18 pgs, 7 charts, 7 graphs, 71 references (Joseph wrote it, remember?)
Abstract: The use of online forms and questionnaires, focus groups and similar research organs as a basis of soliciting website visitor information and attitudes has become a staple in the online world even though the flaws with such organs have been long understood and documented in research literature:33,68

Marketing research methodologies that rely on questionnaires and standard surveys are inherently loaded with biases and errors related to the sampling frame, the survey instruments, the interviewers and the fact that the respondents know that they are being evaluated. ...
    - Eric Drouart, Former VP, International Operations, Bristol-Myers Squibb
 
Often market research firm panels are solicited to both expedite results collection and to specify the required demographics in the response group.

NextStage has been monitoring such uses for several years and began to question the accuracy of panel responses for market research and related purposes based on a) its own researches and b) papers published by others regarding focus groups, online survey anomalies and response abnormalities that could be culturally or cognitively based. Testing conducted from Q4'08 through Q2'09 demonstrates that measurable biases exist in panel-based responses to online surveys.

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40 pages, 42 figures, 14 Major Take-Aways, 6 pages of Result Examples, 5 pages of Distinct Findings, 95 References
Introduction: This paper is based on research that considered 1400 email newsletters, learned their effectiveness achieving author(s) goals then determined which features were causing that effectiveness. Of the 1400 email newsletters evaluated, 200 were in the final iconographic-semantic (Iconographic-semantic encompasses the design, layout, color, use of images, voice, tone, type of content, etc., of the information) draw that demonstrated consistent success metrics. A total of six (6) iconographic masks were found among these 200 successful email newsletters and those six (6) masks are given in this report along with descriptions for use. Appendix A - The Iconographic Masks shows all the masks together so readers can more easily see their differences and provides some indications of their use.

The research was actively conducted from Sept '05 to Oct '07. Data collection for this research began in 2001 with accurate models being predicted and tested at various times from 2001 forward. The study included email newsletters from the USA, Canada, Great Britain, and most recently a square formed by France, Germany, Italy and Rumania. The email newsletters dealt with a diversity of topics and interests.

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25 pages, 3 figures, 1 chart, 20 images, 6 Detailed Take-Aways, 9 Usage Suggestions, 88 references
Introduction: The use of color in marketing has a rich and long history. It can be traced back through illuminated manuscripts to the first uses of dyes on cloth to make our ancestors stop to take notice as they walked through the village bizarre. Some colors were outlawed for commercial purposes because only the elite classes were allowed to wear them. Elements of this elitism come down to our modern era as "Royal Blue", "Imperial Purple", "Royal Purple" and similar color terms.

Color in marketing isn't limited to actual colors, though. It includes branding and the creation of logos, moving brands offline to on and vice-versa, and how colors and the sociocultural concepts of colors affect the shopping patterns of different demographic groups. It's all well and good to know that most people will say the color blue is their favorite color36 when that specific question is asked but that doesn't mean you will attract the most eyes if you use blue in your marketing efforts.

Blue, for example, has some excellent uses in online marketing and information design:
 

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17 pages, 6 figures, 4 Major Take-Aways, 34 references
Introduction: NextStage Evolution (NSE) performed a two-year analysis (Jan 2007 through Jan 2009) of some 150 blogs (see Appendix A: Blogs Studied for a list of the blogs researched). The blog topics ranged from pure science to research to business to media to self-help to political to personal. Knowledge domains covered in the blogs ranged from marketing to new communications to entrepreneurial to personal- and life-counseling to linguistics to astrophysics to economics and more.

The research focus was to learn key features of optimal blogging. NSE uses the term "optimal" blogging to denote blogging that serves blogger, blog audience and sponsor in roughly equal measure, meaning that all parties feel they have received fair (note: not "equal") value for their efforts.1 The blogger feels rewarded for the time they put into researching, writing, posting and responding to comments. The blog audience feels rewarded for their time reading and commenting on the blog. Lastly, the sponsor is rewarded according to some business rules that exist between themselves and the blogger and which are usually metricized via any number of analytics tools.
 

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Overview: This paper deals with interface design issues in general and specifically with redesigning an interface such that both existing visitors and users and new visitors and users increase their loyalty to the brand. While some of the concepts demonstrated here can be applied to reBranding efforts, reBranding is not the focus of this paper.

ReDesign is not ReBranding. At best redesign is one step on the path towards successful reBranding and one that is usually overlooked due to many usability and design professionals being trained in "brick&mortar" mindsets. Even the most recent marketing classes overlook real-world learnings about online migration (between old and new interfaces). This paper explains the concepts and provides some examples of redesign (web site interfaces) towards the goal of maximizing visitor acceptance and branding.

