News notes
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Baltimore, has released its regulations implementing the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which will launch a centralized federal registry of payments to physicians from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. In conclusion to a lobbying campaign that began in summer 2007, the Marketing Research Association, Washington, D.C., reported that incentives for physician respondents in marketing research studies will not have to be reported under the new regulations, as long as the manufacturer clients are unaware of the identities of the respondents.
Columbia, Md., research company Arbitron Inc. has filed a lawsuit against WKYC-TV, Cleveland, alleging that the TV station improperly claimed use of its ratings data in its media kit. Arbitron is claiming copyright infringement in the suit, saying that the station incorrectly stated that data involving Pandora audience listening estimates came from Arbitron.
Separately, the law office of Brodsky & Smith LLC, Bala Cynwyd, Pa., is investigating potential claims against Arbitron’s board of directors relating to the proposed acquisition by New York researcher The Nielsen Company. The investigation concerns possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law by Arbitron’s board for not acting in its shareholders’ best interests in connection with the sale process to Nielsen.
Finally, the Media Rating Council (MRC), New York, has accredited Arbitron’s Portable People Meter radio ratings service in four additional markets: Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego and Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, N.C. The MRC has also voted to continue accreditation in 14 markets.
Acquisitions/transactions
San Mateo, Calif., research company Aggregate Knowledge has acquired Emeryville, Calif., research company Quantivo.
KL Communications Inc., a Red Bank, N.J., research company, has acquired Grupthink, a company specializing in collaborative online discussions. Grupthink and KL Communications will partner to create CrowdWeaving, a platform where participants can collaborate with companies to create new products, designs, etc.
Cambridge, Mass., research company Abt Associates has acquired Australia consulting firm JTA International. The company will be known as Abt JTA and operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abt Associates.
Leger – The Research Intelligence Group, Montreal, has acquired Researchology, Toronto.
Google, Mountain View, Calif., has acquired Celebration, Fla., e-commerce software and data analytics firm Channel Intelligence for $125 million to support its Google Shopping business.
IBM, Armonk, N.Y., has agreed to acquire the software portfolio of Star Analytics Inc., a Redwood City, Calif., business analytics company.
Twitter, Palo Alto, Calif., has acquired Boston analytics company Crashlytics. Twitter will incorporate Crashlytics’ crash reporting solution into its mobile apps.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
Haymarket Media, London, and Melbourne, Australia, research company Effective Measure have partnered to incorporate measurement and audience insight from Haymarket Media Asia and Haymarket Media Australia into Effective Measure’s digital assets across Asia-Pacific.
Research companies Vision Critical, Vancouver, B.C., and Morpace Inc., Farmington Hills, Mich., have extended their partnership into mainland China.
Research companies AbsolutData, San Francisco, and Alteryx Inc., Irvine, Calif., have partnered to develop customer analytics solutions.
Research companies Pharmspective LLC, St. Louis, and Mark Farrah Associates, Kennebunk, Maine, have collaborated to develop market intelligence products and services utilizing Mark Farrah Associates’ insurance data products and Pharmspective’s Pharma Business Applications suite. The alliance will focus on the development of market analytics products for pharma decision makers impacted by the Affordable Care Act.
Purple Market Research, London, has joined Los Angeles research company Kelton Global Group.
New York research company OnePoint Global has partnered with Customer Experience Agency, a Johannesburg, South Africa, customer experience improvement agency, to expand OnePoint’s mobile survey platform across Africa.
Awards/rankings
Encino, Calif., research company uSamp has been ranked 51st on the Forbes list of America’s Most Promising Companies. The 100 privately-held companies on the list are selected based on growth (both in sales and hiring), quality of management team and investors, margins, market size and key partnerships.
Stamford, Conn., research company Anderson Analytics’ text analytics platform OdinText was named as a key challenger to competitors IBM, SAS, Clarabridge and Attensity in the Go to Market Strength and Customer Experience Strength quadrants of the 2013 Text Analytics Victory Index Report. The Customer Experience Strength category is evaluated based on validity (strength of product) as well as value (strength in meeting client objectives). Go to Market Strength is based on viability (stability of company) and vision (strength of company strategy).
New York research company GfK User Centric has awarded the first annual GfK User Centric Fellowship to DePaul University master’s degree student Andrea Abney. Distributed annually on a competitive basis, the GfK User Centric Fellowship recognizes exceptional graduate students by assisting with education expenses ($10,000).
Ogden, Utah, software reviewer TopTenReviews has named The Survey System by Creative Research Systems, Petaluma, Calif., the Best Survey Software 2013. The Survey System was selected for having the necessary tools to analyze data once it’s collected.
