News in brief

Connection Research is to conduct a series of surveys, reports and research briefs to address community sustainability issues in Australia. Subscribers will receive a major report each quarter, one on each of the service's four research areas: energy consumption and conservation, technology in the home and domestic waste. Each report will contain primary data based on surveys of some 1000 Australian households on consumer attitudes and behaviour, specific to the relevant research area.

Ugam Solutions, an outsourced operations and analytics services provider to the market research industry, has set up a new delivery centre in Sarvanampatti, India. The new facility centre will employ 400 staff.

MedeConnect Healthcare Insight, the market research division of Doctors.net.uk, has announced a bolt-on to its quantitative online research of medical professionals, expanding the scope of methodologies that can be implemented online. Where previously online questionnaires were pre-coded, the new service includes real-time interactive probing of open questions, online group discussions and showing of visuals or videos.

E-Poll Market Research, a research house for the entertainment, media and marketing industries, has launched MediaSync – a dynamic online interface which provides subscribers with access to, and control of the data from E-Poll's E-Score suite of research products. MediaSync combines brand and celebrity evaluation tools, enabling comparison of brands and endorsers or other talent. Along with the release of MediaSync, E-Poll will also be providing clients with an upgrade in capabilities for E-Score Celebrity, its industry-leading celebrity evaluation product.

Verint Systems has launched the Impact 360 Speech Analytics tool. The company claims the product brings speech analytics technology into mainstream contact centre operations without costly setup overhead, lengthy consulting engagements and the need for interpretation by separate analyst staff. The product mines recorded customer interactions to provide insight into changes and patterns in customer behaviour.

Absolute Quality has launched a social media analysis service for the interactive entertainment marketplace. The service provides gaming publishers and developers the data and insights required to better understand the demands and desires of customers by monitoring blogs, customer review sites, message boards, and other social media mediums, helping increase brand recognition and enhance revenue generation activities. The tool delivers detailed analysis about the general tone of the gamers' sentiments and which buzzwords are most prevalent. Data and information can be used to shape future product development, create more focused marketing campaigns, or even respond directly to customers' comments and post responses on the website.