In my post ‘Hear your customer’s tweet’ , I mentioned how companies and research agencies are looking to collaborate with small setups that have been tracking tweets or messages posted to social media websites in order to cull out information related to their company. Google recently launched ‘Google Social Search’ which will help users/companies not only track who is commenting what about a particular product/service but also help tracking comments from various social media websites based on the conditions set by the user. When I say conditions, it simply means that Google Social Search allows you to form groups of individuals whom you trust that will ensure guidelines are set for the kind of information is required from the search.

As rightly pointed out by Gary Boomer, President of Boomer Consulting, mentioned in his article, apart from tracking information and comments on websites, its important for companies to create communities where people with similar preferences and choices can be grouped to get an unbiased opinion about the company’s product/services. This can be similar to forming a panel for panel discussion. Information from social media websites is usually in a crude form, spreading from one medium to the other like wild fire. Creating a community would lead to  a more focused approach to monitoring and tracking information in a format desirable by the company.

These rapid changes in research techniques leave us speculating about what the future really holds for research. From telephonic and face to face consumer surveys to mobile technology to the use of social media websites, research companies are looking at all the avenues to track consumer preferences. As an example, the UID project that would be implemented in the coming year in India would facilitate better and focused tracking of consumer behavior. But that is for the future. A lot will change from now until then. When speculation lends itself to imagination, one can envision gizmo gadgets that track consumer thoughts as they are created, or maybe even before they are formed! Scary! Would anyone like to venture a more realistic guess at the future for research?