Write here, write now: Research Live Quotes Conversition #MRX

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Paul Golden recently published an article in research live about the controversy between automated and manual sentiment analysis. An excerpt is below while the full article can be read here.

Those who bemoan the impact of email, text messaging and Facebook on our ability to write tend to forget one thing: that the people who have grown up with these tools write far more than any generation before them. They might not have much respect for the conventional rules of writing, but they’re making the language their own, and adapting it to different formats and audiences.

In the process they’re producing vast amounts of data, which marketers are keen to make sense of. That means understanding the meaning and sentiment of text – and numerous tech companies are queuing up to help researchers do this, each with grander claims than the last about their tools’ ability to accurately interpret and categorise millions of online comments. These text analytics tools are adept at picking up brand references from the massive volumes of online communication generated every day. But opinion is widely divided on their ability to determine whether a comment is positive, negative or neither.

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“these approaches have flaws, but then so do people, says Annie Pettit, head of research at Conversition. “The important thing to remember is that we don’t care if individual messages are coded correctly. We care that the aggregate coding across large numbers of messages validates well. We aren’t trying to prove whether I hate or love Pop-Tarts, we are trying to prove whether a million people hate or love Pop-Tarts. A reading that is 70% accurate is actually a very accurate reading.

If humans can score hundreds of messages and validate at 85%, and computers can score millions of messages and validate at 70%, then computers are a valuable option”

Read the rest of the article here.

openview: e-Rewards acquires Conversition

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

e-Rewards acquires Conversition: A Marriage of Social Media and Market Research

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 by Faria Rahman
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Last week, e-Rewards acquired social media market research agency Conversition. Conversition applies scientific principles to the collection and analysis of social media data. Its solutions include TweetFeel, MatterMeter and EvoListen. Its product EvoListen, which is currently under development, collects data from online social media outlets; cleans, filters and weighs it, and then formats the information into quantitative data sets. This will allow e-Rewards’ clients to listen and analyze what customers are saying on social media.
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Read the full article here.

There is no question but the research validity question

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

As a budding field, social media research is a magnet for questions from both experts and novices alike. People are curious about the processes and methodologies used to accomplish the various aspects of the research. Some of the more common questions we field on a regular basis are as follows:

• What sentiment analysis system do you use?
• How do you carry out the text analysis process?
• What is your method for identifying and eliminating spam?

In fact, each of these questions is one and the same. They have nothing to do with sentiment, text analysis, or spam.  They have nothing to do with processes or methods or systems. In fact, they have everything to do with validity.

Validity refers to truth. Is the sentiment scored accurately? Is the text analyzed accurately? Is the spam identified accurately? Is the entire process valid? Among all the pieces of the puzzle, this is the one question that must be answered.

Unfortunately, there is no single method that automatically identifies a sentiment analysis, text analysis, or spam detection system as being the most valid one. You simply have to evaluate a large, representative sample of data and determine the answer for yourself.  Are your results valid?

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Also see
The Sharks and Icebergs of Social Media Measurement
5 Ways to Fool An Automated Sentiment Analysis System
A Formula for Perfect Sentiment Analysis

MR Web: e-Rewards Buys Conversition Strategies

Monday, May 16th, 2011

e-Rewards Buys Conversition Strategies
May 11 2011

e-Rewards, the parent of online panel firm Research Now, has acquired social media market research agency Conversition Strategies, just two years after its launch by former Ipsos and NPD executives Jean Davis and Tessie Ting. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Conversition, which has bases in the US and Canada, applies scientific principles to the collection and analysis of social media data. Its flagship product EvoListen collects data sourced from online social media outlets; cleans, filters and weights it; and then formats it into quantitative data sets.

Read the rest of the mrweb announcement here.

Research Live: E-Rewards to buy social media researcher Conversition

Monday, May 16th, 2011

E-Rewards to buy social media researcher Conversition

11 May 2011 | By Brian Tarran

US— E-Rewards, the parent company of online panel firm Research Now, has agreed a deal to acquire social media research agency Conversition Strategies.

The business was founded in early 2009 by two former Ipsos executives, Jean Davis and Tessie Ting, and its primary product is the EvoListen platform, which collects data from social media sites, cleans and filters it and applies scientific sampling and weighting to report the results, formatted into quantitative data sets.

Read the rest of the Research Live announcement here.

Forrester’s Take on the E-Rewards Acquisition

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Roxana Strohmenger of Forrester shared some of her thoughts on what Conversition + e-Rewards means. An excerpt of her article follows.

Our Take: What e-Reward’s Acquisition Of Conversition Means For The Market Research Industry

Posted by Roxana Strohmenger on May 11, 2011

Late last night the market research vendor landscape became a little more consolidated with the announcement that e-Rewards reached an agreement to acquire Conversition Strategies. This is not the first, nor probably the last, move that e-Rewards will take in growing a versatile offering in the market research industry. In 2009, e-Rewards, acquired UK-based online panel provider Research Now, which allowed it to become an online panel provider with global reach. And in 2010 e-Rewards acquired Peanut Labs, which enhanced its panel by offering a social media specialty sample that is recruited and surveyed through social and gaming networks. The acquisition of the Conversition platform EvoListen will allow e-Rewards’ clients to listen and analyze, in a market researcher’s terms, what consumers are saying on social media.

