Analysts and Bloggers - my last comment

Michael Gartenberg | February 28, 2006, 05:14 PM

Not going to get into this in a big way (and blogging late at night and jetlagged is never a best practice) but since Michael Eisenberg sort of responded to my comments by pointing to another blogger (and promoted me to CEO along the way) it's a little worthy of mention. Michael, let's try and hook up some time, either when I'm in town this trip or give me a call next time you come to New York.

I'm not sure the Stalwart or Michael understands exactly what we do (relative to other firms) but when I talk about data driven research and analysis, I refer to the type of data we use at Jupiter. Namely data that comes from online consumer surveys designed by our analysts and fielded to an external panel. That type of data as the basis of hypothesis driven methodology is expensive. Knowing what the right questions to ask and how to understand the results? Well that's priceless or at the least, certainly of value to our clients.

Likewise our forecasts are built by our data analysts. They are based on consumer survey data, data from industry players that is not generally available on Google, publicly available financial information and other sources. These models are complex, developed internally by professionals who know the pitfalls of working with data and are proprietary. Can most bloggers build these models? Would they want to? Can most folks draw meaningful interpretation from them? We do this full time, it's not a hobby. We're there when clients need us and having many clients amortizes the costs and makes us affordable. Try fielding a survery. It's harder than it looks and a lot more costly for most companies, certainly prohibitive for most individuals.

But that's not really the point. You see it's not about bloggers displacing us anymore than it is bloggers displacing mainstream media , camera phones replacing cameras or users replacing VCs. If that's you're mode of thought, you're asking the wrong questions. It's not about Jupiter vs. Om either :) I know how many entrepreneurs want to get in front of us. You see it's about the value add for different folks with different needs. It's not about this or that. It's about this, that and the other thing too.

Let's be clear, we're not downplaying bloggers. We blog ourselves, in fact, we pioneered blogging for analyst firms. We've also been to known to share our data with other bloggers and let them riff on our stuff. Makes for more interesting conversations. So, let's move this along and talk about something really interesting.

Oh and if you have any questions about Jupiter or our methodologies, please feel free to give me a call, or contact my boss and Sr. VP of JupiterResearch; David Schatsky or our real CEO, Alan Meckler.