The Forrester Wave™: Listening Platforms, Q1 2009

In response to marketers' changing needs, brand monitoring vendors are evolving to offer a more strategic and comprehensive platform. Forrester refers to this category of vendors as listening platforms. Listening platforms differ from brand monitoring vendors in one fundamental way: They deliver insights to shape marketing strategy rather than simply tracking metrics. Forrester's evaluation of leading listening platform vendors across 62 criteria revealed an emerging category still maturing in its capabilities and vision. We found that Nielsen BuzzMetrics and TNS Cymfony 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: 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.