What We’re Reading: Mobility, Asking Why, Social Media Research

May 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Normally, we’d be going through our reading list on Monday mornings, but given the glorious (and extended) Memorial Day weekend here in the US, we decided to postpone our reading to Tuesday. So without further adieu, here are some highlights from our reading list this week:

  • Mobilizing Market Research, Part 3 – In this third part of a nine-part series leading up to the Market Research in the Mobile World Conference, Carrie Robbins at the GreenBook Blog details the current uses and benefits of mobile market research. If you need to catch up, be sure to take a look at Part 1: Why Go Mobile? and Part 2: Industry Insights.
  • The Insight of Why - This excellent essay by Matt Ridings of techguerilla challenges the value of simple data in the absence of critical thought – specifically, in the absence of real people asking “Why?”  As Matt says, “…if you simply take data alone, and try to parse it in different ways all you really get is ‘filtered data’.  Useful?  Sure.  Interesting? You bet.  Insightful and/or Meaningful?  That remains to be seen and is arrived at only by human investigation *and* the context of the objective.” This piece is a thought-provoking, quick read. Be sure to add it to your list.
  • What is Social Media Research? – Ray Poynter over at the Future Place blog is in the process of writing a journal piece on the current state of social media research. As part of the process, he’s broken social media research down into 3 major “buckets” and he’s looking for your help and ideas to fill them. Go help him out.

What are you reading this week? Be sure to share your favorite articles/blog posts/chat discussions/etc with us, here in the comments or via Twitter (@researchaccess).

    Filed Under: Market Research, Mobile, News, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

    Can You Crowdsource Social Good?

    May 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    Why not end the work week on an up-beat note?

    Mashable has an article this morning entitled, “Can Crowdsourcing Make Any Dream Come True?” In it, they explore the idea of crowdsourcing social good with a look at the site Wish Upon a Hero.

    The site allows anybody to post a “wish,” the content of which can range from good deeds like helping families affected by the tornado in Joplin, Missouri to – this one’s real – help with paying to have a tattoo removed. The community then decides who’s wishes are most deserving of being granted. Over 78,000 have been fulfilled so far.

    We’ve talked often in the past about the value of crowdsourcing, and the knowledge that can come from the wisdom of a crowd. Does it apply here as well? Can the crowd identify the most appropriate uses of resources for matters of social good? Will they weed out those just looking to make a buck? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this interesting use of the crowdsourcing approach.

    Have a great weekend!

    Filed Under: Market Research, Social Media Tagged With: ,

    Industry Insights on the Mobilization of Market Research

    May 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

    Earlier this week, we told you about the first part in a series of posts by the GreenBook blog on the mobilization of market research. In the lead-up to the Market Research in the Mobile World conference, our friends at the GreenBook blog are continuing the series with part two, this time focusing on industry insights into this growing trend.

    In this second of nine installments in the mobilization of market research series, author Carrie Robbins interviews fifteen leaders in the market research industry, gathering their opinions on the current state of mobile market research, the various approaches currently being used, the future of these approaches, and the impact that mobility is having – and will have – on market research now and in the future.

    Not surprisingly, there are some very interesting thoughts shared. For example:
    [Read more...]

    Filed Under: Market Research, Mobile

    Gamification in Outbound Marketing

    May 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    A quick follow-up to our post at the end of last week about Zynga and their shopping spree: We read this morning about Zynga’s partnership with DreamWorks Animation to promote the studio’s new movie, Kung Fu Panda 2. This is an important reminder about the scale that gamification has already reached, not just in the sphere of inbound market research, but equally impressively within the world of outbound marketing programs.

    TechCrunch has the story:
    [Read more...]

    Filed Under: Gamification, Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

    Zynga Goes on a Shopping Spree

    May 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    We’ve been talking this past week about the growing trend of gamification, and its impact on markte research. If one needs evidence of this booming trend, they need only look to Mashable’s report earlier this week of social game studio Zynga’s acquisition of DNA Games. This makes for Zynga’s 14th acquisition in just 12 months.

    This shopping spree is not exactly shocking, given recent reports that estimate Zynga’s current valuation at $10 billion (yes billion, with a B). And the New York Times sees an IPO in the near future.

