Sometimes your brand might run two different advertising campaigns and want to compare which generated more buzz. Other times, you may not know what generated the most chatter for your brand during a certain time period. We decided to run analysis on Netflix through the month of August 2010.

The trend chart below shows us that online chatter around Netflix spiked distinctly on 2 days this month: August 10 and August 26.

The August 26 spike generated 63% more chatter than the August 10 spike.

We used Social Radar to run some analysis and instantly determined that the August 26 spike was due to the announcement of a new Netflix iPhone app.

Similarly, by clicking on the August 10 spike, we can instantly determine that the spike in chatter was due to the Netflix deal with Epix to offer streaming movies.

The sentiment trend chart below shows the change in positive and negative sentiment in green and red over the course of the month compares to the bars representing overall chatter.

Overall sentiment chatter around Netflix was 76% positive during the month of August.

And even amid rumors that Blockbuster will likely file for bankruptcy next month, Blockbuster generated less than half of the chatter Netflix did throughout the month of August. Which offers further proof that brick-and-mortar video stores will be may soon be a thing of the past.

Diaspora, the open source social network and potential Facebook challenger, will be ready to launch on September 15, according to the project’s developers. Diaspora is meant to be an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks allowing you to share content such as photos, status updates, links, etc.

In a blog post on August 26, the developers said Diaspora is working and they’re happy with it, although it’s unclear what the product will look like.

Chatter around Diaspora shot up yesterday after the announcement.

But overall chatter around Diaspora is minuscule compare to Facebook.

Chatter around Diaspora has been slightly more positive than Facebook (although bear in mind the massive difference in overall content).

In the last two days, Diaspora was only mentioned in less than 3% of Facebook related posts. Should Facebook be concerned yet? Google Buzz was mentioned in 4%, Twitter in 17& and Google Me in only .04% of Facebook posts comparatively.

Last week Groupon offered its first national deal, partnering with Gap to let users buy a $50 Gap store credit for $25. The Groupon was timed to the back-to-school season and sold 441,000 units for $11 million. Groupon has experienced great success selling local deals, but this partnership could lead to more larger, national partnerships.

In the last five months, Groupon expanded from one country to 29 countries, from 3 million subscribers to more than 15 million and from less than 300 employees to more than 1,500 employees. The addition of national brands could boost growth further.

We analyzed overall buzz on Groupon using Social Radar, and found that online chatter around Groupon has increased 800% since the beginning of 2010, and spiked significantly in the past three months.

Overall sentiment from May 1, 2010 through today is overwhelmingly positive at 88%.

A closer look at the sentiment trend in the past month shows generally very positive sentiment with one spike in negativity in late July.

The topic cloud for the past month shows only one negative word: Daily Deal.

We clicked on the spike in negative chatter to review some of the specific posts to find an article in TechCrunch on July 29 about the problem with the daily deal. The article provides an interview with CEO Andrew Mason discussing how the Groupon personalization system will give a user one deal a day based on their preferences, their purchase history and their profile. Although there will be several, simultaneous deals in any given area, a user will only be able to access one main deal from his/her account.

Comparatively speaking though, the negative chatter was miniscule.

Finally, we also decided to analyze where the content was being generated, and found that 80% is coming from microblogs.

This shows us sites like Twitter have been a big source of buzz for Groupon.

With Groupon increasing foot traffic at stores (deals are not valid online), sharing profit with its partners, and a  a $1.35 billion valuation, Groupon is poised for further growth.

Samsung turned heads this summer with its launch of the Galaxy S line of Android smart phones. Samsung even accomplished the rare feat of coordinating the launch across all four major U.S. carriers – T-Mobile (as the Vibrant), AT&T (as the Captivate), Sprint (as the Epic 4G) and Verizon (as the Fascinate).

With competition in the mobile market heating up, we decided to breakdown the buzz on the Galaxy S.

Chatter trend: iPhone vs. HTC Evo vs. Droid X vs. BlackBerry Torch vs. Galaxy S

Measuring chatter: iPhone vs. HTC Evo vs. Droid X vs. BlackBerry Torch vs. Galaxy S

As expected, iPhone 4 generated the most online chatter in the last month against the HTC Evo, Droid X, BlackBerry Torch and Galaxy S.

However, chatter around Galaxy S specifically has been steadily rising over the past several months.

