Developed in-house, the company said the platform was a ‘break-through” for qualitative research to moderate forums simultaneously in different languages across different formats and in different time zones.

The Tpoll software allows the ability the use of scribble tools, placing emoticons and text on imagery; adding videos and webcam uploads, as well as adding You Tube links and document files.

Online communities and bulletin boards can remain ‘live’ for days, weeks or months allowing researchers to measure the effect of various off-line events as well as query the groups for instant results.