Trend for 2009: Mapamania

Yep, it's the end of the year again, time to start thinking of what is ahead.

Trendwatching.com just posted half a dozen of trends for 2009, including what they call MapaMania.   The post explains how they wonder if 2009 will be the year in which all things ‘contextual’, ‘app’, ‘local’, ‘urban’, 'tags', 'lidar', ‘smartphone’, ‘convenience’, 'Cell ID', ‘spontaneity’, ‘infolust’, and ‘GPS’ come together in one orgasmic celebration of map-based tracking, finding, knowing and connecting? 

This brings me back to my previous post on Location Based Survey and on the iPhone and market research.   Will 2009 be the year in which market research will actually start working towards location based surveys?   But if we just think a bit further on how this may impact our industry, let’s just remember that a future version of the iPhone will most definitively be a transmitter for the Global Positioning System (GPS). This will offer researchers the opportunity to exploit the user’s physical location and link this to mobile survey data. This will than offer researchers an opportunity to conduct “point of exposure” data collection centred on event tracking: Track the respondent's proximity to outdoor advertising, allowing effectiveness research, probing for recall, etc. The accuracy and precision will only become much greater in the next few years.

Embraced by eager consumer masses who will flock to anything from friend-finders to lowest-gas-price-locators? Aided by services that already know which street users are on?

Nokias expect half of their handsets to be GPS enabled by 2010-2012).  MapQuests, Navteqs, and TomToms of this world continue to build the necessary infrastructure, devices and apps, any market research company would be stupid not to be partnering or experimenting with these map-based services. 

Why? Geography is about everything that is (literally) close to consumers, and it's a universally familiar method of organizing, finding and tracking relevant information on objects, events and people. And now that superior geographical information is accessible on-the-go, from in-car navigation to iPhones, the sky is the limit.

So to conclude the future of market research will undoubtedly bring a new reality:

• in which the “portable Internet” will provide researchers with more timely, comprehensive and accurate recall of consumer experience, and
• in which the combination of consumer and product data with occasion-based event information will provide a new way of data collection.

Are you fighting the internal Community battle?

Whenever you are working in a market research firm which has proprietary online panels, you may very well be working on an internal project right now trying to mover your online consumer panels to a more Web 2.0 sustainable environment: towards research communities, not plain panels.

You may encounter some internal resistance or perhaps road blocks and you may need a lot of energy and time to convert those who are not as up to speed on Web 2.0 as you are.  Should this apply, but probably also simply for those who are working on a business case on research communities I found a great training.  Today I came across a presentation by Joshua Rosh, VP of O'Reilly's InPractice in which he offers hands-on advice on how to start-up social technologies in your company.  His webcast basically is a field guide to bringing social technologies into any organization. The webcast will explore how to: 

1. Make the case: how to bring Web 2.0 concepts into your organization (including convincing upper management)
2. Fail Forward Fast: how to create effective pilot programs without losing your head (or your job)
3. Spread the gospel: The key ingredients that make a successful Web 2.0 evangelist

Based on direct consulting experience, and with plenty of hands-on examples Joshua needs 40 minutes to share the do's and don'ts for all of you out there who are thinking to introduce social community services to your panels.  It's not focussed on our industry, but I think you'll get the idea and will easily be able to mirror the general best-practices and apply them to your research company.   After the 40 minute presentation, there is a 20 minute Q&A session. 

LinkedIn to Provide B2B Sample

In case you missed the latest Daily Research News on MrWeb, yesterday they posted an article about LinkedIn.

You can find the original here.

It comes down to LinkedIn's initiative to provide a primary research service to help market researchers gain market intelligence from their database of more than 30 million members. By searching on any combination of qualifications, company, industry, title, expertise and keywords, clients will be able to profile industry experts who meet specific criteria.

‘LinkedIn overcomes quality and authenticity issues that other sample providers face,’ said Dan Shapero, Director of Business Services, LinkedIn.

I've seen Shapero asking for ideas on some of the groups onLinkedIn (like the Market Research Professional Group). He started discussions with his question on how LinkedIn can help researchers to be more effective. 'We'd really appreciate any thoughts that you have on using LinkedIn to reach B2B sample to conduct market research , to collaborate with researchers and to share best practices ' He explains.

Well I must say he's giving us the perfect example on how to use that professional social network!

The ResearchClub - Amsterdam

The Research Club is an open social event ( a real-one, not a virtual one !) for anyone involved in the market research industry. A free event to make new contacts, develop business opportunities and keep up to date with the latest industry developments.

With events held in London, Amsterdam and Hamburg, it is a way to meet with like-minded research professionals and an opportunity to create and maintain your own national and international networks - all within an informal setting whilst enjoying some drinks and finger-food.

For the Dutch readers: Amsterdam's next event is on Thursday October 9th in Amsterdam (in Café De Jaren). Anyone working in the Market Research Industry can join -- feel free to bring a colleague! For more information or to see pictures of the April "borrel" in Amsterdam, visit their site. See you there!

Market Research 2.0 -- the companies who do, and who don't...

