Trends: "The days of sitting behind the focus-group wall are going the way of the buggy whip."

So says Mike Nazzaro, president and chief operating officer of Nielsen Buzzmetrics, who asserts that the company has found a way to drill down into word of mouth, commentary and conversation online and produce the digital equivalent of a crystal ball. The company analyzes "vocabulary, language patterns and phrasing, the programs determine whether comments are positive or negative, and whether the authors are men or women, young or old" to provide marketers," based on the notion that an influential blogger can seriously impact the reputation of a brand. That's information that's highly valuable to marketers. (International Herald Tribune via Agenda Inc.)

Have you tried to conduct a phone survey or focus group recently? It's increasingly difficult to recruit acceptable respondents. In many cases, the respondents you recruit to focus groups are, despite efforts to screen them out, veterans of numerous focus groups---once screeners find someone who is willing to participate in research, they have a tendency to call them over and over again. Consumers in general are resistant to advertising and savvy about tactics marketers use to try to appeal to them. Companies, like Buzzmetrics, who can offer companies alternatives to traditional research methods, will find themselves in high demand.