Keeping you on The Edge of interactive technology
and its relationship to online research.

First Outlook Conference & Expo to Feature Technology and Tools for the Future

MRA’s First Outlook Conference & Expo is right around the corner. Join leaders in the profession for a new twist on a great Conference. We have revamped our popular Fall Conference to better prepare you for what lies ahead. The new First Outlook Conference & Expo is the right conference at the right time providing you with a first-hand look into the research world of tomorrow. Dynamic education tracks will offer strategies needed to conduct business now and into the future, showcase groundbreaking technology advances, highlight new ways to think about your products and processes and much more.

Highlighted below are the sessions in the Emerging Technology and Innovative Tools and Techniques tracks.
Emerging Technology sessions include:

Prediction Markets 101: Tapping the Wisdom of Crowds to Predict the Future
Jared Heyman, President, Infosurv

From Bedrock to MROC (Marketing Research Online Communities) – An Evolution in Qualitative Research Practices
Jane Mount, PRC, Executive Vice President & Director, Research Services, Digital Research, Inc.

Beneath the Surface: Uncovering the Emotional Engagement of Consumers to Optimize Advertising
Carl Marci, CEO, Innerscope Research

Soaring to New Heights- How Southwest Airlines is Leveraging Innovative Research Tools to Stay Connected with Customers and Remain at the Forefront of the Airline Industry
Alissa Jaquish, Customer Insights Manager, Southwest and John Ouren, EVP & General Manager, Panel & Communities, MarketTools

The Impact of Social Media on Product Development
Thomas Malkin, President & Co-Founder, GeeYee, Inc.

Innovative Tools & Techniques sessions include:

How Marketing Tactics Come to Life Within the Physician Patient Dialogue
David Franke, Director, Insights & Analytics & Jim Hickey, Director, Client Services, Verilogue, Inc.

Using Relationship Theory to Build a Better Model of Consumer Behavior
Kevin Schulman, Senior Vice President, TRGiSKY

How Disney Uses Online Communities
Karen Manne, Vice President, Research, Disney

Using Mixed Modes to Create Broadly Representative Samples
Gregg Kennedy, President, Survey Technology and Research & George Harmon, President, D.K. Shifflet & Associates

The Hybrid Method: Tweaking the Tried and True to Streamline Processes with Accelerated Results
Christina Wallunas, Research Manager, Coca-Cola, J.R. Venza, Managing Partner & Jason Miller, PRC, Managing Partner, AnswerQuest

Sign-up for First Outlook Conference & Expo today at http://www.mra-net.org/education/foc/registration.cfm Early Bird Registration ends October 3.

Twitter to Roll Out Commercial Accounts this Year

DigitalBeat
August 20, 2009
By Kim-Mai Cutler and Matt Marshall

Yes, Twitter will start earning some income this year.

Co-founder Biz Stone said the company is in the first phase of rolling out commercial accounts that will entice business users to pay for premium services like detailed analytics. After that, the company might move into building business-oriented application programming interfaces (APIs), creating a “commercial layer” over the social network. The commercial APIs would be out “later this year,” he said.

“Twitter will still be free for everybody and we’ll still tell them to go crazy with it,” said Stone in an interview. “But we’ve identified a selection of things that businesses say are helping to make them more profit.”

The company has already moved in this direction by releasing a guide for professional users, detailing how companies can use it to find customers, pass on deals and perform market research. It is also going to offer “certified accounts,” for businesses, for example letting JetBlue certify that its Twitter account is owned by JetBlue and not by someone pretending to be JetBlue (until now, Twitter has done this only for a limited number of people, including celebrities). Stone didn’t give a specific date for when the company would launch the newer commercial offerings.

Also, it might be hard to tease out who is using the service professionally and who is using it for personal reasons, and then charge them for it. So the idea is to build a set of features that people are willing to pay for.
“We want to build statistics or analytics that let users know — ‘How am I doing on Twitter?’” he said.

Building premium commercial offerings would put Twitter in closer competition with third-party developers like CoTweet, which helps brands manage customer relations on the microblogging network. Stone, however, was careful to stress that the company doesn’t want to disturb the world of third-party developers building around the network.

“We’ll continue to support the ecosystem with a whole new set of commercial APIs,” he said.

Guessing Twitter’s business model has become one of Silicon Valley’s favorite parlor games. The start-up has raised $55 million so far and zoomed past 44.5 million unique users in June, according to comScore. But it hasn’t revealed exactly how it plans to live up to that lofty valuation. Instead, Stone has said in the past that the company is learning and evolving with its user base.

He also wouldn’t rule out the possibility of further acquisitions, acknowledging that Twitter had talked to FriendFeed about acquiring the company before it was bought by Facebook.

“We’re at a point where even though we’re only two years old, acquisitions are definitely possible,” Stone said.

