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Discount codes for some upcoming conferences.
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In the spirit of defining by example, this is a good list of the types of applications that populate the social media space.
September 2008 Archives
News from the companies of social media analysis.
Companies and services
- 22 September - Jodange released an iGoogle gadget that tracks sentiment on energy-related topics. press release
- 23 September - CyberAlert announced the opening of applications for its 2009 grants to not-for-profit organizations. At least 15 companies will receive one year of free news monitoring services.
- 22 September - Kate Niederhoffer joins the unnamed startup. Niederhoffer was previously VP, Measurement Science at Nielsen Online.
- 30 September - Visible Technologies is presenting a free webinar, Is Your Search Engine Reputation Helping or Hurting Your Brand?, 30 September at 1:00 PM EDT (GMT -4). Aberdeen Group's Jeff Zabin introduces the concept of online reputation in the first in a series of three events.
- 1 October - Trackur is presenting a free webinar on online reputation management, 1 October at 1:00 PM EDT (GMT -4).
- 2 October (New York) - dna13 will host PRSA-New York’s Technology Thursday event, 6–8 pm at Latitude Bar & Lounge. Free.
- 15–17 October (Portsmouth, NH) - IPR's 6th Summit on Measurement.
- ICWSM 2009, due 21 January.
- Senior Director of Partnership and Digital Marketing, GMR Entertainment (New York)
Tags: social media analysis brand monitoring text anayltics
You know how a rocket works. You point it where you want it to go, light the fuse and stand back. If it's a big rocket, you stand farther back.
You know what a rocket is good for. It moves stuff really fast, around the world or into space. It burns lots of fuel and money in the process.
You know that a rocket would be helpful if you wanted to put a satellite in orbit or explore the planets.
You know to hire a rocket scientist when it's time to design your rocket and plan the flight to take a specific load to a specific point in space.
What else do you need to know?
Don't let the underlying complexity of something useful stand in the way of learning its value. You don't have to know how to build it to understand how to use it.
Photo by Steve Jurvetson.
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Same numbers, different interpretation.
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Updated numbers we've all been waiting for. Time to update the charts that refer to 110 million blogs...
News from the companies of social media analysis.
Companies and services
- 18 September - BuzzLogic launched their Conversation Ad Network, which places ads on sites based on their influence on relevant topics. press release
- 15 September - Michael Smith joins Digital Influence Group as President. Smith was previously western region president at Publicis Modem. press release
- Metrica announced the results of its new UKPulse survey, which found increasing trust of traditional media and low trust of social media:
While 29% of respondents felt they could trust an online customer review site only 5% said that they trusted blogs and not even 1% of respondents trust online forums.
There's an interesting discussion of the meaning and usefulness of the survey starting at Roy Greenslade's blog. - Twingly released their report on the Swedish Internet-surveillance debate (PDF).
- 30 September - Visible Technologies is presenting a free webinar, Is Your Search Engine Reputation Helping or Hurting Your Brand?, 30 September at 1:00 PM EDT (GMT -4). Aberdeen Group's Jeff Zabin introduces the concept of online reputation in the first in a series of three events.
- 1 October - Trackur is presenting a free webinar on online reputation management, 1 October at 1:00 PM EDT (GMT -4).
- 15–17 October (Portsmouth, NH) - IPR's 6th Summit on Measurement.
- ICWSM 2009, 17–20 May 2009 (San Jose, CA).
- Senior Director of Partnership and Digital Marketing, GMR Entertainment (New York)
Tags: social media analysis brand monitoring text anayltics
Following the announcement of the Lexalytics merger, I wrote that the availability of off-the-shelf text analytics and custom software development suggested some questions about technology strategy for social media analysis vendors. The main question is an old one in software: Build or buy? The follow-up flows from a value chain analysis, and it sets up a series of decision points for the build/buy decision. It turns out that a social media analysis platform is built from a few, basic building blocks, and a decision to build a custom system doesn't imply a decision to build every part.
Three basic building blocks
The technology behind monitoring and analyzing social media content fits into three basic categories: content sourcing, analytics, and the software application that provides end-user features, such as dashboards, reports, and alerts. Many service providers add value beyond what is baked into their software, of course, but these are the basic technology building blocks. What makes them interesting is that each generates a potential product that can be offered as the "buy" option to other companies.
- Content sourcing
The first step in analyzing social media content, sourcing includes source discovery, content aggregation, filtering and metadata tagging. The result is a feed of relevant content data, with duplicates, spam and other noise removed. Feeds of traditional media sources have been available for years; syndicated content sourcing is available for social media types now. (See a list of social media aggregators) - Analytics
The next step is analysis of the content, also known as text analytics. The system extracts key words, concepts and sentiment from individual messages; depending on the vendor, it may also evaluate messages and sources for influence, demographics, location, audience size, and more. This is the hard part, which inspires the question of whether computer analysis is good enough.Perhaps assuming that text analytics must be homegrown, many vendors skip the analytics entirely, using human analysts or leaving metrics out of their product. But text analytics has its own build or buy decision. The technology is available from software companies in the business intelligence market, and at least two companies focusing on social media, Lexalytics and Leximancer. (See a list of text analytics options)
- Application
Content sourcing and analytics constitute checklist features in a social media analysis platform: "Sentiment? Check!" They represent a lot of work, but it's hard to tell whose works better. The application software, on the other hand, is what clients see, and it provides many opportunities for evaluation. Is the user interface dated and clunky or sleek and current? How is content presented? What can users do with it? How easy is it to explore the data or create reports?The once clear line between dashboards and social media analysis platforms for workgroups has blurred over the past year. Outside sofware development services will tend to increase the capabilities of dashboards from less traditionally technical vendors.