This announcement is significant for the market research industry because it:

• Reaffirms that social media is a source for consumer insights. Forrester’s Technographics® data shows that more than 80% of online US consumers regularly use social media. And this high level of engagement is not exclusive to developed markets. Even emerging markets like Brazil and China are voracious consumers of social media. In market research, we need to be where our consumers are, and now more than ever, social media is that channel. What sounds better, access to 6 to 8 million actively engaged online people globally, which is typically what you find with global online panel providers, or access to more than 600 million active online people? With that wide scope of access, it should be a no-brainer that social media is an important channel that we should be using to gather consumer insights.

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Read the rest of the article here.

The article also appears on RW Connect.

The Great Conjunction: Conversition discussion on the Greenbook Blog

Monday, May 16th, 2011

After the announcement that E-Rewards would be acquiring Conversition, the Greenbook blog posted an article discussing the possible implications for the research industry. An extract follows.
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The Great Conjunction: What the e-Rewards and Microsoft Acquisitions Mean

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One of my favorite movies as a kid (well, really it still is!) is the classic Jim Henson fantasy “The Dark Crystal”. Filled with pseudo-mystical profundities of various sorts, one central element was the race to have certain players in the drama in place before the stars aligned in the “Great Conjunction”, when magical things would happen. Well, we’re seeing our own version of the Great Conjunction occur now, exemplified by the e-Rewards acquisition of Conversition Strategies and the Microsoft purchase of Skype.

The Conversition acquisition positions e-Rewards to converge social media data with traditional research to form a compelling offering based on integrating these two complementary data sources. I am certain that they are also working on a mobile offering, and when they announce that they will have three of the primary channels of consumer insight collection together: The Great Conjunction for market research.

Read the rest of the article here.

Life beyond surveys: Research Live Interviews CEO Chris Havemann

Monday, May 16th, 2011

After last week’s announcement that E-Rewards would be acquiring Conversition, Research Live was quick to speak with our new CEO. An extract of the interview follows.
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Life beyond surveys

The acquisition of social media research firm Conversition might seem like something of a departure for online survey specialist E-Rewards, owner of Research Now and Peanut Labs, but CEO Chris Havemann says it fits perfectly with his vision of the group as a provider of digital data in a rapidly evolving industry.

This acquisition seems like something of a departure for E-Rewards. Conversition don’t do surveys, which have been your stock in trade for quite some time. Would you agree?
I wouldn’t say it’s a departure, it’s a complementary thing. Stepping back and looking at what the E-Rewards group does, we are in the business of providing data to drive insights. As the research industry evolves, it’s starting to think about the different sources of data it can tap into. There’s life beyond survey research, we know that. Behavioural research is a growing area and social media research is something that is still very early days, but we think our clients will want access to those forms of data.

Read the full interview here.

e-Rewards, Inc. Announces Agreement to Acquire Conversition Strategies

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Plano, TX – May 10, 2011 – e-Rewards, Inc., a global leader in digital data collection and reporting, today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire Conversition Strategies.

Founded in February 2009 by former IPSOS executives, Conversition is a pioneer in the Social Media Research industry, and was formed to capitalize on the emerging trend to perform market research within the social media channel. The primary product offered by Conversition is EvoListen^®. A patent-pending technology, EvoListen collects data sourced from online social media outlets, cleans and filters the data collected, utilizes scientific sampling and weighting to report the results, and then formats it into quantitative data sets.

“With over half a billion consumers worldwide engaging in social media platforms today, we believe social media listening will continue to become an increasingly important way for businesses to collect valuable insights around the needs and wants of their customers,” said Chris Havemann, President and Chief Executive Officer of e-Rewards. “Our acquisition of Conversition will allow us to further accelerate our social media strategy while enhancing the research capabilities we offer. We remain committed to equipping our clients with innovative products that help with the collection and analysis of digital data.”

Commenting on the announcement, Tessie Ting, Co-founder of Conversition said, “We are thrilled about combining the benefits of more traditional online survey research with those of social media research. Through this acquisition, e-Rewards will continue to strengthen its position as the leading global digital data collection provider with an expertise in social media research.”

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About e-Rewards, Inc.

e-Rewards, Inc. is a global leader in permission based digital data collection and reporting. With over 1000 employees worldwide, it operates a strong portfolio of brands including Research Now, e-Miles, and Peanut Labs. For more information, visit www.e-rewardsinc.com.

Press Contact:
Ashley Harlan
VP, Corporate Communications
+1 214-365-5000
aharlan@e-rewards.com

A Review of Thor by TweetFeel

Friday, May 6th, 2011

It’s Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday today which means you’re deciding what to do this weekend. Why not check out Thor, the action movie with Natalie Portman. But first, make sure it’s a movie you’ll like and a fast, free, and fun way to do that is by checking it out on TweetFeel first.

Just type the name of the movie in the search box and watch as Twitter opinions appear, get scored, and contribute to the overall movie rating.  While you’re there, you might as well check out how Obama and the iPad are doing too! Happy Friday!