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September 2007 GMI Newsletter

Welcome to the September 2007 edition of our newsletter.

Get in the game with the new GMI Gamer Panel!

The Entertainment Software Association reports that U.S. computer and video game software sales grew by six percent in 2006 to $7.4 billion. In addition, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates the worldwide video game market to grow to $46.5 billion by 2010. To address the growing needs of market research professionals in the gaming industry, GMI recently launched a new online gamer panel, which provides reach to diverse segments of the gaming market, including gamers who play console and PC games, and online gamers to name just a few. With this panel, market researchers can gain real-time access to the opinions of gamers for future product development, pricing, purchase behavior, test marketing strategies and ad concepts.

To help develop this unique panel which is rapidly expanding worldwide, GMI has formed a relationship with anchor partner and leading video game website GameSpot®. In addition, GMI uses other sources and portals to further populate its gamer panel. After focusing panelist recruitment mainly in North America to start, GMI will be rapidly expanding into EMEA and Asia-Pacific to provide customers with the market feedback they need to leverage all the global opportunities associated with today's gaming industry.

GMI's gamer panelists undergo a rigorous qualification process based on answers to nearly 100 questions, ensuring in-depth and much higher quality profiling than industry standards. Double opted-in panelists are profiled on a wide range of attributes, including:

Consoles owned and played
Hours per week spent gaming
Types of games (console, PC, portable/handheld, etc.)
Genre of games played
Online gaming services used
Games owned and purchase behavior
Sources for learning about new games
Participation in gaming forums and communities
Use of third-party voice technology (TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, etc.)
TV and consumer electronics owned
Gaming peripherals or components owned

GMI games at ESOMAR's Annual Congress

L-R: Thomas Marquardt and Leon de Koning, Managing Director, Northern Europe, GMI

To celebrate the latest arrival in our family of specialty panels, GMI gave ESOMAR delegates a chance to do some gaming of their own in Berlin last week. The Nintendo Wii Cow Race, hosted at GMI's booth proved very popular, culminating in a "Wiin a Wii" prize drawing held after the show.

Congratulations to our winner, Mr. Thomas Marquardt from Unilever Food Solutions.

Executive profile: Dave Williamson, EVP and General Counsel

GMI is pleased to announce that it has hired Dave Williamson as Executive Vice President and General Counsel. Dave brings over 20 years of experience in legal and business affairs to the company.

Dave comes from Loudeye Corporation where he served as Executive Vice President of Business Affairs from March 2005 to December 2006 until the company was acquired by Nokia. He was responsible for all business affairs of this publicly traded digital media company, including music label relations, mergers and acquisitions, and partner and key customer relations.

Prior to Loudeye, Dave was General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Business Affairs for Primus Knowledge Solutions, Inc. from 2000 to 2004, a publicly traded natural language search enterprise technology company, which was acquired by Art Technology Group. There, he was in charge of all the company's legal and business affairs, including corporate securities, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, mergers and acquisitions, licensing, intellectual property protection, partner arrangements, international operations and joint ventures, employment matters, and litigation management.

Before that, Dave served as Senior Vice President, Business Affairs at Sierra On-Line, Inc. from 1998 to 2000, responsible for the day-to-day business affairs of this consumer software company and subsidiary of Vivendi Universal.

During his career, Dave also served as Partner in the Technology Business Group at Perkins Coie (1989 to 1998) and as CPA with Arthur Andersen & Co. from 1984 to 1986. Williamson holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Denver.

GMI and DervalResearch launch Second Life Interview Corner

In collaboration with Amsterdam-based marketing research firm DervalResearch, GMI recently launched SLIC (Second Life Interview Corner). Powered by GMI's market research software platform, SLIC provides corporate brands with a brand-new perspective on conducting one-to-one research interviews in a virtual environment.

With SLIC, market researchers can now poll residents of the virtual world on hot topics - in Second Life (SL) as well as in real life - such as collaborative development, customization or waiting behavior. As soon as a respondent selects a topic and sits on the related sofa, the interview starts. The sofa asks open-ended or multiple-choice questions via the Second Life chat function, and respondents' answers are recorded. SLIC is fully automated and integrated into the SL user interface.