Galaxy S chatter trend

Galaxy S sentiment

Sentiment around Galaxy S has been very positive, with 85% of conversations being positive and only 7% negative.

Galaxy S sentiment trend

Galaxy S Negative Words

The word ‘problem’ was among the most frequently used negative words.

By drilling into individual posts for further analysis, we found the words ‘slow’ and ‘lag’ among those used most often with the word ‘problem’.

We also looked at the overall topic cloud to reveal some of the key words used in Galaxy S posts, sized by relevance and colored by sentiment.

Galaxy S Conversation Topics

The word iPhone appeared in 22% of Galaxy S posts.

Galaxy S Most Influential Sites

Analysis of the Top Sources using the Social Radar visualization tool reveals Engadget blog as the top source based on links in, links out and relevant posts.

Galaxy S chatter: Captivate vs. Epic 4G vs. Fascinate vs. Vibrant

We also analyzed chatter around each of the four Galaxy S phones: the T-Mobile Vibrant, AT&T Captivate, Sprint Epic 4G and Verizon Fascinate. At the moment, the Vibrant is generating the most chatter, followed by the Captivate, the Epic 4G and then the Fascinate.

Galaxy S content breakdown

Further breaking down the percentage of content contributed by various sources reveals 67% of chatter around Galaxy S was generated by microblogs, 22% by blogs and 11% by forums.

So how does the Galaxy S chatter compare among Android enthusiasts vs. iPhone enthusiasts?

We created a watch list consisting of blogs and news feeds specifically focused on Android products, and compared which of the Android phones were generating the most chatter. We included Galaxy S, Galaxy A, Evo, Nexus One, Hero, Droid Incredible, Droid X, Droid 2 and myTouch on the chart below:

Android phone chatter among influential Android bloggers:

Conversely, we thought it would be interesting to run the same query among top iPhone focused blogs and news feeds to see which of the Android phones were generating the most chatter among iPhone enthusiasts:

Android phone chatter among influential iPhone bloggers

Nexus One dominated chatter among both Android and iPhone sources. Although the Nexus One has been on the market much longer than the Galaxy S and has been generating chatter for a longer period of time. Interestingly, the Galaxy S is not generating as much chatter among iPhone blogs and news feeds, though it is one of the most discussed among Android sources.  We will check back with an update and further analysis once the Galaxy S line has been on the market longer.

Yesterday Facebook introduced Places, a new feature enabling users to share where they are with their friends, allow them to see who is near them, and allow them to discover new places around them. Though Facebook is enabling location-based services Foursquare, Gowalla, Booyah and Yelp to integrate with Places, many have speculated that Places will lead to the death of these other services.

We used Social Radar to conduct some preliminary analysis on Foursquare vs. Facebook Places.

The chart below shows Foursquare gaining steady increase in chatter over the past year.

But Facebook Places chatter eclipsed Foursquare in less than a day.

Overall buzz around Facebook Places has been slightly negative, with words like ripoff, risk and privacy concern appearing among negative words.

A closer look at the topic cloud around Facebook Places reveals some of the relevant topics of conversation and their sentiment.

So far today, the word Places is appearing in more than 30% of posts related to Foursquare.

Will the trend continue and will Places completely infiltrate all Foursquare conversation and subsequently take users? Or will privacy concerns with Facebook Places keep people using Foursquare and other services where they can limit their friends? As more users begin integrating Facebook Places into their lives, we’ll check back with an update.

One of today’s hottest buzzwords ‘infographic’ wasn’t a major part of our vocabulary before early 2009. The chart below provides an interesting look at the rise in popularity of the word. Presenting data visually isn’t a new concept, but infographics are today’s chic choice for making complex data easier to digest on topics ranging from Facebook to text messaging.

The word infographic appeared in more than 3,000 posts yesterday. Do you generally find infographics useful?

Gap subsidiary brand Piperlime launched its largest advertising campaign to date last week. The cheeky ’Let’s Get Dressed’ campaign targets the older Gen Y shopper, age 20 to 30, with phrases like ‘Hang up the hoodies’ in an attempt to reverse the overly casual and lazy fashion trends.

As the company began posting updates on Facebook and Twitter such as “Every time you wear sweatpants in public, a single guy leaves New York,” some fans applauded Piperlime while others were enraged. Pipelime claimed to be thrilled by the passion its customers displayed.

