Did you have a good time at the Swedish Market Research Day (Marknadsundersökningens Dag) in March this year? Or do you regret you were not able to attend? In this short video summary of the day, you get a chance to bring back sweet memories - or regret even more.

Why write your own article about your own event when someone else does it for you? No less than three of the international guests and one who was not there have written articles about the Swedish Market Research and it is pleasant reading!

Life is slowly beginning to return to normal after last weeks discharge at the event of the year: The Swedish Market Research Day. It has become time to look back, contemplate and recall all the new and exciting things we learnt. This article will help you in that task by providing the presentations from the SMRD speakers. Enjoy!

In this article you find the photos from the wonderful party ending of the Swedish Market Research Day at Tyrol in the amusement park Gröna Lund. Photo: Marcus Bjärneroth.

In this article you find photos from the afternoon of the event of the year: The Swedish Market Research Day. Photo: Marcus Bjärneroth.

Aegis Group plc has announced a significant improvement in its 2010 interim results. Total revenue rose 4.2% to £663.3m, representing organic growth of 3.2%. The upturn in large part reflects a rebound at MR arm Synovate.

Half-year revenue within WPP’s consumer insight division rose 2.4% on a like-for-like basis and accounted for more than a quarter of the group’s total revenue for the period, making it the second-best performing business division within the marketing services giant.

Canada-based online data collection specialist Itracks has teamed with web application firm MutualMind to develop social media monitoring software specifically for users in the market research industry.

GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.), a provider of technology-enabled solutions for global market research, is partnering with TXT4CRM, the mobile engagement company, to offer mobile market research solutions. GMI announces GMI Mobile beta, with short SMS-based diary tracking, customer satisfaction, polling and purchase intent studies to augment traditional market research.

The Council of Europe has informed ESOMAR that market research surveys are not subject to the draft restrictions it is preparing on profiling techniques. This clarification obtained by ESOMAR means less administrative regulatory burden for researchers.

Google kommer att tillåta att tredje part köper andras varumärken som sökord i Google AdWords från och med den 14 september. Efter att Google har fått rätt ända upp i EG-domstolen att låta tredje part köpa varumärkesskyddade ord ändrar de din sin varumärkespolicy i Sverige och i övriga Europa.

Annonsmarknaden har fortsatt att utvecklas starkt under sommaren och annonsvolymen för juni var 14 procent högre än förra året och för juli 34 procent högre än 2009. Sökmotormarknadsföring och kvällspress är stora vinnare, medan DR/Annonsblad tappat mest.

Radio listening decreases in Sweden and especially within commercial radio, according to statistics from TNS SIFOs third radio report. Lugna Favoriter, a part of MTG Radio, falls back 29 percent, and most Lugna Favoriter stations have been closed down. (article in Swedish)

How to keep track of whats trendy on the world’s largest social network, Facebook?  Find out what’s hot, what’s news, and discover the latest meme. Mashable.com just released an updated review of 5 web sites that outperform Google's and Bing's "social search" tools.

The US data collection company Western Wats announced the release of {n}fusion sampling – a sampling methodology that expands and diversifies the reach of online sampling frames beyond managed panel. {n}fusion sampling is the process of infusing Western Wats’ managed panel, with additional samples from Mobile Phone Users, Phone to Web recruits, Social Communities and River respondents.

Sedan början av augusti i år har Finska Digium etablerat sig i Stockholm för att ta upp kampen med Questback, Quicksearch och andra enkätverktyg/feedback system i Sverige. Questback har sedan förvärvet av Easyresearch 2008 blivit den dominerande aktören på den annars mycket fragmenterade svenska marknaden.

In the US, web usability specialists Brian Krausz and Joe Gershenson have launched GazeHawk, a new technology firm which aims to make eye-tracking ‘affordable for everyone’.

The yearly ESOMAR world congress is fast approaching. For a number of years, we have provided the fastest, largest and most edgy coverage of this mega-event. Thanks to our good cooperation with software provider Dapresy, Athens 2010 will be no exception.

Genom Novus nya väljarbarometer från augusti, genomförd av Norstat via telefonintervjuer, bekräftas det jämna valläget hålla i sig efter sommaren. Socialdemokraterna och Moderaterna får ungefär samma väljarstöd och det är ett mycket jämnt läge mellan de två regeringsalternativen. Det är en historiskt ny situation att Socialdemokraterna och Moderaterna ligger så jämnt i väljarstöd några veckor före valdagen.