"I've never been interviewed by a sofa before," admits Prof. Tom Novak, co-director of the Sloan Center for Internet Retailing located at the University of California, Riverside. "But I found the SLIC interviewing process much more natural than I'd expected. For one thing, in Second Life, you become accustomed to having text chats with people, so a text chat with a sofa seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. There was also the visual image of seeing my avatar comfortably lying down on a plush sofa while it asked me questions. All in all, a very interesting and productive way to spend some time in Second Life. If these interviewing sofas were combined with an incentive, they could put camping chairs out of business in Second Life!"

By being available 24x7x365, SLIC offers a good geographic representativity of respondents at a competitive cost. Respondents are recruited in real life as well as in Second Life via 'word of virtual mouth' and groups. They can be rewarded with Linden Dollars, the currency of Second Life, or a gift at the end of the interview according to their gender or preferences. Respondents are also invited to join the SLIC group/panel in order to be contacted for further surveys and interviews.

GMI presents with Media-Screen at The Market Research Event 2007

Come hear Daniel Fitzgerald, VP, Americas for GMI and Josh Crandall, Managing Director of San Francisco-based research firm Media-Screen as they present Leveraging online research to track changes in Web 2.0 consumer behavior and habits at this year's IIR The Market Research Event. The conference will be held October 15-17 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, CA.

As the balance of power shifts from company to consumer in today's internet enabled marketplace, the market research industry is entering a new era. eBay and MySpace have become the malls of the 21st century, where passionate individuals produce meaningful content and influence the purchasing decisions of their peers.

By highlighting the findings from Media-Screen's Netpop online studies, powered by GMI, GMI and Media-Screen explore how online research can provide great insights into the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on today's consumer behavior, as well as the far-reaching implications for market researchers. The influence of user-generated content, collaborative tools and networked communities on shopping behavior and emerging trends in mass media is undeniable. With Web 2.0 technologies, modern consumers have more opportunities to shape the success and failure of products and services released into the marketplace. In context of this new reality, market research insights into the attitudes and behaviors of the online consumer are a key component to driving successful marketing initiatives.

Attendees of the session will learn valuable insights from Media-Screen's NetPop research, including:

The five fundamental activities that defined how Broadbanders spend their time on the Internet
The impact of user-created content on purchase decisions, and what motivates users to post content online
Overview of awareness and usage rates of social networking sites and possible future trends
Overview of emerging and established digital communications channels and adoption rates of mobile communications activities

Contact us for more information

Who's new at GMI

We welcome this month's new staff members around the globe, including our new Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Dave Williamson.

Dave brings over 20 years of experience in legal and business affairs to GMI. He most recently served as executive vice president of business affairs at Loudeye Corp., a digital media provider. There, he was responsible for managing key customer and music label relations and significant partners such as Nokia for mobile music initiatives. Loudeye was acquired by Nokia in late 2006.

Prior to Loudeye, Dave worked for four years as general counsel and executive vice president of business affairs for Primus Knowledge Solutions, Inc., a publicly traded natural language search enterprise technology company, which was acquired by Art Technology Group in 2004. Before that, Dave served as senior vice president, business affairs at Sierra On-Line, Inc., responsible for the day-to-day business affairs of this consumer software company and subsidiary of Vivendi Universal.

During his career, Dave also served as partner in the Technology Business Group at Perkins Coie (1989 to 1998) and as CPA for Arthur Andersen & Co. from 1984 to 1986. Dave holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Denver, CO.

Other new hires include:

Berenice Garcia, Senior Accounts Receivable Specialist - Bellevue, USA
Lyndee Giese, Marketing Assistant - Bellevue, USA
Bob Kim, Flash® Programmer - San Ramon, USA
Marisa Kodat, Account Manager - Sydney, Australia
Emily Koerper, Project Evaluation Specialist - Minneapolis, USA
Robyn Patnode, Account Manager - Boston, USA
Annie Yu, General Ledger Analyst - Bellevue, USA