4 Market Research Quotes

Neil Alden Armstrong (1930 - 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.

Byron Sharp is a Professor of Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. He is also the Director of The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, one of UniSA's research institutes.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891 - 1960) was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun (1912 - 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect.

Not available on the appstore

I would be lying if I told you I never play mobile games such as Angry Birds, Flappy Bird or the recent hype "2048". They probably ring a bell with almost all mobile phone or tablet owners. Downloaded from the appstore or Google Play within seconds, those low-end games offer hours of mobile entertainment.

This recent form of entertainment has certainly reached the younger generation, kids, adolescents ... hanging out in group but all individually playing or social networking via their mobile device. Forgetting to go outside, experience and see the world ... for real.

Sometimes, we just forget there isn't an app for everything, that is just the message this Tumblr wants to spread. They offer stickers with the message "not available on the app store" to raise awareness for day-to-day real-life experiences, a brilliant series of photos ... (more on http://notonappstore.com/).

Dear twitter, I don't like what I see

Dear twitter,

No, I do not like to scroll down. No, I don't like it when I have to undertake an extra action to see what I want to see.

When I visit someone's twitter profile, I would probably like to undertake one of the following actions.

• read his or her tweets
• follow his or her tweets
• tweet to that specific account
• find out who he or she is

He or she can of course also refer to a band, company or whatever the twitter profile is representing on the medium.

Here is what I probably don't want to see at first glance when I visit a twitter profile

• a big ass cover picture covering half of my screen
• one or no tweets of this account
• no possibility of tweeting to this account

When I want to undertake the actions of my first list, I need to scroll down to complete intentions 1 (read more than one tweet) and 3 (tweet to that account). That is, if I were not to be horrified by the account's cover picture.

Dear twitter, please update the profile pages with some common - user experience - sense because, no, I don't like what I see.

Multi-device advertising

Today I stumbled upon a print ad in a newspaper about a real estate company. Ok, I didn't find it myself, it showed up in my twitterstream (thanks @Brilliant_Ads).

Nothing special at first sight, but when you look closely at the ad, you can see they just took multi device usage to the next level.

Recent research showed that a lot of people switch devices while performing a certain task (I mentioned this research earlier) and Harcourts is just ahead of this trend: click on this traditional newspaper print ad to find out how you can add $$$'s to the value of your house when selling!

Some might say it's just a print ad fail, but is it really so absurd? Glasshole or not (I am - unfortunately - not), this might just be the future.

Have a look at how Google Glass is used to make reading the newspaper more like reading a website at Engadget.

It's about connecting anyone who reads the (actual, physical) newspaper to everything that doesn't make in on to the page, whether that's more photos, related articles, or video.

It's time

It has been on my 'wanted' list for over a year: a smartwatch. The last months, I have had many chances for buying one. Nevertheless, it's only on my wishlist, not on my wrist.

Why? I don't want to buy just any smartwatch, I don't want a cellphone on my wrist. I want a watch, that is also smart.

Too bad, this is in contrast with today's try-outs of many brands (The Pebble, Sony Smartwatch, Samsung Gear ...). They have many technical issues (bad battery life, only compatible with some devices, too basic ...), but most of all, they don't look like real watches.

Everyone looks at your watch and it represents who you are, your values and your personal style. - Kobe Bryant

In my opinion, a smartwatch needs to start with the essential: being a watch, telling you the time. Next to that, it should support you during your (busy) days. Keeping your schedule, keeping you up to date, keeping you on track.

A couple of days ago, Google launched 'Android Wear', an OS for smartwatches. And however it seemed like something for the future, Motorola already took it to the next level two days ago. Enter the Moto 360, a watch that seems to be smart.

Moto 360. It's time.

The concept videos are promising, but we will only know if Motorola can keep up it's promises during the summer. My birthday is the 30th of July, can I finally scratch 'smartwatch' of my wishlist then?

more info on their beautiful website

One Hundred and Forty

A Tweet is a 140-character message posted via twitter. One Hundred and Forty characters. 140. That is the absolute maximum.

If you want your content to be shared via twitter, foresee a tweet-button that shows a message of 140 characters. Or less.

Market research agency GfK (free publicity for my employer!) and Facebook did research on device switching behaviour during online activities (visiting websites, shopping ...). The results were picked up on different online blogs. As it should be, a tweet button was available to share the content.

I decided to share the results of the research via my twitter account.

But then this happened ...

The second blog I read, also had a share-to-twitter functionality.

I even had 33 characters to add my own thoughts or hashtags. Guess which one I shared?

#Facebook and @gfk_en research finds 42% switch device mid-activity http://t.co/weaGzvctvQ #mrx #custexp

— Bert Hendrickx (@bhendrickx88) March 7, 2014

Tweet seats

Zaterdag (8 maart 2014) treedt Ali B op in de Arenbergschouwburg van Antwerpen (meer info). Drie gelukkigen kunnen het optreden gratis bijwonen. Hoe? Via drie gereserveerde tweet seats.

Tweet·seat (de; m; meervoud: tweet seats)

1. Gratis toegangsticket voor een event in ruil voor het regelmatig posten van twitterupdates.

Drie gelukkigen mogen gratis naar het concert in ruil voor regelmatige updates over het concert via hun twitterprofiel. De opzet bestaat er in mensen die geen ticket konden bemachtigen toch te laten meegenieten van het concert, de tweets mogen immers gekleurd worden met videos of foto's. Toeschouwers worden aangezet om ambassadeurs te worden van het concert, Ali B en de schouwburg.

"We bepalen hun mening niet. Als ze iets niet goed vinden, mogen ze dat ook melden.’ - Kim Geerdens (woordvoerster)

Dat sociale media er voor zorgt dat mensen die niet aanwezig zijn toch bepaalde events (deels) kunnen volgen is uiteraard niet nieuw. Tijdens of na een optreden, presentatie, festival ... is er massaal veel media online terug te vinden. Zo waren we vorig weekend allemaal aanwezig tijdens de oscars.

If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014

Twitteren (of facebooken, of snapchatten, of ...) tijdens events gebeurt echter vaak spontaan, en zijn zo'n tweets niet meer waard dan een betaalde tweet van Jan Modaal? Als natuurlijk per optreden drie personen aangeduid worden om de sociale wereld te entertainen, kunnen we vanaf nu wel weer gewoon met onze eigen oren en ogen genieten van wat er zich op het podium afspeelt.

Brisbane man forced to watch concert with his eyes after forgetting mobile phone. Full details: http://t.co/JKOIHoDNMO

— The Shovel (@The_Shovel_) December 9, 2013