Twitter’s already done one before. It bought Summize last year to build out Twitter’s search capabilities, a move that seems to have turned out well.

We interviewed Stone on the day Twitter unveiled its location API.

Twitter vs. Facebook: Who Will Win in Real-time Search?

Mashable
August 16, 2009
By Ben Parr

Just over a year ago, Twitter acquired a small startup, Summize, a search engine for tweets. Once the deal was done, Twitter launched Twitter Search, and the real-time search revolution began.

Because of that acquisition, real-time search has exploded. Twitter Search and trending topics have become a staple of the Twitterverse. It has also become one of the top tools for tracking major world events (i.e. the #IranElection crisis).

For the last year, Twitter has had no major rival in real-time search. But last week, that all changed when Facebook launched its real-time search engine. Not only can it search status updates, but it also tracks photos, notes, videos and more. Can Facebook, with its larger userbase and recent talent acquisition, make Twitter Search irrelevant? Or does Twitters open platform and first-mover advantage give it the edge?

The Case for Twitter
It's tough to believe, but Twitter Search has only been around for a year. Still, that year has provided it with its position as the current leader in real-time search. When you want to see how people are reacting to Tiger Woodss stunning loss or the protests in Iran, you turn to Twitter.

Here are three of Twitters biggest advantages over Facebook when it comes to real-time search:

First mover advantage: Twitter was first, and that has made it an established leader in this realm. Millions of people know and use Twitter search regularly.

More experience: Twitter has a full years worth of experience with real-time search. It has had to time to figure out what works, what does not, and adjust accordingly. It can respond lightning fast to anything Facebook may put out.

Open platform: Perhaps Twitters biggest advantage over Facebook search is that almost every Twitter user has a public account, meaning that his or her tweets are indexable. This provides for a great deal of information while searching. Twitter Search is why Twitter is quickly becoming the worlds water cooler.

The Case for Facebook
While the new Facebook Search only launched this week, the new real-time search platform can search far more than status updates. With access to 250+ million users, the worlds largest social network can tap into photos, links, events, apps and more for its new search engine.

Facebooks got several things going for it in the battle for real-time search. Here are three of the top ones:

Larger userbase: Size does matter. Facebook has over 250 million users, over 90 million U.S. visits a month and even larger reach overseas. Twitter has just above 25 million U.S. visits a month and nowhere near the amount of users. With more people to draw on, Facebook can provide a more accurate representation of what people are talking about. Plus most likely you have more close friends on Facebook than you do on Twitter.

More diverse search: Facebook Search is richer in scope. Theres something to be said for being able to find videos and photos related to your real-time search, and you can filter your results as well.

The other strength is that you can search the posts of both your friends and all public profiles. Facebook allows you to find out what your friends are buzzing about as well as what the entire world is discussing. A lack of public profiles on Facebook hinders its effectiveness for now, though.

FriendFeed: Did you know that FriendFeed has a real-time search engine, and that its really good to boot? FriendFeed is filled with talented people and real-time technology. The former head of Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Maps and the creator of Gmail are both co-founders of the startup and are now top members of the Facebook team. They know how to build a real-time engine, and they will bring that expertise to Facebook Search.

Upcoming Events

MRA Conferences
MRA First Outlook Conference & Expo When: Nov. 4-6, 2009 Where: Hilton San Diego Bayfront Register Now! MRA CEO Summit When: Feb. 10-12, 2010 Where: Boca Raton, Florida Register Now!
MRA Web Seminars
Use of Incentives Presenter/Company: Paul J. Lavrakas, Ph.D. When: Sept. 2, 2009 at 1 p.m. ET Register Now! Research in the Age of Convergence: How Next Generation Survey Methods are Changing the FAce of Research Today Presenter/Company: Kristin Luck, president, Deipher When: Sept. 9, 2009 at 1 p.m. ET Register Now! CEO Series: Lease Negotiation: Saving Time and Money Presenter/Company: Phil Palmer, senior VP, Grubb & Ellis Company When: Sept. 11, 2009 at 1 p.m. ET Register Now! Elevating a Project Manager to Business Manager Presenter/Company: June Jewell, CPA, Jewell & Associates When: Sept. 16, 2009 at 1 p.m. ET Register Now!
Chapter Events
Great Lakes Chapter Conference Presented by: Great Lakes Chapter of MRA When: September 10-11, 2009 Where: Conrad Hotel, Indianapolis, Indiana Register Now! Upper Midwest Chapter Event - Are you sure about that? Letting respondents change their answers: A Lufthansa Case Study Using the Previous Rating Displayed (PRD) Technique Presented by: Stefan Althoff, Team Manager Market Research, Lufthansa Technik AG When: September 15, 2009 from 7:30 - 9:30 a.m. CST Where: Park Plaza Hotel Bloomington, 4460 West 78th Street Circle, Bloomington, MN 55435 Register: For more information, please e-mail info@mnmra.org