Jeffrey Henning’s Top 10 #MRX Stories: Merger Mania, Mobile Mania

By Jeffrey Henning & Tamara Barber

There’s now ample opportunity to stay on top of what the market research community is saying in the Twitter-sphere. In addition to our weekly coverage on the top #MRX tweets of the week on the Innovation Evolved blog, we’ll be doing a top-ten recap every two weeks right here on GreenBook.

Here are the top 10 links of the 2,056 unique links share on the Twitter #MRX community the past two weeks.

1.  Ipsos agrees to £525m takeover of Synovate – Brian Tarran of Research describes the pending acquisition of Synovate by Ipsos for approximately $820 million, which will form the world’s third-largest market research firm by annual sales, after Nielsen and Kantar. The article is part of larger coverage by Research of the merger:

• Ipsos says Synovate will help meet new needs of clients
• Ipsos must protect Synovate’s ‘golden nuggets’, says Adrian Chedore
• Not such a big deal, but a good fit in Asia.

2.  Mobile research: No time like the present– Jay Pluhar of MarketTools gives four reasons why researchers need to consider mobile:

1. “The world has gone mobile, and so has the web.”
2. “Mobile connects us to consumers in new ways.”
3. “Mobile lets you learn as you go.”
4. You want “the first-mover advantage.”

For an interesting rebuttal, not to this article specifically but to approaches like it in general, see this post from Reg Baker, president of Market Strategies International and industry curmudgeon: How to write a mobile research pitch piece.

3.   Why Google cares if you use your real name – From a history of name changes, we move on to the names people use on social networks. Early adopters have been frustrated at the heavy-handed way Google has closed the accounts of Google+ users who used aliases and handles rather than their real names. Dave Winer says for Google it is simply a business decision about how best to monetize the users of the new social network, which already number over 20 million.

4.   Survey software firm QuestBack acquires Globalpark – In more merger news, QuestBack has purchased Globalpark, expanding its Enterprise Feedback Management presence in two ways: internationally (Globalpark is very strong in Germany and Austria) and by mode (Globalpark integrates social media research into its EFM system). As a side effect, this now makes Norway the European capital of Enterprise Feedback Management! (Confirmit and QuestBack are both located in Oslo.)

5.  ComScore Debuts Social Media ROI Tool – ComScore has launched Social Essentials, which provides reporting and analysis of audiences exposed to brand messages on Facebook, with support for Twitter and other social networks planned in the future (no mention of Google+).

6.   Crowdtap’s quest to measure brand influence in the age of social media – David Zax of Fast Company brings the details and the snark: Crowdtap has made up a unique way to measure brand influence which is so much better than other metrics you should buy from them. (I wonder if their brand influence measure subtracts points for snark?)

7.   The making of Synovate – Making the top tweets on its own merits is this great retrospective on Synovate’s history, including shout outs to the over 30 companies that were acquired by Aegis and Synovate in the past dozen years.

8.   Upcoming Events – Five major challenges with mobile research, and how to overcome them – Speaking of Synovate, check out Synovate’s free webinar on mobile research next Wednesday, August 10.

9.   Two cheers for mobile: MRMW 2011 – Reg Baker continues his theme of the “mobile cup is half empty” (or should it be, “the mobile phone is showing half its bars”?). Check out his recap of the conference Market Research in the Mobile World 2011. On a scale of 0 to 3 cheers, he gives it 2 cheers. And of course, check out another Greenbook Blog article, Dana Stanley’s interview with Lenny Murphy, the conference chair: Mobile Research Conference Wrap-Up Interview.

10. Our Take: What the Verint-Vovici and QuestBack-Globalpark mergers mean for the market insights professional – Oh to be an analyst now that merger season is here! Forrester analyst Roxana Strohmenger helps put these two EFM mergers in context; both support Forrester’s vision of unified feedback platforms collecting data from a variety of modes.

As always, you can share in the conversation: contribute or just lurk over at http://twitter.com/search/%23MRX.