We decided to analyze overall chatter around Piperlime in the last month. While last week’s campaign did increase Piperlime chatter, there was a much more dramatic spike in buzz in July.

Further investigation using Social Radar showed us that the July buzz was due to reports of Piperlime teaming with reality TV series Project Runway as a styling partner to help style contestants, as well as as 20% off sale. We conducted analysis on topics of conversation since July 1, 2010. Project Runway was the biggest topic of conversation, appearing in 14% of posts, followed by sale in 13% of posts.

Buzz should continue to increase for Piperlime when Rachel Zoe makes an appearance with the Project Runway cast at Piperlime’s first every physical store, a pop-up shop opening for NYC’s Fashion Night Out September 10.

With two major Google stories this week, we decided to compare which was generating more buzz.

On Monday, Google and Verizon introduced a proposal for how Internet services should be regulated, and were immediately criticized by groups in favor of keeping the network as open as possible.

Then, Thursday, Oracle filed a lawsuit against Google for infringing on copyrights and patents related to Java and Android.

Both have been generating negative buzz for Google — negative sentiment is up 18% overall for Google this week.

And so far the Oracle lawsuit seems to be a bigger story, with Oracle appearing in nearly 15% of posts related to Google today and rising.

Honda Motor Co is the latest automobile company facing negative buzz after a major product recall. Honda announced on Monday it was recalling more than 428,000 vehicles because of a defect that could cause the cars to roll away if they are parked incorrectly. The recall includes primarily Accord, Civic, Element models.

The sentiment chart below shows Honda cruising along at above 80% positive Internet chatter sentiment in the month leading up to the recall. Negative chatter immediately spiked above positive chatter after the recall news broke.

Positive chatter seems to be on the rise and negative chatter seems to be on the decline today, though. And looking at an overall buzz trend chart below, there was not an increase in overall chatter due to the recall. In fact, overall Honda chatter spiked in mid July.

Upon further investigation using Social Radar, we clicked on the peak point to get more information.

A quick look at the topic cloud for Honda during the peak in chatter reveals the terms ‘plug-in hybrid’ and ’2012′ were used most frequently.

Analysis on the term ‘plug-in hybrid’ shows that the term was used in 9% of all Honda-related posts that day, and mentioned an average of 2.2 times per post — with 97% of the mentions being positive. Related topics include ‘electric car’ and ‘Ito’.

Further analysis shows us the top influential sources that created these posts:

As well as a full list of posts:

We quickly found a post on the popular blog Engadget regarding Honda CEO Takanobu Ito’s formal announcement of plans to produce a plug-in hybrid competitor for Toyota’s flashy new PHEV Prius by 2012.

So the good news for Honda is that their announcement to produce the hybrid plug-ins generated more buzz overall than the recall.

For additional information or analysis, visit http://infegy.com/socialradar.

On Tuesday, jetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater quit his job dramatically by unleashing expletives over an intercom at a plane full of passengers, grabbing two beers and sliding down the emergency chute.

Slater has since become a folk hero, quickly amassing more than 138,000 Facebook fans, being the subject of a “WWSSD” page (What Would Steven Slater Do), and being featured on countless news programs and talk shows.

The incident has created a tricky situation for jetBlue, one of the first companies to use social media to be transparent and address customers’ concerns and compliments via the Web. With 1.5 million @jetBlue Twitter followers and and 300K jetBlue Airways Facebook fans, jetBlue employs a team of employees to handle its Web presence.

But Slater has stifled jetBlue’s social media strategy. Due to legal issues and other factors, jetBlue has not mentioned the incident via Facebook and only offered a few brief replies via Twitter. The company did issue a tongue-in-cheek response via blog post on Wednesday, though avoiding any real details.

Clearly others are talking. jetBlue chatter has dramatically spiked above other airlines and even its own previous chatter, despite a strong historical social media presence.

And many of the words being used to describe the situation are negative. In the month of July, 78% of the posts surrounding jetBlue were positive. But in the days surrounding the incident, 40% of posts have been negative.

Nearly 70% of chatter today around jetBlue has included the term “Slater.”

Since many are saying they would have reacted the same way Slater did, the increased buzz could end up being a good thing for jetBlue. If you were in charge of jetBlue’s social media strategy, how would you handle the response?