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39 pages, 8 figures, 1 tool, 187 references
Overview: This paper is a neutralized, business oriented version of a paper written in response to a US government request for social networking methods to use in antagonistic environments, hostile theaters and with non-friendly, potentially unwilling participants. The methods and concepts described in this paper are best used by advanced practitioners and may cause some concern and anxiety for individuals unfamiliar with the material.
The purpose of this paper is to provide general, business use applications from proven warfront applications. That noted, be advised that this paper often details the identification and manipulation of individuals (based on recognition of behavioral cues) using a variety of craft-enhancement techniques in order to promote marketing goals (which may or may not be coherent with the social network's goals).
Some of the technologies used in this research do allow for individualization25,26 although none of them are currently used for personal identification15,166 purposes. That offered, please note that some elements of this research and as presented in this paper objectifies the behavior of individual humans.
The goal of this paper is to provide businesses with an actionable blueprint for

1. ) Owning and maintaining their message once it leaves their doors
2. ) Reclaiming a message that is detrimental to their marketing efforts
3. ) Stopping a message (theirs or others') at a geographic place and/or time
4. ) Directing a desired message to a specific geography and/or time with surgical precision

Note that this paper provides the preliminary toolkit only. Much of the in depth data, information and analyses that went into this paper will be put in a future title in the Reading Virtual Minds series. NextStage also offers trainings on the materials and methods contained in this paper.

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20 pages, 8 actionable results, 9 charts, 10 demonstration images, 67 references
Overview: Koinophology is the scientific study of cultural values demonstrated as emotional valences regarding physical features and stems from John H. Koeslag's studies of mating strategies; Mates are chosen due to regularity of physiologic features defined through ethnic generations, hence what is beautiful to a Navajo may not be beautiful to a Croatian.
Because beauty is culturally defined, certain physiognomies and physiologies drive different non-conscious emotional responses within cultural groups and cross-culturally. Extreme examples are labeled "prejudice", "bigotry", "sex appeal", and all are used extensively in advertising and marketing. Perhaps their greatest and longest running use is to create stereotyped characters in mass media.
Knowing what produces positive and negative emotional valences – desirability, worthiness, beauty, attractiveness, horror, disgust, rejection, conceit – within specific audiences is valuable information for marketers creating integrated campaigns. An image of a man and woman talking causes non-conscious positive and negative cultural biases to be applied to the image and any associated content. If the image is a video with a sound track, cultural values dictate acceptable male and female vocal registers to produce desired responses in viewers.
In a single cultural environment with little to no integrated marketing, using cultural stereotypes was often all that was required to create successful cross-channel content in the past. The emergence of integrated marketing – wherein the audience is deluged by a 360É near-continuous information stream from any number of simultaneous channels – requires modern marketers to understand where koinophologic boundaries lie.
Koinophologic boundaries take the shape of simple questions that this study demonstrates can be answered scientifically. How much of a smile is enough of a smile? How wide a nose is too much nose? Can ears be too big to sell cars within a specific cultural audiences? Does age play a factor in both the creative and interpretive process? This paper reports on a 2010 study undertaken to determine how koinophology might serve marketers. It is hoped that this and future studies will determine if faces and bodies translate into marketing dollars, and if physiognomic and physiologic elements can be optimized for specific marketing responses.

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24 pages, 1 chart, 12 images, 8 figures, 9 Major Take-Aways, 5 Web Specific Take-Aways, 42 references
Introduction: The research described in this paper came about through simultaneous investigations by a number of parties in fields as diverse as behavioral intelligence, education, ethology, neuroscience and traffic and pedestrian safety studies. NextStage specific research was performed on three public websites (ecommerce, recreation, social network) and three NextStage research specific sites. Each website conformed to NextStage research standards and NextStage rigidly conformed to it's published privacy policy. In addition, the research described in this paper conformed to the suggestions of American Association for the Advancement of Science's 1999 workshop report, Ethical and Legal Aspects of Human Subjects Research on the Internet. Informed consent was obtained through each site's privacy policy and terms of use statements.
 

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58 pages, 33 charts, 7 Major Take-Aways, 199 references
Introduction: This paper is based on a similarly titled presentation which has been given in several locations in the US and Canada and is based on research on visitors and their needs on websites. The specific research on which this paper is based began in 1998, is ongoing, and includes studies of all online platforms targeting a variety of demographics (male, female, ages from 15-85yo, various vocational, educational and income backgrounds). A Research Overview can be found on page  for readers interested in the technical aspects of this paper. The information contained on the charts in this paper was collected over several years.

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