blog.msurveys.com

mrweb.com have a news item on TNSInsightTvLive (doesn't exactly roll off the tongue), described as "an interactive online platform which allows respondents to see a survey moderator via a real-time video link".

They then go on to say they've seen a number of similar "combinations of online surveys with qualitative input, the option for moderators to interject with on-the-hoof questions and simultaneous multimedia links" (links in the original mrweb.com post). At a pre-conference speakers meeting for the What Next For Online Research 2007 conference there were at least two papers that went into similar territory - a much closer co-operation between quant and qual researchers and techniques.

As it happens, Linden Lab, the owners of Second Life, have just announced upcoming support for in-world voice (for a summary see this comprehensive post on TechCrunch). This would make a virtual world, avatar-driven equivalent of the above research techniques a lot more realistic - I could see using quantitative data collection in the vein of one of my prototypes, together with more qual-type interaction through a human-driven, voice-enabled avatar offering a real but more affordable alternative.
In addition, especially for new product concepts, the 3D immersive qualities of a virtual world like Second Life will be able to offer not just visuals, but 3D representations that can be handled, worn (where appropriate), and with the required knowledge, even modified by survey (or focus group, or whatever we want to call this now) participants - thus potentially moving into co-creation.

via StartupSquad:

"Vizu, provider of market research through web polls network, has raised $2.9 million in the Series B round of funding. The funding round was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson who contributed $1.5 million. Vizu has been aggressively building up its premier service Vizu Answers which enables market research through web polls distributed around the Vizu site network. As a publisher or blogger you can sign up for the service, run a site characterization poll, and then Vizu will start running contextual polls on your site."

It's quite an interesting idea - they're using web sites and blogs, each with their unique target audience, as a way to distribute polls. So instead of profiling respondents, they profile the sites and blogs where polls are placed.
Obviously this is more efficient, but it will be interesting to see how this works out in reality - is it really any different from how the majority of web surveys were deployed back in the nineties - basically identifying some popular web sites whose audience match the respondents you're looking for, and then paying them for hosting popup windows to your survey? Are embedded widgets just the popups of the 21st century?

research-live.com reports that "Technorati is partnering with Ogilvy to help the marketing services agency monitor online word-of-mouth".

This area is slowly getting more crowded, with the recent launch of BuzzLogic competing with existing services such as Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

Thinking about it, it seems obvious to try and partner with one of the major blog tracking services, so I wonder if this will give Ogilvy an edge over the existing services? What can a partnership with Technorati deliver that Nielsen or BuzzLogic can't?