The Top Listening Platforms

In response to marketers’ changing needs, brand monitoring vendors are evolving to offer a more strategic and comprehensive platform, so called listening platforms. Listening platforms deliver insights to shape marketing strategy rather than simply tracking metrics. A new study evaluates leading listening platform vendors across 62 criteria and reveals Nielsen BuzzMetrics and TNS Cymfony as top listening platform vensord. They established early leadership thanks to their strong balance of data collection, analytics, and consulting services. Dow Jones Insight, J.D. Power & Associates (JDPA), and Visible Technologies are all Strong Performers as well: Dow Jones Insight for its strong data coverage, JDPA for text mining and market segmentation capabilities, and Visible Technologies for a strong technology backbone. Biz360 is also a Strong Performer with an innovative product offering Opinions Insight. This study’s sole Contender Radian6 lacks the ability to identify sentiment but offers a solution with an easily customizable user interface tailored for PR teams. The results of this Forreste Reserach study show an emerging category still maturing in its capabilities and vision. The study is based on lab-based product evaluations in October 2008 and interviews with more than 30 vendor and user companies.