Mergers, changes and updates.

Greenfield Online and Toluna, a leading community panel, have merged under the Toluna name. If you were a member of Greenfield, all of your information and rewards have been automatically migrated to the Toluna website. This merger, in my opinion, is a good one. Toluna, along with Greenfield, are leading online research organizations. I personally have had a great deal of success with Toluna surveys. They offer all sorts of opportunities to voice your opinion, test products and complete surveys.

The merger, announced in November, has officially taken place as of January 4, 2010. They have also relaunched an all new rewards program to expand current incentives. Points will now be able to be redeemed for rewards ranging from cash prizes, merchandise, prize drawings, sweepstakes entries, charitable donations and more.

If you have been a longtime member of Greenfield you might find the Toluna site overwhelming with all the polls and opinions. I find it easier to wait for a survey opportunity to come in my email, fill it out and move on. I don't spend a lot of time on their site.

Focus Groups

One of the best ways to make a little extra money is by participating in Focus Groups. As you become more familiar with the survey process you will start to receive invitations to join online focus groups for topics like shopping, finances, automobiles and such. Keep you options open on these. They are willing to pay you up $10 or more for answering surveys on their website, blogging about your experiences or even giving your opinions on products. Typically the invitations come from survey sites you have participated with on a regular basis.

Another type of Focus Group is through companies like Schlesinger Associates, a marketing research company. I am on their data base for the Philadelphia area and I get frequent invitations to try out for specific focus groups. Their opportunities, which take place in their offices at various times of the day, will earn you &75 to $200 per sessions. They typically last 2 hours and can entail product trials. They offer opportunities for medical databases or consumer databases.