The future is in our hands: Technologies to revolutionise mobile research

Mobile research is here to stay! Following several false starts during the last decade, the mobile phone now holds great potential in the research process.

The MR industry cannot drive developments in mainstream mobile technology but can seize the opportunities it creates. The last three years have seen continued mass adoption of mobile phones across the globe. Phones have become increasingly sophisticated enabling consumers to do far more than make voice calls. The iPhone has revolutionised the mobile market creating the application explosion and affordable and generous data plans. All this has put the foundations in place to successfully use the mobile phone to conduct research.

We are comfortable carrying out short surveys via mobile phone but what does the future hold for mobile research? The next decade will be very exciting if we are prepared to embrace emerging technology and play to the strengths of mobile research instead of forcing traditional methodologies to fit the mobile platform.

Mobile devices will become even `smarter' and more cost effective (many will be free subsidised by services and advertising). The iPhone will loose ground to other platforms (such as Android phones), which will make the pie bigger and more diverse. Mobile device functionality will catch-up in emerging markets.

Completing research via mobiles will become fast and reliable as improved connectivity in both Wi-Fi (widely and freely available), and super fast WIMAX or LTE 4G networks becomes mainstream. Unlimited or cost effective data packages, eliminated roaming charges and reversed billing will eliminate the research completion cost.

Location awareness will be at the heart of most mobile device interaction and this will be exploited by market researchers to track consumers and to initiate research. Technology will evolve to improve the reliability of GPS data and assisted technologies will allow the same location accuracy to be gained anywhere. Mobile phones containing active RFID tags will connect over short range to tags placed on all products, store shelves, posters (in fact anywhere).

Social networks and the ability to collaborate and co-create via mobile phones will become the increasingly popular way to conduct research via mobile phones. Researchers will adapt gaming type applications such as Foursquare to engage participants. Mobile communities will thrive as the technology to translate text on the fly is developed.

Five other technologies to revolutionise mobile research. 

1. The development of mobile senses The mobile phone will develop new and more accurate sensors. Biometric, biomedical, environmental (including weather and pollution), movement, emotion and social interpretation will all feed into the research process. 
2. Mobile payment The mobile will be the most common method to make consumer payments and transfer money between phones. Spending data will be a powerful stream of research data building the picture of a consumer's lifestyle. Incentives for research will be directly credited to phones. 
3. Machine2Machine communication The mobile phone will be connected to multiple devices all providing rich lifestyle data for research. The mobile phone will control TV programming, monitor power usage and we will finally have that internet fridge that will tell your phone when you are out of milk! 
4. Augmented reality Techniques such as shopper research and concept evaluation will be transformed as the physical and virtual worlds are combined. These research experiences will deliver high levels of engagement for participants and lead to greater understanding of consumers. 
5. Image recognition Mobile research will thrive with the use of photos and videos to add context to research experiences. Assisted by location identification, technology will instantly recognise products, landmarks etc. by searching databases to find matches. Recognising images will not only help with image coding, but will be used to initiate surveys or instantly deliver customised research content to the phone.

AJ Johnson is a vice president at Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange. This article was first published in Research World, the magazine for marketing intelligence & decision making published by ESOMAR. For more details go to http://www.esomar.org/researchworld.