Farmington, Conn., research company The Pert Group’s Web site has been named Best in Class in the consulting category in the 2012 Interactive Media Awards (IMA), New York. The Pert Group’s site received exceptional scores in all areas: design, content, feature functionality, usability, standards compliance and cross-browser compatibility.
New accounts/projects
Commercial Radio Australia has selected Nuremberg, Germany, research company The GfK Group to manage radio audience measurement in Australia. The three-year contract begins January 2014.
USA Today, McLean, Va., has selected the Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C., to replace Gallup as its polling partner.
Portland, Ore., research company Rentrak Corporation, has signed a deal with Cincinnati data analysis company dunnhumbyUSA to integrate TV-viewing data with shopper loyalty card data from 60 million U.S. households.
Havas Edge, a Boston direct response agency, has adopted Rentrak’s TV viewing data to support its Web-attribution modeling.
The Telegraph, London, has adopted Portland, Ore., research company Webtrends’ Webtrends Streams digital intelligence solution.
New Zealand-based Landcare Research has chosen the mQuest mobile survey technology from German software firm cluetec as part of its partnership with the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of the South Pacific to study the effects of climate change on poverty and community resilience in Fiji.
Goodsearch, a San Francisco search engine, online shopping mall and restaurant dining program that contributes 50 percent of its revenue to the nonprofit or school designated by its users, has selected San Francisco research company Peanut Labs to launch Goodsurveys. With Goodsurveys, when a survey is completed a dollar (on average) is donated to the user’s chosen nonprofit or school.
Hall & Partners, New York, has selected Paris research software company Askia’s platform for its global data collection and analysis.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
London research company Vision One has opened an office in Liverpool, U.K.
Hollywood, Calif., research company Fizziology has launched its Canadian research arm.
Boston research company Strategy Analytics has established its Consumer Insights Practice.
New York research company Millward Brown has announced plans to open an office in Myanmar. The operation will be headed by Lyndal Pearce.
San Francisco research company AbsolutData has opened an office in London. Kulpreet Singh will lead the operation.
Newport Beach, Calif., creative agency Jovenville has launched a research arm, dubbed Opinion Pros. The division is online at www.opinionpros.com.
Fresno, Calif., research company Decipher Inc. has opened an office in Bend, Ore., at 780 NW York Ave., Suite 202.
Austin, Texas, research company Bazaarvoice Inc. has created Bazaarvoice Media Labs, a research and development group.
London research company BDRC Group has launched BDRC China in Beijing, led by Siew Wong. The division is online at www.bdrc-china.com.
Radius Global Market Research, New York, has opened offices in Detroit, Chicago and Princeton, N.J., to support the automotive, Rx-pharma and financial services industries, respectively. The firm has also appointed three executives to lead the businesses: Jeff Zboril, Detroit; Kathleen Relias, Chicago; and Glenn Staada, Princeton.
Research company earnings/financial news
ComScore, Reston, Va., announced financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2012. In fourth-quarter 2012, comScore achieved quarterly revenue of $68.4 million, an increase of 9 percent over fourth-quarter 2011. For full-year 2012, comScore reported revenue of $255.2 million, an increase of 10 percent over 2011.
Rentrak Corporation, Portland, Ore., announced financial results for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2012. Consolidated revenue increased 12 percent to $24.9 million, compared with $22.2 million for the same period in 2011.
Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y., reported a 5 percent decrease in fourth-quarter 2012 revenue to $37.1 million.
Kinesis Survey Technologies LLC, Austin, Texas, reported 16 percent year-over-year revenue growth in 2012.
B2B International, Manchester, U.K., reported 28 percent revenue growth to $8 million in 2012.
The Nielsen Company, New York, announced financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2012. Revenues for the fourth quarter increased 3 percent over fourth-quarter 2011 to $1,464 million. Net income decreased to $39 million, compared to $95 million in fourth-quarter 2011.
Revenues for full-year 2012 increased 1 percent to $5,612 million over 2011. Net income was $273 million, compared to $86 million in 2011.
Additionally, Nielsen has launched of a public offering of 35,000,000 shares of common stock. The shares are being sold by certain existing shareholders. No shares are being sold by the company in this offering and it will not receive any proceeds. In addition, the selling shareholders will grant the underwriters of the offering an option to purchase an additional 5,250,000 shares.
DataGravity, Nashua, N.H., has raised $30 million in a Series B investment round led by Menlo Park, Calif., venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.