Andrew Jeavons, former president of Surveycraft Systems Inc., and Ed Ross, founder and former chairman of Quantime Ltd., have founded OpenSurvey, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development, discussion and distribution of open source software and open standards for survey research. OpenSurvey will also serve as a forum for the debate of any issues relating to survey software and open standards within survey research, both commercial and non-commercial. OpenSurvey aims to facilitate the development of a core tool kit of open source software for use within survey research (see www.osf.org for a more detailed discussion of open source software). OpenSurvey will also assist and initiate the development of open standards for the survey research industry. OpenSurvey will be made possible by donations of funds or resources from the survey research community. Initially the Technical Council that will guide OpenSurvey will comprise Jeavons, Ross, and William Connett, director of computing at the Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan (www.isr.umich.edu). The membership of this council will increase as OpenSurvey develops.
Data Based Marketing, a San Luis Obispo, Calif., marketing agency specializing in credit unions, is now offering Web Communications for Management Group will hold the SMART 2000 Strategic Marketing & Advertising Congress from April 14-16 at the Banff Springs Hotel and Resort in Banff, Canada. The Congress offers senior marketing and advertising executives a chance to interact with their peers through a variety of seminars, think-tanks, one-on-one prebased surveys.
GroupNet, a national alliance of 25 independent focus group facilities, has joined the videoconferencing network of FocusVision Worldwide, Inc., Stamford, Conn., to offer an expanded package of videotransmission services. FocusVision will manage all aspects of videotransmission services for GroupNet, including project coordination, technical support, and sales and marketing.
Fairfield, Conn.-based The Kantar Group, the information and consultancy division of global marketing services group WPP, has announced the merger of two of its companies, Research International USA and The Winona Group. Under the name Research International, the new firm will form part of the Research International Group. The merged firm will be headed by Alex Vayslep, CEO of Research International USA.
Kennebunk, Maine-based Digital Research, Inc. has acquired Davidson-Peterson Associates, Inc. (DPA), a travel, tourism, and hospitality research firm also based in Kennebunk. Karen Peterson, formerly president of DPA, will stay with the firm as managing director.
Opinion Research Corporation, Princeton, N.J., reported that revenues from its Internet-related activities around the world totaled $6.6 million in 1999.
The Arbitron Company, New York, has released Webcast ratings for the month of November 1999, extending its broadcast-style audience measurement to an additional streaming media provider, Access 21. The November edition of InfoStream compiled listening estimates for over 850,000 listeners. The second report included 255 channels of audio programming offered by six participating streaming media services - ABC Radio Networks, Access 21, BroadcastAmerica.com, LaMusica, Magnitude Network, and RealBroadcast Networks. The service determined that for these five streaming content providers, Internet listeners spent nearly a total of 1.4 million hours tuned to Internet audio during November.
Focus Portland, a Beaverton, Ore.-based subsidiary of InfoTek Research, has opened a new focus group facility in Beaverton. The facility includes three oversized group rooms, one large multipurpose room, and viewing rooms and lounges.
Harris Interactive, a Rochester, N.Y., Intemet research firm, has released the summary of its client base for Intemet research. Between July 1 and December 31, 1999, Harris Interactive’s total number of clients for Intemet-based research expanded from 47 to 186.
Charlottesville, Va.-based software firm AbTech Corporation has changed its corporate name to MarketMiner Inc., a nod to its MarketMiner Express 3.0 automated data mining tool.
Sausalito, Calif.-based MarketTools, Inc., an application service provider for industry, has closed $30 million in financing, including $25 million in equity and an additional $5 million in lease and debt financing. Separately, MyPoints.com, a developer of Intemet direct marketing and loyalty infrastructure, has chosen MarketTools to capture opinions, attitudes, and buying preferences from a targeted audience of more than 4.2 million consumers. In other news, the firm has finalized a two-way partnership agreement with marketing consulting firm Peppers and Rogers Group in which Peppers and Rogers will utilize MarketTools as the on-line market research platform of choice for their customers. In addition, MarketTools will become a Peppers and Rogers alliance partner.
