Companies Mine Blogs For Market Research

Now this is market research - companies start to look at blogs in order to understand their customers better. Real-time inclusion into product designs. Checking about complaints from customers.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that "the growing popularity of blogs and other online forums has prompted companies to pay more attention to what is being said about them on the Internet, and has given rise to a new kind of market research aimed at finding useful information in the sea of online chatter."

Companies use blogs and other forums to get a better feel of the market. Market research has its merits, of course, but the real-lfe, real-time situation that is provided in blogs or forums - which might be more natural, more bland than what you see in a focus group or as a comment in a questionnaire.

Especially since real, traditional market research is a bit slow at times (not all methodologies - Omnibus surveys or tracking studies are different, at least partly), and during the time that someone in a company waits for research results, a competitor might run away with the market already. And actually, this is also one part of our business, besides business and industrial intelligence, competitive intelligence and benchmarking and best practices.

(By Asia Business Consulting)