Yesterday I attended the 4th annual online market research conference "Research 2.0" of the MRS in London. Extremely relevant content was shared, and there was one thing I realised in the plane on may way back home: Some great multinationals like BBC, easyJet, Unilever and Coca-Cola presented their approaches and uses of the tools the new web has to offer. Some great small market research agencies -- I guess niche-players and mainly UK focussed-- shared their relevant and interesting insights. So all in all it was very worth while being there. But where were the big global research agencies...?

The changing competitive field of MR

Today my reader explodes with posts on Google's new internet browser: Chrome. It reminds me of a thought I had regarding the changing competitive field of Market Research. Last spring, at the announcement of Google acquiring DoubleClick, I immediately thought of that other company that DoubleClick acquired: TangoZebra. Tangozebra claims to be the leading online advertising solutions provider in the UK and their response unit is in charge of providing online research solutions. Just take a quick look at their gallery, and you'll see what it is they do. But more importantly: you'll see where Google is heading! Now mind you: DoubleClick itself enables Google already with a strong behavioral targeting system to improve advertising efficiency. I wonder:

"Would these type of companies replace (part of) the need for traditional MR...?"

Anyhow, like I already concluded here, the MR industry will not like anything like today, and I gues the point I am trying to make is: Every now and than, organisations like EFAMRO, CASRO, ARF and ESOMAR try to forecast the industry's revenue growth, yet they don't usually include the new companies who are new to the industry. Generally, I see three type of new entrants who we simply loose track off (but shouldn't, clearly) :

1. MR companies who simply are not a member of industry organisations: e.g. Comscore or Gallup ...
2. Market Research 2.0 companies, either still independent, (Compete, Communispace...) or already taken over (AC Nielsen's Buzzmetrics, TNS' Cymphony...)
3. New Niche players (sometimes part of big companies) Experian's Hitwise, Google's TangoZebra, , ComScore's M:Metrics ...

The number new players in the MR field is dramatically increasing. New entrants and substitutes are becoming a major force of change, there are many players are out there… some big and well-known, others smaller.

Our competitive arena is rapidly getting tighter and tougher!

Online Card Sort software

(Yes I am back from the summer break...!)

As always I am very interested in the new (and sometimes free) tools that are made available online that may make our lives easier as researchers. See other posts here, here or here. While some of you researchers may still have a hard time of getting a more basic "drag-'n-drop" feature programmed in your online questionnaire, there now online programs like Optimalsort and WebSort that allow card-sorting online. Create a study, send a link to participants, and analyze the results- all through a web-based interface.

The two companies do not really offer the tool for free -- the guys need to make a living -- yet they do have a "pay-for-use" scheme. Check them out and play a bit if you have a moment...

World of Internet: mapping 1.4 billion internet users

I have prepared a map of the world, showing today's Internet penetration in all countries of the world.

The map below will not only give you an indication of the internet penetration per country, you'll also see:

• the relative importance of the region on the internet
• the average internet penetration in the region
• broad band internet penetration in the top-15 countries
• share of most important languages used on the internet

Should you wish to receive the original, just drop me line by clicking here and I'll be happy to forward you the high-quality powerpoint slide.

I used various sources, but the main source has been the often used Internet World Stats site.

I hope you'll be able to use it.

Analysing the online Buzz around the US Candidates

Jeremiah Owyang -- Senior Web Strategist at Forrester Research -- posted some interesting graphs that analyse the buzz around the presidential candidates in the US. Using various free social media tools, he recorded some data using tools early June, that look at keywords on twitter, as well as ‘traffic’ to websites of the presidential runners.

"...I rarely place much weight in any single use of these tools, but there is a clear trend towards Obama getting a great deal of activity. Is this telltale to the future? I’m not sure..."

I really like the examples he comes up with and you should definitively visit the original post here. One example I'll give you here below

Now he makes the comment on how one always end up what you pay for (basically his examples are all tools that are free) he and I share at least one thing in common (and I mentioned it also in a previous post here) those researchers who seriously think they'll be in the business of delivering added value to clients must be familiar with these new types of graphing research results and we should all make an effort to seriously think how these tools can be improved so that they'll be of added value to our customers.

MRS Research 2.0 Conference - London

On Tuesday the 16th of September this year, the MRS will hold the 4th annual online research conference using "Research 2.0" mantra.

This is from their website:

The massive growth in web 2.0-based internet sites has created a new and empowered online consumer. No longer a passive information seeker; consumers are now active participants on the web, creating and publishing content at will. Increasingly, this presents new challenges for market research professionals in a more complex and dynamic research universe with far more data to manage. But change brings opportunity for economic growth as brands increasingly want to use web-based marketing as a source of revenue. And market researchers are responding through the use of different methodologies to find out what works best, where.

As a market research professional, how do you respond to the world of virtual research? How do you get to communicate with your end-audience through multi-digital channels? The 4th annual online research conference is a must-attend. The agenda has been further developed to help you steer your way through the many emerging models and research techniques to continually find the best way to apply them a growing on-line community.

Research Conferences has already run three ‘sell-out’ events on this subject. Attending delegates will gain knowledge of real life case studies and practical, applicable learnings, plus excellent networking opportunities with some of the though leaders from the online research industry. Keep you one step ahead of a fast moving digital game, captivate consumers and delve deeper than before.

Book before 15 August to ensure your place and receive your Early Bird Discout

16 September 2008 Novotel St Pancras, London