Does your organization have more time (and technical chops) than money? The World Bank today launched The BuzzMonitor, an open-source social media aggregator that provides a platform for monitoring and participating in social media in multi-user environments (via Pierre-Guillaume Wielezynski). The catch is, you have to install and run it yourself.
The Buzzmonitor promises some handy features:
- Elimination of duplicate items from multiple search feeds.
- Automated keyword extraction & tag cloud generation.
- Embedded Alexa and Technorati rank information.
- Digg-style voting within your user base.
- User tagging and bookmarking.
- Internal commenting (visible only to other users on your system).
- Internal tag and search feeds.
The Buzzmonitor's sponsors at the World Bank suggest the program for "non-profit organizations, NGOs, foundations and think-tanks to see and hear what people are saying about them, their programs and understand the perception around important issues." Its GNU General Public License makes it free for anyone who wants to try it.
Now, here's the catch. The platform requirements put The Buzzmonitor out of reach for marketing managers who want something quick and easy. You'll need a server (preferably Linux) and someone to configure it, so this is a do-it-yourself job only for the technically skilled. More likely, this is something for your IT department to experiment with before you roll it out to users.
If all you want to do is see how it works, take the tour, which offers limited access to a live demo. I'd post a screenshot here, but if you really care, you'll go through the demo, anyway.
Related:
- BuzzMonitor Refreshed as Tattler (app) (July 2009)
- Tattler (app) Entering Private Beta (August 2009)
Nathan,
Thanks for the mention. I think you described what the BuzzMonitor is better than we did!
You are right, the BuzzMonitor is definitely geared towards organizations that have some IT skills but since the buzz is based on free and widely adopted technologies (LAMP) and is also aimed at the innovative, savvy NGO, we hope this will not be too much of a burden. I also agree that this is not the tool for the marketing manager. The BuzzMonitor is really designed to have several people collaborate around the conversations happening online, in a very "organic" manner. I'd love to have more features on the Buzz (semantic analysis, better understanding of authority etc...) and am hoping that, in the spirit of open source, other organizations will contribute some code.
In any case, if you ever get around to installing it, I would love to have your feedback since you know this field so well.
Thanks, PG. I've had some practice writing about social media analysis companies and products recently. ;-)
The tools market is an interesting area. I'm looking forward to playing with the BuzzMonitor, once I line up some Linux capabilities.