Research Roundup: From the Long Tail to the Long Trail
Posted by Vovici Blog on Sat, Feb 05, 2011
Here are five of the most retweeted links from the tip of the long tail of the 665 links shared with the Twitter #MRX community this past week.
- Is Segmentation Useful in World of Long Tails, Niche Markets & Hyper-Personalization? (H/T @CommunispaceCEO) – Kate Lerman reflects on the value of traditional market segmentation studies in an age where consumers are far more diverse than ever before.
- Ten ways the iPad will radically change market research (H/T @encuestainc) – This September post by Frankie Johnson was given fresh life this week when retweeted by Martin Cerda, and is as timely as ever now that we know almost 15 million iPads were sold last year.
- A tasty MROC case study from Ben & Jerry's (H/T @tcollins) – Research shares this video from the 2011 Online Research Methods conference, where Tom DeRuyck from InSites Consulting and Martijn Van Kesteren of Unilever present a case study of building an MROC for Ben & Jerry’s in Belgium.
- Five Reasons Gaming Isn't the Next Research Big Thing (by @tomewing) – Tom Ewing isn’t as contrarian as this post makes him sound, as it’s a sequel to a post he wrote on why gaming is important to MR. Here he outlines five challenges: game design is really hard, it raises expectations, beware badge backlash, sexy questions lead to dangerous answers, and it biases studies towards gamers.
- The Survey is Dead, Long Live the Survey – My updated post on why the survey will always be with us struck a chord with many researchers.
If the long tail is typically used to refer to current offerings, to me the “long trail” is the long tail through time. Hiking the long trail is valuable, as we’ve missed gems along its path, such as Frankie’s September post on the iPad or Reg Baker's review of an article from The New York Times last summer, “Twitter is outdirectedness cubed”. Certainly, no one can ever again say that they can’t find anything to read.