’s Valued Opinions family of research-only online panels. For more information visit www.researchnow.co.uk.