Syndicated and licensed components don't lead directly to commmoditization, but the threat is there for vendors who fall behind in capabilities. There's still room for differentiation, especially in application features, not to mention the research and consulting services many vendors offer in addition to their systems. But separating the build or buy decision into at least three discrete decisions does have effects:
- Lower barriers to entry. New entrants—startups or established players in adjacent markets—can launch social media analysis tools without building everything from the ground up.
- Higher baseline expectations. Dashboards from companies without strong technology traditions will soon include advanced technologies. Basic monitoring dashboards are becoming commodities (witness the $5/month entry pricing).
- Fewer reinvented wheels. Vendors can compete on their strengths in content sourcing, analytics or application development. External sources remove the need to develop their own capabilities in areas outside of their core strengths.
More posts in the "Build or Buy?" series:
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Text analytics for end users in a Firefox extension. Summaries of other user review sites in the works.
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The job is *not* over when you're able to interact with customers online. How are your traditional customer service touchpoints? Successful online engagement can highlight flaws elsewhere.
News from the companies of social media analysis.
Companies and services
- 5 September - Naspers (JNB:NPN) acquired a majority stake in social media aggregator Afrigator. via RWW
- 8 September - FirstRain announced that they've signed their 100th institutional client.
- 9 September - Jim Schroer joined the board of Networked Insights (PDF).
- 5 September - Katie Paine released Measuring the Transparency of Environmental Sustainability Reporting (PDF), a review of information on Fortune 50 company sustainabiility efforts as reported on the companies' web sites. KDPaine & Partners and BYU's Brad Rawlins collaborated on the study.
- 9 September - Nielsen Online released Listening to Consumers in a Highly Regulated Environment: How Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Can Leverage Consumer-Generated Media. The paper reports the results of a study on reportable adverse events, in which Nielsen found only one message that met FDA reporting criteria in 500 analyzed healthcare messages.
Nielsen also announced the first edition of their Monthly Automotive Industry Overview this week.
- "What Should Blog Search Look Like?" (PDF), by Marti Hearst, Matthew Hurst and Susan Dumais. via Matt Hurst
- 18 September (Stockholm) - Twingly will present their analysis of blog coverage of the Swedish signal intelligence law (FRA) as part of a free seminar hosted by the Social Democrats. Reservations are required.
- 18 September - Semantic Exchange is presenting a free webinar, New Developments in Semantic Technology for the Enterprise, 18 September at 12:00 noon EDT (GMT -4). Project10X’s Mills Davis and ESTC’s Alexander Wahler will preview the latest developments and application case examples.
- 19–20 September (Athens, GA) - Connect 2008 at UGA's Grady College.
- 30 September - Visible Technologies is presenting a free webinar, Is Your Search Engine Reputation Helping or Hurting Your Brand?, 30 September at 1:00 PM EDT (GMT -4). Aberdeen Group's Jeff Zabin introduces the concept of online reputation in the first in a series of three events.
- 15–17 October (Portsmouth, NH) - IPR's 6th Summit on Measurement.
- Workshop on Modeling, Managing, and Mining of Evolving Social Networks (PDF), 29 March 2009 (Shanghai). In conjunction with the 25th International Conference on Data Engineering ICDE’09.
- International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2009), 20–24 April 2009 (Madrid). Tracks on Social Networks and Web 2.0 and data mining should be of interest.
- ICWSM 2009, 17–20 May 2009 (San Jose, CA).
- Senior Director of Partnership and Digital Marketing, GMR Entertainment (New York)
Tags: social media analysis brand monitoring
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The case for WOM in a graph. I expect to see this showing up in presentations soon.
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ROI example--answering questions on LinkedIn leads to new business opportunities for Ruder Finn PR.
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Challenges in sentiment analysis, plus examples of text analytics companies outside of social media analysis space.
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Fortune's Jon Fortt wraps the Dell case study up with a bow. Mentions BuzzLogic, Radian6, Visible Technologies.
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How many potential critic domains do you buy, and what do you do with them?
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Added to the big library o' lists for the next time you need examples other than Dell and Kryptonite.
News from the companies of social media analysis. The calendar may say September, but the level of activity says, "it's August—come back in September."
Events
- 18 September (Stockholm) - Twingly will present their analysis of blog coverage of the Swedish signal intelligence law (FRA) as part of a free seminar hosted by the Social Democrats. Reservations are required.
- 19–20 September (Athens, GA) - Connect 2008 at UGA's Grady College.
- 15–17 October (Portsmouth, NH) - IPR's 6th Summit on Measurement.
- 29 March 2009 (Shanghai) - Call for papers (PDF): Workshop on Modeling, Managing, and Mining of Evolving Social Networks (M3SN). In conjunction with the 25th International Conference on Data Engineering ICDE’09.
- 20–24 April, 2009 (Madrid) - Call for papers: 18th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2009). Tracks on Social Networks and Web 2.0 and data mining should be of interest.
- Senior Director of Partnership and Digital Marketing, GMR Entertainment (New York)
Tags: social media analysis brand monitoring
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Jon Burg kicks off a series of interviews with social media analysis vendors. Should be interesting to see the opinions expressed.
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Pete enters the list business with a huge list of social media marketing initiatives.