James Young (Art & Design)

trendwatching.com has released their latest report. Here’s a quick summary of the 10 trends:

1. Business as unusual
2. Urbany
3. Real-time reviews
4. (F)luxury
5. Mass Mingling
6. Eco-easy
7. Tracking & alerting
8. Embedded generosity
9. Profile myning
10. Maturialism

Twittermaven recently surveyed 240 people with 6 questions regarding interacting with brands. Here are some key findings, as well as a sample chart.

• Most users (89%) agree that brands should engage their customers on Twitter.
  
• almost 90% of users would frown upon poor or inappropriate brand use of Twitter.
• 60% of respondents would recommend a company based on their presence on Twitter and 80% of Twitter users will reward those brands
• More than 60% of respondents have 100+ followers and almost 50% of respondents have posted more than 1000 Tweets

Feel the need to track some tweets? Get your twitter analytics fix, by using these handy web-based tools…

1. Twitter Grader gives you a grade based on the power of your Twitter profile.
2. Twinfulence: a simple tool using the Twitter API to to measure the combined influence of twitterers and their followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus.
   
3. TweetStats helps you graph your Twitter Stats including: Tweets per hour; Tweets per month; Tweet timeline; Reply statistics
   
4. TwitGraph analyzes your tweets and presents the data in pie-chart form
   
5. Twitstat - Real time Twitter Analytics
   
6. Twitter Quotient will get your Twitter stats (# friends, #updates) and calculate your Twitter profile standing
7. Twist - see trends in twitter in comparison line chart format
   
8. Tweetrush is a service that aims to provide estimated stats on Twitter usage over a period of time via many attractive bar charts
   
9. Twitter meter let’s you query an index of all the words that have been sent to twitter’s public timeline (since late 2007) and plot the number of times that word was used over time.
   
10. TweetVolume is a useful tool for tracking the usage volume, of specific keywords or phrases, in the twit-osphere
    

Economic forecasting firm Global Insight Inc. of Waltham (and past client of J.Y. Design) yesterday said it agreed to be purchased for $200 million by IHS Inc., of Englewood, Colo.

“Global Insight was formed in May 2001 when Joseph E. Kasputys, now its chief executive, acquired Data Resources Inc. of Lexington and its rival Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates of Philadelphia. Kasputys said he plans to remain with Global Insight as chairman emeritus under IHS…

(an IHS executive) said Global Insight will retain its name and expand its Boston area workforce in coming years but work more closely with Cambridge Energy Research and other IHS “insight” companies, which provide data, analysis, and consulting services to businesses and government agencies around the globe…

Down the road, Kasputys said, he can imagine Global Insight and Cambridge Energy analysts working side by side on research and forecasts. “This is a terrific combination of Global Insight’s economic analysis and Cambridge Research’s energy analysis,” he said…”

Source: Boston Globe. Congrats to GI.