by Magda D. Healey

Created on: June 23, 2009   Last Updated: January 08, 2011

Pinecone Research is a New Product Development Internet branch of the international research giant AC Nielsen, which is (or at least used to be until recently) the largest market research company in the world, known best for its audits (including retail and Internet) but engaged in pretty much every kind of research.

Pinecone Research is unique among Internet survey panels, and should be recommended to research buyers (see the relevant section below) as well as respondents. Pinecone Research pays well, has a well designed and transparent screening procedure (all advantages for respondents). Pinecone also works very hard to minimize major disadvantages of on-line survey panels to deliver truly superior solution to potential buyers of their surveys.

==Respondents: Intro ==

Pinecone was one of the first companies I have signed up to about two years ago and remains unequivocally the best. In fact, the only other one that even comes close is ACOP, but even they are not as good.

AC Nielsen deal with all types of research, but Pinecone deals strictly with consumer projects and most if not all of them relate to new product development and testing. You will not find surveys in which you are treated as a representative of the company you work for (business to business research) or opinion polls. This is all good for the clients of Pinecone as it ensures they use Internet surveys for what they are good for. 

It's not of a major concern to the respondents, though. What is, is the fact that they pay their participants very well (GBP 4 per survey) and that they pay for every survey (apart from occasional very brief and clearly marked pre-screeners), promptly and every time, without the need to accumulate points, reach a payout level, collect credits or wait for weeks until something appears on your statement.

Another major advantage for respondents is that Pinecone Research pay in real money via PayPal.

The way the whole process works is as follows: you receive an email invitation (always from Karen Scott at Pinecone), and you have few days to complete the survey. The payment is in the post pretty much at the same time so if you delay your work, you might even receive it before completing the survey, though recently it seems to come actually after the work has been done, I am not sure if this is due to Pinecone's change of modus operandi or the fact that things take longer to get to Perthshire then Kent.

Surveys are well designed, with questions that are not likely to

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