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Traditionally, focus groups are required to meet with their moderator at least once a week at an agreed time and place. Of course, during that time, everyone thought it was the only way to do focus groups. The next trend for focus groups moved from physically going somewhere at a given time and place to meeting up online via the internet. However, although meeting up online was much less of a hassle, there was still the barrier of time. Now that marketing research spans globally, wouldn't it be more convenient to give everyone the reigns on how they manage their time? If there was a moderator from Canada with members from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America, meeting at a fixed time would mean that some or most would have to sacrifice sleep or work time to fulfill their duties of attending a focus group meeting. There is a new trend for online focus groups that are becoming more and more popular these days. It is the multimedia board. What is that? Well, it is an online bulletin. The moderator opens a multimedia board and can post many things on it. For example, a welcome video, a video about the members’ tasks, recordings they need to listen to, pictures or ads to comment on. It also enables the members to post the accomplished tasks for the moderator to tag, highlight, organize or even comment about. Nowadays, some research marketing solutions firms have embedded the capability of the moderator to be able to probe more on the comments or responses of the group members by the click of a button. The members can also upload pictures, recordings or videos they would like to share to the group. They can even personalize their profiles which allow them to get to know each other more through the little details seen on the multimedia board. Multimedia boards also enable a moderator to tag members on a video or picture needed to be viewed. One key feature is that multimedia boards now have a translator feature. Moderators and members would no longer worry about language being a barrier when communicating with to people from different parts of the globe. They can type their responses and comments in their own language and the receiver can change it to their language. Of course, we’re not saying that the translation would be perfect, but it is enough to convey their thoughts clearly. Another key is that due to the convenience of multimedia boards, most times, members will be free to drop in anytime to see what’s up or what’s next in their tasks and they may not always have to be online at the same time, but the accomplished work keeps going. Now that is something.
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multimedia boards, online bulletin boards, focus groups,
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