Internet sensation Grumpy Cat recently became the latest spokesmodel for pet food retail giant Friskies.  The blue-eyed Snowshoe Siamese gained fame last year after its owners developed a quirky series of posts in social media channels including Facebook and YouTube featuring Grumpy Cat's somber facial expression framed by catchphrases such as: "I had fun once. It was awful."

With all the wikis, blogs and articles available for free on the web, it is impossible to look at the market research arena without wondering,  What makes the paid data worth more than free data?  The answer has a lot to do with what kind of information you need and who is providing that information.

Each day the Research Specialists at MarketResearch.com help people find reports that best suit their business intelligence needs. If you're a business leader who has already experienced the process of finding and acquiring market intelligence on your industry, you may wonder what we can do to help you.

The answer is, plenty.

For starters, we bring an unbiased approach to identifying the research you need to make effective strategic decisions. Second, we help you minimize risks from the unknowns that can be part and parcel of finding and purchasing business intelligence reports, in particular, the possibility that a given report may not have exactly the methodology and data-sets of information that best suit your needs. 

Jeff Miller, a Senior Research Specialist at Marketresearch.com, hails from a quintessential "Small-town  America" location, Columbus, Ohio. He now lives in New York -- another classic American city although clearly miles apart from the small-town feel of his origins.

Profound, from MarketResearch.com, is one of the largest and most trusted corporate market intelligence providers on the web. Subscription to the service includes access to a wide variety of market research reports from multiple verticals and the ability to slice and dice reports as needed.  Here are the top 10 frequently asked questions about Profound.  

The Cloud has changed the way we go through our day.  From the moment we wake up, we're updating our statuses on social networks and checking work e-mails before the coffee hits the cup.  An online community manager can access the administrator functions from his iPad.  A marketing manager can check Google Analytics from her Android smartphone.  The cloud computing market has enveloped our modern society and streamlined our days.

In the past year, it seems that just about every daily news cycle contains a scary story about corporations, governments or news organizations being 'hacked."  With all of the advantages inherent with using the cloud, there are underlying questions of data security.  For example, here is a partial list of American companies hit by shadowy groups or individuals who penetrated private databases via email, social networks, or by accessing cloud data storage centers within the first few weeks of 2013:

The Pet Industry contracted slightly in the great recession, but is poised to experience several points of growth this year, according to David Lummis, a leading analyst at PackagedFacts. 

In today’s market, “one size fits all” has become an obsolete concept -- customization is the way to go.  Consider for example the innovation of Apple's iTunes store: It allows you to purchase just a single song, rather than being required to buy the entire album. Similarly, from giving consumers the ability to tailor their preferred design features on the latest model of a Toyota car to purchasing only their favorite pair of Converse tennis shoes, most companies  now recognize that they must offer their customers the option to purchase products that are precisely tailored to meet the customer's needs and preferences.

According to pet industry statistics, on Valentine's Day 2013, Americans spent more than $800 million on cupid-oriented treats for household pets. Market reports from the National Retail Federation show that tokens of love from owners to pets included everything from heart-shaped chew toys for dogs, to sleek red leather collars for cats, to edible 'flower arrangments' for dogs and cats. It's all another indication of how pet industry retailers are quickly adapting to the growing market trends of pet owners who view their four-legged friends as family members.