All work and no play

Nina Furu, in her interesting column on digi.no, wrote a piece on making cheap customers surveys online. Advancesurvey.com provides a service where they let you create your own surveys, write your own questions and invite your own participants. They administer the collection and administration of data. And you can see the results in real-time.

It’s cheap and it’s easy. You just need to know how to how to write surveys and a little bit about marketing research.

Nina Furu, Norwegian internet veteran and writer, writes in Digi.no an article on setting up e-commerce solutions on the cheap [NO]. Compared to the cost one had to cover just a few years ago, it’s almost free to set up your own online storefront today.

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CMO, a magazine for marketing executives had an article in their September issue on five technologies that should provide a jolt to the marketing profession.

1. Data mining on the internet
2. Focus groups using virtual worlds
3. Decision markets
4. Neuromarketing
5. Automatic behavior recognition

These are exiting technologies. I believe most of these will prove to be invaluable resources for future marketers. We are already seeing the application of data mining, focus groups and decision markets. Neuromarketing is still in its infancy, but has given promising results so far, while technological innovation is the only thing holding back automatic behavior systems — save for a few privacy issues that is…

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A survey from MMI shows that e-tailing in Norway has had a three-fold increase during the past twelve months. This increase is attributed to more online outlets, additional product categories being offered, and a greater trust in online shopping in general. This article in digi.no summarizes the key findings in the survey.

From Wired article: If you take a close look at the form Google filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the exact value of its planned offering is $2,718,281,828 dollars, which some would immediately recognize as the mathematical constant e.

E, for those not blessed with a Ph.D. and a job at Google, is Euler’s number, which is used as the base for natural logarithms.

Google’s upcoming and much anticipated IPO is probably the IPO of the decade, at least in the tech sector. Every decade has had one the past 30 years or so. As written in a New York Times article:

This mirrors similar once-a-decade events that started companies like Intel in the 1970′s, Microsoft and Apple Computer in the 1980′s and Netscape in the 1990′s, all of which attracted intense attention and served as the icons for successive generations of digital technology.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page are not the usual entrepeneurs. They’ve created all this in just 6 years time. They do not want to create just another tech company, and defie the established corporate culture, even compared to the liberal, casual silicon valley style of business. They refuse to be captives of the short-term horisonts of Wall Street analyst, and are organizing their IPO as a five-step auction.

Analysts are expecting the IPO generating about 18 billion in cash, and a total market value of about 30 to 50 billion dollars! The founders are for sure becoming instant billionaires and there’s probably a few other early employees that can expect a significant growth in their fortunes over night.

Just check out their parking lot outside their parking lot at their headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

The Institute for Global Futures, lead by by future guru Dr. James Canton, has published a top ten list of business trends. They propose the innovation economy and emphasize the convergence of:

Four power tools—nanotech, biotech, infotech, and cognitive science. They will offer a new gold rush of opportunity. Leveraging the new building blocks of innovation comprised of bits, atoms, genes, and neurons will be essential for future leaders.

Consumer research is an important part of this picture. Two of the ten trends are related to understanding the mind of the market:

4. The capture and analysis of customer information about product/service use, needs, wants, desires and behavior is mission-critical to the enterprise.

5. The integration of customer touch points across all channels is essential to future success. Watch out for the breakdowns.

Coupling these trends, and using the new buildings blocks of innovation, reveals some very interesting emerging opportunities in market and consumer research. But in order to be a significant source of market intelligence, researchers must develop new methods that investigate consumers on the same data-level on which innovation in general is based.

JetCarrier, has launched a new service for Norwegians that want to by goods from the US, but does not have a US shipping address.

Many US-based etailers does not serve foreign customers b/c they do not want to be bothered with the paperwork and extra handeling foreign shipments requires. But American products are attractive, especially now, with the cheap dollar. In addition, there are many American products that are significantly lower priced in the American market than in Europe.

By registering at JetCarrier, you get an American shipping address. The shipment is automatically forwarded to your Norwegian address for a small fee – a 10 kg packet can be delivered to you from the US for only 465 kroner.

Start shopping!

MarketingSherpa.com provides a good example on how to integrate the online/offline experience.

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