Market-research

this is probably the worst book you could buy. The author's pseudoscientific observations are worthless. His market predictions would have bankrupted anyone who listened to him in the last 10 years. There is no evidence that Elliot Waves have any predictive ability.

Since I have been introduced to Bob Prechter's Elliot Wave analysis and others like him, I have had tremendous success in the markets this past year. While I do not believe that Elliott Waves can predict exact stock market movements with a 100% degree of accuracy (who can?), I have been alerted to important tops and bottoms in this past year of a tempestous bear market environment and have profited in both directions. "Socionomics", as outlined in the book makes perfect sense as a social and economic indicator, and we see the exact scenarios that the book talks about taking place today in our global economy. A good read, as is Conquer the Crash (and no, I am not a paid reviewer for Prechter - I read and consider all points of view on the markets and the economy. This way of approaching the market is refreshing and insightful, not to mention profitable).

R. N. Elliott announced the Wave Principles as the "Nature's Law" some 60 years ago. Since then, many Ellotticians has been predicting the market movements in perfect accuracy, using his methods.

Mr Prechter's previous book, The Wave Principle of Human Social Behaviour, was about a new discipline called "Socionomics" which was the application of the Elliott wave principles to the Human Social behaviour. In that book Mr Prechter successfully proves that the Social Mood is the motor of all human activities, and the Elliott Wave Theory is the only method to analyse the market behaviour, which is indeed the mirror of the Social Mood, swinging from one extreme to another in the forms of waves.

Market Analysis for the New Millennium is made up of 21 essays of 12 authors. In this book you will find interesting essays about the Social Models, Fractals and Chaos Theory, Mathematical basis of Wave Theory, Finance and Philosophy, Investment Manias, a new Elliott formation called Packet Waves, Sunspot Cycles and Stock Performance and the requirements for successful forecasting and speculation.

In the Foreword, "Conventional analysis is a wasteland of irrelevance" says Mr Prechter. I agree. So what do we need to understand what's going on ? I recommend you to read this book, I'm sure you will change your views about the market movements, if you still didn't read the previous books about the Elliott Wave Theory.

Overall the book does a good job of detailing the strategy process for a market driven economy. All relevant aspects are covered in adequate depth. However, I kept thinking that the book was dated especially with regard its examples of corporate behavior. I tried to push these thoughts to the back of my mind by reassuring myself of the 1999 copyright. In reality, the 1999 copyright comes from the addition of a new introduction to the 1990 text. I was very disappointed when I realized this. Although it is presents a good framework, it is dated. This is ironic given the fact that the author presents examples of dated thinkings of strategy and shows how to improve. He needs to take the time to improve his own thinkings. In a market driven economy, strategy changes QUICKLY over 10 years. You don't need this book to know that.

It's funny how little things really change. George S. Day's book originally appeared a decade ago, but it reappears now with a theme that has since become a management mantra - let the market drive your business. While many newer books enumerate the basics of business strategy, the examples that Day culled from the likes of Otis Elevator, GE, Ikea, Acuson and 3M still illustrate the fundamental themes as well as any. The book's one shortcoming is its academic tone, which might be expected from an author who is also a professor, but nevertheless might try the patience of some business professionals. Despite this one flaw, we [...] recommend this book as a straightforward exposition on business strategy that has truly stood the test of time.

Without a doubt, this in an landmark book in business strategy and provides a good balance between a practical handbook and a certain level of theory. The book is well researched and well referenced and has clearly stood the test of time based on it still current wide acceptance. I found the product positioning and channel evaluation related strategy thinking of the book to be it's strongest points.

As another reviewer noted, it would have been great is the newest edition of this book was more throughly updated. Clearly it was not, and was probably renewed more to extend it's viable lifecycle in sales. The dated aspects of the book mostly come through in the case study examples. For example, positive references to Eastman Kodak, oops! Not exactly steller examples by today's standard. In any case, this does not dimish the value of the book, only makes you wonder how much better it would have been to be fully updated.

