The Honomichl 50 Rankings are out as of late last week.
AMA members can read the full report here.
GreenBook has some good topline coverage here.
Key points:
1. 2009 US revenue for the top 50 fell 3.5%, with Harris Interactive dropping 24% and Gfk (-11.7%), Synovate (-12.4%) and Ipsos (-7.3%) all struggling through this recession. [...]

In my analysis of plausible market research futures, one that I come back to frequently is what I call the “epidemiology future.”
By this I mean the application of memetics to marketing campaigns utilizing research and testing techniques.
Memetics is the application of the viral analogy to the world of ideas. The idea is the virus [...]

Here at Future of Insight we’ve been spending a lot of time recently discussing the evolutionary stages of market research.
For a complementary perspective, I recommend watching the following interview with Simon Chadwick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6clSVeVhU_c
Our views are very similar.
While much of the industry as it is currently defined is still in the “Asking Epoch” defined by the survey, [...]

Over at NGMR there is an excellent discussion regarding the future of MR.
With many points of view being promoted and it’s worth a quick read.
For the record, here are my posts:
Post 1:
Today there is no one single future for market research, but alternative futures.
I’ve written quite a bit about this at the Future of [...]

Reading Joel Rubinson’s excellent post over at his ARF blog, recalls some futuring I’ve been doing around the likely evolution of the industry.
Rubinson takes a look at the evolution of the ad agency and applies this evolutionary footpath to MR with media buying the analog to the data collection side of the business and creative [...]

Ci Research Manager Gareth Hodgson shares his very funny take on the future of market research:
The future of market research is… Street interviewers with jet packs. Either that or a closer alignment to (and integration with) increasingly sophisticated and knowledge-rich customer databases.
Although street interviewers with jet packs is a fantastic “atomic ranch” image, my [...]

For those interested in the trandsformation of market research, I strongly recommend Joel Rubinson’s post regarding Research Transformation.
Here Rubinson details the “ARF’s first Research Transformation super-council meeting.”
MR has a long road ahead of it in order to transform. As I’ve noted before, the BCG research on this paints a stark picture.
Like Kim Dedeker, [...]

What is the optimal size for a market research online community (MROC)?
I have recently been asked this question with some frequency. This, in itself, represents the level of interest in MROCs and also a certain level of bias from survey-based quantitative researchers.
One avenue of approach on this topic is Dunbar’s number. [...]

It’s not every day that Forbes publishes an article on market research.
This is why I was delighted to read Quentin Hardy’s piece on Norman Nie titled “Power in the Numbers.”
Nie co-invented SPSS (sold to IBM for $1.2 Billion last summer) and is now running the startup Revolution Analytics. He says his new product will [...]

Although it has been a truism that many of the larger MR players survive by simply using their size to buy up promising, innovative companies, the current recession has not been kind to them. And it raises the question of whether this trend is sustainable.
Research World (May issue) notes that:
1. Synovate and Kantar revenue [...]