Forrester buys JupiterResearch

by Josh Bernoff and Cliff Condon

If there is one other research company that we've continued to encounter, respect, and see as real competition in the interactive media space, it is JupiterResearch. While the company ownership has changed hands several times over the years, the analysts have continued to do great work.

That's why we're very pleased that Forrester Research today announced it is acquiring JupiterResearch.

This blog post is not about the financial or management aspects of the deal -- see the press release for that. It's about what this will do for our research and analysis.

JupiterResearch has 43 research staff who will now become part of Forrester. These are some of the most prominent and prolific voices in the analysis of social media and technology's effects on consumers. Not only do they publish great analysis, they're also extremely active bloggers and Twitterers.

Adding these people will increase Forrester's research staff in the Marketing and Strategy area (one our three main areas of focus, along with IT and Technology Industry) by 58%. Our biggest problem these days is keeping up with demand from clients. That's why we're hiring (those hires are still happening). And now we are adding a whole lot of talent at once.

Acquisitions can be challenging to manage, but having lived through Forrester's acquisition of Giga, we can tell you that acquisitions add a dimension by bringing in a lot of innovative new ideas. We know that will happen here. Having seen JupiterResearch's analysis over the years, we believe these people and Forrester will be able to move forward together in a very powerful way.

For our clients, we can tell you that you stand to gain here. One this gets going we are likely to be producing more research and developing more areas of expertise for all the marketing and strategy roles that we serve.  You will have new faces and new knowledge to tap.

If you are a JupiterResearch client, welcome to the fold. You'll be hearing from us about what's coming for you, but we know the Forrester team will make sure you get not just what you were expecting from JupiterResearch, but more.

Exciting times ahead!

So long Horiemon ... see you in 2010?

It seems like yesterday that Takafumi Horie (Horiemon) was Japan's Web 2.0 enfant terrible. But as I look at the timeline, I recall that he reached his peak in 2005 was when he tried to buy out Fuji Television. He was promising a revolution, shaking up old-school Japanese leaders, upsetting their cozy status quo...

He even stood for election to the Diet and announced his intention to launch a space tourism company within five years. Soon after that, his empire collapsed amid accusations of fraud...

Today he lost his appeal against his custodial sentence. He'll serve two and a half years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aYbIYi97jlfw

Perhaps he deserves it, but I wish it wasn't such an "Icarus" story for aspiring web entrepreneurs.

I hope for a happy ending in which he re-emerges as a "reformed" character and successful business leader. We may well see him burst onto the scene again in 2010 with his enthusiasm for shaking things up undented. He's not one to fade away quietly...

25 Years Old Today!

Not me, of course!

I'm talking about Forrester Research. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary today.

My sincere thanks to Forrester's clients and partners. We could not have made it this far without you.

I'll bet the Tokyo Office cake tastes better than the one in Cambridge (MA) ...

今日は25歳

．．．私ではなくて、フォレスター・リサーチが．．．

お蔭様で25年執念です。お客様に心からお礼を申し上げます。

Polar bear blog reviews Groundswell

What do Japanese teddy bears think of Groundswell - Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies (by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff)?

They can bearly contain their enthusiasm:

http://akihitok.typepad.jp/blog/2008/06/groundswell-a6e.html

By the way -- It looks like Groundswell will be published in Japanese some time soon... I will let you know as soon as I have more information.

日本のぬいぐるみも「グラウンドスェル」（フォレスターのアナリストが書いた本）が気に入っているみたいですね。

http://akihitok.typepad.jp/blog/2008/06/groundswell-a6e.html

近いうちに「グラウンドスェル」の日本語訳もできる見込みです。詳しい情報が分かる次第お伝えいたします。

iBuzz...

A friend of mine walked past the Softbank store on his way to work this morning. He told me that the queue to buy iPhones stretched all the way from the store to the national stadium. That's a long line... I didn't quite see how it could be possible...

But then I read that more than 800 people camped out over night to be the first in line to get an iPhone.

And when the store opened there were 1500.

And when I looked at Facebook, I saw that all of my friends are caught up in the excitement. A British friend of mine in Tokyo, an American friend in San Francisco and a Japanese friend (in Tokyo) were all using their status updates to talk about getting an iPhone.

The world is in a state of chassis.

Japanese consumers' pet peeves on Web sites

The Japanese survey company, Goo, asked a panel of consumers what they disliked about companies' Web sites. Here is Goo's ranking of the top 20 dislikes of Japanese consumers:

1. The information has not been updated for several months (100)
2. The site is heavy with too many images (97.9)
3. The site is full of incomplete contents (89.4)
4. The links open PDF files (87.5)
5. The home page is all flash (86.9)
6. The site keeps opening up lots of popups (86.6)
7. There's too much information. I can't reach information I want. (81.4)
8. There's no overview like an index of products etc. (75.4)
9. The site suddenly makes sounds (70.2)
10. It's unclear how to contact the company (63.3)
11. Even after looking, it's hard to tell what the site is trying to convey (57.2)
12. There is no detailed information on products (57.0)
13. The site resizes my browser without asking permission (53.0)
14. There's no way to search the site (53.0)
15. It's hard to understand the map to the company (50.7)
16. The background color is hard on the eyes (48.9)
17. In general, the text is small (43.4)
18. The public blog is just a lot of the staff's private concerns (42.8)
19. Right click is disabled (42.6)
20. The site menu is in English (42.2)

The survey results are presented in Japanese on Goo's site.

I believe the number in parentheses refers to the percentage of respondents who selected each item as one of their dislikes.

Survey methodology:

• Respondents: Registered members of Goo's proprietary research panel
• Method: Closed ended (multiple choice) questionnaire. Online.
• Survey dates: May 21, 2008 ~ May 23, 2008
• Valid responses: 1072

Although the results are very interesting, I should point out some flaws in this research:

• As the survey methodology was "multiple choice" we only get responses that correspond to the choices offered in the survey. Perhaps the survey didn't include all of the respondents' peeves.
• Consumers aren't always very good at telling us about their difficulties using a site.

Why aren't consumers good at telling us what's wrong with the sites they use? Because everybody lies...

You're not convinced?

OK. Here's a less flippant explanation from "The User Is Always Right" (by Steve Mulder)

... most often, users don't tell me the truth because they're not even aware of the truth of their behavior. It turns out that many people aren't very good at analyzing their own behavior or paying attention to their actions. Basically, our image of ourselves doesn't always reflect reality. That's why it's important to watch what people really do, and not simply trust what they tell you they do.

For this reason, it's necessary to observe customers as well as listening to them. By watching them, you can see what they actually do. (You can get some idea of this from web site analytics too).

Nonetheless, it's interesting to see this ranking. I plan to come back to it in the near future and map the issues to Forrester's Web Site Review criteria. The pet peeves cited in the list are all related to problems of VALUE, NAVIGATION, PRESENTATION or TRUST - and most of them could be identified and remedied if companies properly reviewed their sites before unleashing them on the public.

I will write a follow up to this post soon... but I must go now and practice my speech for next week's event.