Nielsen//NetRatings, a source of information on Intemet use and advertising, will be offered to French customers via a joint venture, called Mediametrie eRatings.com, which is a parmership between Mediametrie, the French audience measurement and survey company, NetRatings, Inc., and ACNielsen eRatings.com, a subsidiary of ACNielsen Corporation. Mediametfie eRatings.com will begin measuring the French Intemet marketplace in the second quarter of 2000. The new Mediametfie eRatings.com venture is jointly owned by Mediametrie (50 percent), NetRatings (30 percent) and ACNielsen eRatings.com (20 percent). Separately, Nielsen Media Research and NetRatings, Inc. has announced plans to begin Intemet audience measurement in Canada. The Nielsen/NetRatings service will begin reporting data from its Canadian research panel in the second quarter of 2000.
Focusing on quantifying and understanding the Internet-based business-to-business market, Boston-based research firm The Delphi Group has released the findings of a survey among end-users and vendors of Internetbased business-to-business tools.
Schaumburg, lll.-based ACNielsen U.S., an operating unit of ACNielsen Corporation has announced an agreement with Rite Aid that makes ACNielsen a primary insights supplier to the nation’s third-largest drug retailer. Rite Aid will use ACNielsen SCANTRACK data as its core source of nonprescription product sales information. The company also plans to utilize insights from the ACNielsen Homescan consumer panel and will have an ACNielsen client service representative on-site at Rite Aid full time.
New York-based research firm FIND/SVP has signed a collaboration agreement to develop find.com, a new Web site that will contain search engine technology, content and features. As part of the agreement, FIND/SVP is also assigning the domain name find.com and licensing the use of certain rights to the trademark "FIND" to a new company, Find.com, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of idealab!, a creator and operator of Internet businesses. Under the terms of the agreement, FIND/SVP is receiving consideration in the form of cash, stock, and royalties. As an initial result of the transaction, FIND/SVP expects to record pretax income of approximately $1.2 million in the fourth quarter Of 1999.
SPSS Inc., Chicago, and Acxiom have joined forces to create a customer relationship management (CRM) solution by combining the Acxiom Data Network with SPSS data mining technolog3,. Effective immediately, this relationship combines SPSS’ data mining software products with Acxiom’s consumer and business marketing data. New versions of SPSS’ flagship data mining product will be enabled for the Acxiom Data Network, a data delivery system that provides access to Acxiom’s InfoBase data products. Separately, SPSS has completed an OEM agreement with Hyperion under which SPSS will provide. Hyperion with forecasting technologies to extend the analytical capabilities of Hyperion Essbase OLAP Server. Under the agreement, SPSS will integrate its recently released DecisionTime and WhatIf? Forecasting products with Hyperion Essbase, a cross-platform open OLAP server.
Minneapolis-based Net Perceptions, Inc., a supplier of realtime personalization solutions, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held KD1, Inc. (Knowledge Discovery One), a provider of data analysis solutions for multi-channel and dot.corn retailers.
Meta Information Services, Inc., has moved to 11819 K St., Suite 200, Sacramento, Calif.
A new Web site, www.marldnetics.com, showcases the services of Marietta, Ohio-based research firm Markinetics Inc. and subsidiaries Markinetics/Fleet Solutions Alliance LLC and Call Center LLC.
Seattle-based DeepCanyon has formed a partnership agreement with Forrester Research, Inc. to make selected Forrester reports available through the DeepCanyon Web site. Under the terms of the agreement, DeepCanyon’s site will serve as a new distribution point for Forrester’s baseline packages - bundles of five reports designed to provide comprehensive intelligence on a given technology toPic. Forrester’s research reports have historically been available only to its subscribers.
InterSurvey, a Palo Alto, Calif., research firm, has signed an ageement with iVillage.com, an on-line women’s community, to be the exclusive provider of polling data on women voters and the 2000 presidential election. The polls will track the presidential race and issues of interest as part of the new interactive Election 2000 Channel on iVillage.com. Separately, the firm also announced that it has closed a second round of financing of $36 million. The funds will be used to expand the firm’s consumer research panel.