MtlogoI'm delighted to report that Market Truths has won the Edelman/Electric Sheep Company business plan competition, orginally announced last November.  Pebble Hannya of Market Truths has been an active and generous member of the Second Life Business Communicators group.  She has held two classes for us on conducting market research - and she was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions I posed to her about her winning business plan and her views on SL market research in general:


Can you talk a little about what your plan is about?

At its most basic level it's about providing information. Currently there is very little hard information about much of anything in SL, yet good information is essential to good decision making for everyone from an individual resident to a small SL-only business to a big corporation deciding whether to come into SL. It's also important for media who want to write about SL and delve deeper than just explaining what it is and sharing a few anecdotes about their experiences there. 

So what we're doing is taking traditional research and analysis techniques and adapting them to Second Life as needed in order to get the information people need to make good decisions or just be well informed. We're doing that in part by forming our own research panel of SL residents; however, we can also conduct research with organizations' own customers or employees, members of SL groups, etc. And we can do observational research in SL.

We're selling both custom research (mostly to RL companies, we expect), and also standardized reports that are more geared toward SL-only businesses, the media, and others who just want some additional information about various aspects of SL.

What do you think differentiated it from the others?

It's hard to say because we didn't see the other plans, so all we know about them is what was said at the ceremony and in news reports. From what we've seen and heard, all of the finalists had good ideas, so perhaps it's just that we're a little further ahead with our plans and that, or our prior experience, just gave the judges a little more confidence that we would implement well.

You've already been successful at completing market research in SL. How will this win help you expand your efforts?

We're hoping that it will raise awareness among SL residents about our research panel and encourage more people to join to help ensure their voices, perspectives, and opinions are heard. We're also hoping it will bring us to the attention of more RL companies who are already in SL or are thinking of entering, and that they will let us help them get the information they need to be successful in the SL environment.

Traditional market research is deeply rooted in demographics?  How do virtual identities impact your SL market research?

We collect both SL and RL demographic information, so we can choose research participants based on either one and we can also incorporate either or both types of demographics into our analysis. One of the things I'm really interested in regarding research in SL is the relationship between the two types of identities. There has been a lot of speculation about the extent and type of correspondence between the two, but that's an example of something that no one has a lot of hard data on, yet many people would like to know.

In what areas do you believe RL businesses are most interested in acquiring research about virtual worlds?

It's clear that many businesses are finding that some channels they have traditionally used are not as effective as they were in the past, and also that customer expectations have changed in the sense that more people want a two-way dialogue with companies, with fewer willing to accept a one-way monologue. Many people seem to be trying to determine the long-term implications of that and so I think companies are interested in exploring the extent to which virtual worlds will emerge as a new channel (for information, promotion, and/or sales) for their particular product or service, and if they do, what form that interaction will take.

You will have access to an SL island for half a year as part of the competition prize.  What are your plans for the island?

We'll definitely be using it as a location for conducting interviews, focus groups, and other in-world research. We're really careful about safeguarding the privacy of research participants, and one of the things we want to investigate further is whether we're better able to do that on an island than we can in our current location.

What is the one biggest opportunity about doing market research in Second Life?

For us it's having access to a lot of sophisticated, forward-looking potential clients. In this environment, capabilities count more than size or location, so that works to our advantage.

What is the one biggest challenge?

The presence of alts and the absence of any real way to verify that people really are who they say they are. We don't provide reports, results, etc. in a format that makes it possible to identify who said what in either real life or Second Life (except in some very particular and relatively unusual situations where that is important for the project and the research participants have agreed to it ahead of time), but in real life there is generally greater certainty (though still not always 100%) about who is providing the information. We have various ways of addressing this issue within SL, but it is a challenge.

And just one extra bit from Pebbles:

Anyone who is interested in joining Market Truths' research panel can do so by visiting their SL office in Sylvina. You can get additional information about the research panel or Market Truths services on their SL Web site, which is http://sl.markettruths.com.

The Market Truths SL offices are located at:  Sylvina 185, 158, 23

Congratulations, Market Truths!! (that's from  me.)

February 20, 2007

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