GfK has raised its 2010 sales and income expectations following a 12.3% rise in second quarter sales to EUR 328.7m, and a 9.4% rise in first half sales to EUR 609.6m. The firm now expects a 6% rise in sales for the year, which is double its original projection.

  With the increasing usage of social media, the UK online specialist Michalis Michael has opened DigitalMR, an agency focusing on social media research, with headquarters in London. Michael joined the full service institute Masmi in April this year and calls his new agency: ”one of the first pure digital market research agencies to be launched”. Masmi is said to hold a substantial but not a majority stake in the agency.

According to the latest research from eMarketer, advertisers will spend $1.28 billion worldwide to reach Facebook’s 500 million users compared to $665 million in ad revenue in 2009. US ad spending on Facebook is estimated to be $835 million this year, up from $500 million in 2009.

TNS Sifos App är nu lanserad för allmänheten! Appen ger tillgång till Sifos väljarbarometer och andra publika rapporter genom Iphone, iPad och snart även Androidtelefoner.

App-factory bolaget iDeal Apps, som gjort Ikeas succéapp samt TNS Sifos väljarbarometer-app, samarbetar med svenska MRC International för EyeTracking teknologi för att spåra läsarnas ögonrörelser i sina iPad och iPhone lösningar.

Sinitor intensifierar verksamheten. Den 1 september flyttas huvudkontoret till attraktiva och ändamålsenliga lokaler vid Globen och samtidigt tillträder Mattias Fahlén som VD.

Tyska undersökarorganisationen BVM har hållit kongress, med sedvanlig prisutdelning för berömvärda insatser. Lufthansa vann innovationspriset för sitt text-mining-system och även priset för bästa studie gick till resebranschen, för en prisjämförelsestudie gjord av L'TUR och Vocatus. Årets forskarpersonlighet blev Christa Wehner, Högskolan i Pforzheim, medan Ralph Wirth räddar återväxten bland forskarna med ett arbete om Conjoint-Analys. Branschens hederspris gick till Klaus Haupt på Psyma.

Det är inte bara i fotboll som tyskarna ligger före engelsmännen. Antalet utställare på Research&Results-mässan som hålls i München 27-28 oktober, har redan passerat 100, vilket var ganska precis det antal utställare Insight Show hade i London förra veckan.

As Mystery Shopping increases all over the world, the demands for a pan-Nordic high-quality service has lead to the founding of  The Nordic Mystery Shopping Alliance (NMSA). Four of the regions leading Mystery Shopping companies are founding members: Better Business World Wide (Sweden and Iceland), SeeYou AS (Norway), Serviceplus (Finland) and Shoptimizer (Denmark).

The Insight Show used to be the flagship MR event in Europe, in fact the only trade fair show to visit if you wanted to get a grip of the entire industry in a few hours. Fierce competition, mainly from Germany and France as well as the credit crunch has reduced the London event to one in the crowd. The good news for the visitors is that the arrangers now try harder and offer more for free.

The Insight Show is declining in size and is increasingly becoming a mostly UK event. Apart from a strong French presence, it was easy to keep track of the foreigners. We almost managed to catch all Scandinvians present with our camera.

Walking along endless lines of panel providers, fieldwork companies, software providers and focus group venues, can be dull and tiring at times. Ray Poynter gave me a good idea on how to keep your mind alert and interested. Look at the booths from a distance and try to figure out what the company is actually doing and selling.

Lars Johansson och Christoffer Luthman, båda med mångårig erfarenhet av analys, startar tillsammans med företaget inUse två nya bolag. Det andra bolaget som heter Ampliofy är ett produktbolag som ska bygga verktyg för att underlätta analys och optimering. En stor del av Ampliofys verksamhet kommer att gå ut på att ta fram lösningar som kompletterar och adderar extra värde till befintliga analysverktyg.

Tobii has designed a pair of glasses equipped with eye-tracking technology that they claim will allow researchers to gain a greater level of insight into consumer behaviour while their subject is in a natural environment.

Confirmit has partnered with research IT and operations company Annik to promote the latter’s SurveyFlashTools to users of its survey software platform.

Teknikgänget bakom KIA-Index dvs jag (Mikael Karlsson) och Sebastian från företaget Treplex har lanserat KIA-Index 2.3.0.