    Games are big business, and the reason is pretty simple – people love games. Games capture attention, motivate responses, and reward success. It will be fascinating to continue to watch how gaming infiltrates other industries and efforts, including market research. If Zynga’s booming growth is any indication, this is just the beginning.

    Filed Under: Gamification, News Tagged With: , , ,

    Mobilizing Market Research

    May 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    Our good friends over at the Green Book Blog kick off a new series this week on the mobilization of market research, leading up to the Market Research in the Mobile World conference taking place on July 19 & 20 in Atlanta.

    In the first of nine posts in the series, contributor Carrie Robbins delves into the state of mobile data collection, where’s it’s headed (and why), and the impact mobile devices and mobile internet access is having on the field of market research.

    This piece is chock-full of valuable data, including some well documented benefits – and challenges – of mobile research. For example:
    [Read more...]

    Filed Under: Market Research, Mobile Tagged With: ,

    The Game Mechanics of Social Media

    May 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    [Editor's Note: We continue our on-going series on gaming and research this month with the following post by Jon Puleston; originally published and syndicated with permission by The GreenBook Blog.]

    By Jon Puleston

    I have been studying game theory deeply over the last few weeks in my quest to work out how to effectively gamify surveys and I have started to see game play mechanics embedded into all sort of activities.

    Just for a bit of fun, well as an invented game in-fact if you look at it this way,  I tried to identify and compare the game play mechanics embedded into Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to work out which was the best game.

    These are some of the basic mechanics of successful games:

    1. Strict rules
    2. A reward mechanism that delivers both pleasure and emotional satisfaction
    3. A well balanced success/failure ratio – An accomplishable challenge
    4. A broad learning curve
    5. A wider competitive element
    6. A balance of luck v skill
    7. Levels
    8. Addiction factor – is it an absorbing activity in itself
    9. Team play

    How they score…
    [Read more...]

    Filed Under: Featured, Gamification, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

    Gamification is Game-Changing

    May 16, 2011 By 3 Comments

    Every large economic opportunity comes accompanied with a core theme, a mantra around which people can rally. These themes then generate a vernacular that takes on a life of its own and serves to fire the engines of inspiration in generations of entrepreneurs, investors, and practitioners. Recent examples of such themes are: Web 2.0, Cloud Computing, Location-Based Services, Marketing Services, Software-As-Service, E-commerce—and scores of others.

    There’s a new theme that might eclipse all of these – Gameization (also called gamification). It has the potential to be a fundamental trend because it cuts across businesses and because it is as much about process as it is about products. Ignore it at your own peril.

    So what is this concept and why is it so big?

    To understand this, I urge you to think about Games at their most basic level—and then read on:
    [Read more...]

    Filed Under: Featured, Gamification, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

    Why Are We Better At Games Than At Real Life?

    May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    Last week Vivek Bhaskaran was a keynote presenter at the TMRE conference along with Kevin Keeker from Zynga (the creators of such epic online games as Farmville and Angry Birds). Together they tackled the subject of why these games are so engaging and so all consuming and how to take advantage of these benefits in research.

    But there is a bigger, more interesting tsunami of a trend that we are sitting on that many of us have noticed, but few have put into the context of productivity —GAMING as a way to transform our world.

    I spoke with Vivek a few days after his presentation and asked why he was so engrossed in gaming.  He told me that he had read the book Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal and it really got HIM thinking about how HE can change the world of business by harnessing some of the untapped energy and creativity that’s currently being spent in virtual worlds.
    [Read more...]

    Filed Under: Gamification, Market Research Tagged With: , , ,

    Why Size Counts (And Why Shorter is Better)

    May 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

    Jeffrey Henning (of the renowned Voice of Vovici blog) brought two links to my attention this morning via Twitter, and I wanted to be sure you all caught them as well. The topic of both pieces was size – specifically, why the size (or length, if you rather) of surveys really matters, and equally importantly, how to do something about it.

    The first link comes from Michaela Mora at Relevant Insights. (We’ve mentioned Michaela’s content before; she provides really great content on a variety of market research topics.) The article is “Why We Need to Avoid Longer Surveys,” and in it, Michaela makes (and provides supporting data) for a very important point: Long surveys often mean bad data.
    [Read more...]

    Filed Under: Market Research Tagged With: , , , ,
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