After spending nearly $10 billion within a few weeks on acquisitions, we decided to run some social analysis on Intel.

On August 19, Intel acquired security-software maker McAfee for $7.68 billion in the largest deal of their 42-year history. Some questioned the decision, but Intel executives argued growing security dangers require new measures and described the acquisition as an essential step to design chips and other hardware that can protect systems better than software alone.

Less than two weeks later, Intel acquired chip maker Infineon’s Wireless Solutions Business on August 29 for $1.4 billion. The Infineon acquisition enables Intel to expand the company’s reach beyond the core PC and server businesses and into the mobile and wireless markets.

Overall chatter around Intel for the month of August 2010 peaked on 8/19, the day of the McAfee acquisition. Chatter on 8/19 was 68% higher than the day of the Infineon announcement 8/29.

Here’s a look at the overall sentiment trend chart for the month:

Interestingly, sentiment on August 19 was 85% positive, while sentiment on August 29 was only 70% positive (although Intel announced on August 28 that it cut its third-quarter revenue forecast, citing weaker-than-expected consumer demand for personal computers in mature markets.)

Overall the word McAfee was mentioned much more frequently in Intel posts than the word Infineon. The word McAfee appeared in nearly 70% of Intel related chatter on August 19.

The topic cloud for the month of August reveals generally positive conversation overall. Do you think these moves were wise for Intel?

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.

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.

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.

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?

On Tuesday, July 13 Old Spice kicked off what some called the biggest short term social media success to date. The Old Spice ‘Your Man’ campaign, created by Wieden + Kennedy, included 183 videos featuring Isaiah Mustafa personally replying to consumers on YouTube.

The campaign yielded astonishing results:

• 130 million YouTube views
• +118% Facebook fans
• +227% YouTube subscribers
• +2800% Twitter followers

The campaign was groundbreaking in many ways. Wieden’s global interactive creative director Iain Tait told Fast Company they had a team of editors and creatives creating the ads in real time. And the tactic clearly established a strong community footprint for Proctor & Gamble’s Old Spice brand.

Overall conversation sentiment was 86% positive.

But interestingly, Isaiah Mustafa was the most mentioned related to the topic. No words directly related to Old Spice’s products even appear in the topic cloud.

How did the online buzz translate to sales? An Ad Age article reported: for the four weeks ending June 13, Old Spice’s sales were up 106% from the prior-year period. But, sales of Gillette body wash, backed by buy-one-get-one-free coupons and by their own TV ads were up a lot more, 277% (though it’s by far a smaller brand in the category).

And while Old Spice enjoyed a noticeable spike in the Body Wash conversation over Nivea, Gillette, Dove and Axe during the weeks surrounding the campaign, overall online chatter has leveled off among all competitors in the category.

Can Old Spice keep the conversation going? And what will Old Spice do with the online community footprint it has built to convert the fans and followers into loyal customers?

In addition, what’s a Facebook fan really worth? With answers ranging from $136.38 to $3.60, Forrester research says: zero, unless and until the brand does something to create value with Facebook fans.

How can other brands learn from this campaign to create other successful real-time marketing campaigns?

Food critics, mom’s, physicians and personal trainers are cringing at the thought of this new ’sandwich’ Kentucky Fried Chicken is positioning to consumers. The Double Down is a one-of-a-kind sandwich that features two thick and juicy boneless white meat chicken filets (Original Recipe® or Grilled), two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel’s Sauce. So meaty, there is no room for a bun.

While we’re all aware of bacon’ new found popularity, and the purported ability of free will,  this new KFC menu item has got peoples’ stomachs turning.

Since the news spread, a heavy influx of conversations have sprouted up all around the interwebs. Most topics maintained high relations to the sandwich itself, but as some time passed, much of the chatter looked to target & revolve around the KFC brand specifically.

Overall sentiment shows a fairly level playing field with both negative and positive remarks claiming about half of the references. This is interesting as most people are basing these decisions entirely without ever having sampled the new treat.

Here’s a word cloud showing more popular terms associated with related posts. From this we can tell that people like the fact that the new sandwich includes bacon and that a heart attack as a direct result of eating this sandwich is not so bad.

Over the past week, Double Down has appeared as a trending topic on Twitter. This being said, it’s no surprise that it reported the highest amount of related activity. And, as more talk about the sandwich continue to engulf the internet, food bloggers & critics everywhere will have no choice but to succumb reader demands and scarf one of these babies down (then write about it). So, I’m sure we can expect to see blog coverage increase.

In the mean time, its rounding in on that lunch hour. What to eat, what to eat….

We were alerted by Social Radar that chatter volumes around Nestle and Kit-Kat specifically were rising by the minute. When we checked-in we found that the topic of the moment was Palm Oil.

We took a look at the actual chatter volumes for the Nestle company and we were staggered to see the trend below.

It was clear to us that something was going on here so we dug deeper.

Our conclusions were that Greenpeace had staged a video on Vimeo which you can find here and they had also changed their homepage to mimic the logo of the much- loved Kit-Kat chocolate bar.

The discussion had flowed out primarily across Nestles Facebook page and a Nestle employee was deleting Wall Posts at a serious rate.

We then took a look to see how this was effecting the sentiment towards the Kit Kat product and discovered that over the past couple of days the positive sentiment to a much-loved product has been rapidly falling through the floor as they are being associated with destroying rain forests for the plam oil used to create them and also being accused of potentially killing Orang-utans by virtue of this.

Whether true or not we are clearly seeing a hugely negative trend shift for not just Kit-Kat the product but Nestle as a house of brands.

The key here is to identify the influencial persons, engage with them and try to stop the rot from penetrating further into their business by being open and honest and using the social channels to drive back the potentially incorrect debate - that is if it is incorrect of course.