In any case, I would certainly rate this book in the top 5 of most important business strategy books...perhaps only bested by the likes of "Competing for the Future" by Gary Hamel & CK Prahalad.

If you want to learn about finance, go read Cochrane's Asset Pricing. Magill and Quinzii's book starts off from a very broad model, called "General Equilibrium under Incomplete Markets", and by the time that you've understood all the notation, you're basically at the end of their book. Yield curve, Black and Scholes, Continuous time finance, Futures, Corporate Finance... don't think it's in their book. The authors have a perception of financial economics that is ivory tower like, not applicable, and esoteric. But then again, if you want to be theorist, this might be just the right book for you. If you want to be more than an "...", really, go read Cochrane, Hull (on contingent claims), and Merton's Continuous Time Finance (now that's a book (bible) worth spending some time on) and many other high quality textbooks. You will have spent wise money instead of buying an outdated, overrated/pretentious, boring and useless textbook.

The previous review is not only unfair, but also irrelevant. If you do not like the field of GE under incomplete markets, fine. But then you would certainly not be in a position to comment on any book in the field, would you? Moreover, comparing apples and bananas has never been the brightest of ideas: this is not finance, this is GE under incomplete markets.

Magill and Quinzii provides a one-stop shop for masters/PhD level introduction to the theory of incomplete markets. The book covers the main topics in a highly readable manner and with very good examples. It is also the only book in the market that focuses on incomplete markets in such a detailed way. I believe the book belongs in the library of all students of advanced financial economics.

I was looking for a more descriptive, informative guide to 'soul mates' phenomena, however, in purchasing this book, I found a more fictional type account - (likely to be based on factual collation of research) of the soul mate concept. It makes for interesting reading though.

Stearn makes you look deeper into yourself and reflect on the speed, intensity, and depth of your relationships. He writes of the experiences of normal people like you and I, who, with hypnosis softening the wall of time, slip comfortably back to a period when they lived and loved before. The resulting stories should change the way we all view life, death and love. This book can change your life and help you on your quest for your soulmate, the love to whom you can honestly say, "I feel like I've loved you forever."

If you are looking for a high level overview on market segementation, then your quest can stop here. However, if you are interested in obtaining more than a cursory understanding of the topic, this is a book to pass on. Examples are so obvious that they do not offer much insight, and the lack of useful and impactful tools is problematic. Another issue is that this book predates the Internet, so inherently the inforation is not leading edge. Finally, the writing style leaves much to be desired; at times it is too cute and at others, it is totally obtuse.

It's an easy to read, well-organized book. The book can provide an introduction to what you need to know about segmentations, but not a lot more than that. Good start but definitely not enough to make you either highly competent at consuming segmentation research, let alone actually performing it.

The auther understands high technology and is able to provide concepts that allow the reader to take positive steps within business.

The book has a nice flow and also contains insights into the relationship between strategic planning and marketing.

The book also provides tools to segment and define markets. Good for small or large businesses.

I was surprised to find that this is almost a guidebook for university professors, rather than an information-packed how-to guide. There is more information on how to run the class than there is on how to execute meaningful market research. I regret spending the $$ on this particular book.

This is a valuable book for those more complex research and survey problems and thinking your way towards a solution.

It assumes a reasonable existing skill and you can make the most out of it by having those skills already.

It is not ready made answers, rather more useful hints and ideas that you can use to sort things out yourself.

Glen Jarboe's The Marketing Research Project Manual, 4th edition, is outstanding for its step-by-step presentation. The manual is convenient to marketing research students for its tear sheets and valuable tips on doing a research project. It is like a cookbook for marketing research. The steps and forms are easy to follow and prove to be very beneficial, as a college student. Presenting one company, Tri-County Electric Corporation, and following through with small exercises is a beneficial in gaining real-world knowledge of research design and procedures. Jarboe did an excellent job in gathering all the data sets and analysis to produce a well-composed manual.

Pretty clever idea: get thousands of people to pay to read your corporate brochure. The authors blatantly pitch their company's services throughout. That's embarrassing. But many of their insights are based on unfounded generalizations -- that today's youth are responsible for the rise in microbrewed beer, or that all future music will contain electronic components. The result: we can't take these so-called researchers seriously. There may be valuable insights in this book, but what can you believe?

In our quest for The Next Big Thing, many of us have rummaged around in the wrong places, like the drunk who stumbled under the streetlight for hours seeking his keys. Asked why he keeps covering the same ground, he says, "Because that's where the light is!"

In Street Trends, Lopiano-Misdom and De Luca are seeking the keys to hot, new trends - and finding them, too - but not under the bloodless light of statistical research alone (which everyone admits is illuminating ... as far as it goes).

No, these authors venture right into the thicket. They mount an expedition into the surly habitat of those young, independent kids who wouldn't dream of filling out a corny questionnaire, or be caught (duh!) in a focus group.

Whether or not you agree with the authors' observations (and whether or not you'd grant a First Church of Chi-Squared Almighty imprimatur to their naturalist methodology) this apparently modest volume is actually a fascinating, wickedly subversive little book.

Ray Simon (Ray is the author of Mischief Marketing, Contemporary Books, Fall 1999)

Street Trends is an effective book for all marketeers wanting to know what is in the mindsets of the youth market. Its assessment of the market also translates well into some of the trends that hit international markets.

I haven't read this book. The title of my review expresses my expectations, and I couldn't resist sharing it.

This is the most comprehensive available review of ass meat and other edible offals available in today's ass meat market. The more you need to know about ass meat, the more you need this book.

One gets to a point in one's life where there is clearly a "before" and "after". This book marks my personal epiphany. "Before" - a Friday night steak special at my neighborhood family restaurant and trading in heifer futures. "After" - a daily smorgasbord of animal waste parts at my own dining room table and the endless opportunites of the Egyptian bovine, sheep, goat, poultry, horse and ass meat market. I am moved beyond further comment.

Michael Apple continues his neo-marxist propaganda in this book going to great lengths complaining but offering almost or no alternatives to the so-called conservative agenda he is set to destroy.

The book is utterly imbalanced in his treatment of standards, educational reform and even the "Christian agenda". Ultimately the reader who does not buy into Apple's manifesto will feel cheated and might ask for a refund on a book full on prescriptive finger pointing but short on alternatives. It seems that Apple is trying to make a call for action among education policymakers. However, an essay in any liberal publication could have sufficed.

I found this book to be a short-lived firecracker. It left me wishing for more in order to decide how much Apple knows what he is talking about when he seems to persuade readers to destroy the conservative agenda. Perhaps Dr. Apple might use some of the royalties from this book to hire a research asssistant who can supply him with more data on which to base his groundless attacks.

In the last two decades we have been witnessing a wave of "reform" in education. The discourse behind these reforms is one that says that there is only one correct way of educating: the "Right" way. Michael Apple's book is extremely important because it maps out the efforts of the conservative modernization movement in converting their ideology in common sense and thus making their ideology the legitimate one, the one that makes sense. With a sophisticated theoretical framework and a plethora of concrete examples, Apple shows how the conservative reforms are in fact a struggle to constitute a particular view into official knowledge and to make other views of society not plausible. This is a book that will interest everyone who is involved in the field of education or social sciences.

Anyone looking for the latest information about online market research should look elsewhere. I bought this book from amazon, and when I sat down to read it, I was dismayed to see how out-of-date it was. For example, recent advances in online survey research are not covered.

Many research texts for business and the social sciences discuss secondary research sources. However, most, if not, all texts written in the past few years have had their chapters on this important subject invalidated by the the explosion of resources on the World Wide Web. Online Marketing Research is an excellent book to augment research texts used in academe or outdated research methods used by most businesses. The author also points out though that many of the "paid" resources such as Dialog, Nexis and Lexis, etc. still offer the highest quality information. This book is well worth the modest price.

Dave Wagner
dave@wagners.com
http://www.wagners.com -- Internet Marketing Resource Page