The Costa Concordia cruise ship death toll continues to rise and the captain remains on house arrest and may face charges of manslaughter. We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Costa Concordia conversation topics

Most conversations topics around the Costa Concordia incident are negative. The ship’s captain, Schettino, appears in 16% of conversations and is 60% negative currently.

Cruise sentiment

Conversations around the term ‘cruise,’ which are typically nearly 90% positive, are currently more than 50% negative.

Will the incident hinder the growing cruise industry? Will you reconsider taking a cruise as a result?

Police began showing up by the hundreds just after midnight at Zuccotti Park last night, surrounded the encampment of tents and tarps and booths that the Occupy Wall Street protesters had built, and began evacuating protesters.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Occupy Wall Street buzz

Occupy Wall Street buzz skyrocketed to an all-time high overnight.

Occupy Wall Street conversation topic cloud

Conversations around the Occupy Wall Street are currently 49% negative. Several topics reached Twitter’s worldwide list of trending topics, providing real-time updates of the events via social media.

A judge ruled against Occupy Wall Street protesters, upholding a move by New York City and the landlord of the privately owned plaza to clear tents from Zuccotti Park and prevent protesters from bringing equipment back in.

Will this mark the end of the Occupy Wall Street protests?

The boxing world was quick to react upon hearing news of the death of former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, who passed away at age 67 Monday night after a brief bout with liver cancer.

Then Tuesday, hip-hop artist Heavy D died at age 44 after collapsing outside his condo in Beverly Hills. The music community called Heavy D “the only rapper everybody always loved.”

In today’s world of social media, fans have more outlets than ever before to express condolences to those who have passed.

Heavy D and Joe Frazier mentions

Although neither had been in the news recently, both received a huge amount of condolences online this week.

Content distribution by category

More fans paid respects to Heavy D via Twitter, while Joe Frazier received more image and blog posts.

Hours after news broke about the passing of former Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs, microblogging social network Twitter was consumed with reactions from fans and people who appreciated what Jobs did for the world.

The column of trending topics is dominated with Jobs-related subjects. Hashtags like #iSad, #RIPstevejobs and #ThankyouSteve are all actively being attached to messages.

We used Social Radar to analyze and measure conversations around Steve Jobs online.

Steve Jobs chatter

Nearly 4% of all Internet conversations are currently mentioning Steve Jobs.

Content distribution

Approximately 94% of all Steve Jobs mentions over the last two days came via Twitter.

Steve Jobs’ passion touched the lives of many people he never met. A true inspiration. Rest in peace.

Dr. Conrad Murray — the physician who was Michael Jackson’s personal physician when he died June 25, 2009, with a lethal amount of the anesthetic in his system — is now on trial for Jackson’s death. Today in court, the jury heard the security guard’s 911 call, the most damning yet against the 58-year-old physician.

How does the public feel about the trial? Is Dr. Murray guilty? We used Social Radar to gauge public sentiment around the trial.

Conrad Murray buzz

Chatter around Dr. Murray spiked to its highest point yesterday.

Conrad Murray Sentiment

Conversations around Dr. Murray have been an average of 63% negative, spiking to their highest point 80% negative today.

Does the American public think Dr. Murray is guilty?

 

 

Troy Davis, whose case drew international attention, was put to death by lethal injection for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia, prison officials announced Wednesday night. The public expressed disgust and outrage online Thursday – Casey Anthony even became a trending topic as many expressed dismay over Anthony being deemed innocent in the death of her daughter while Davis was executed.

Troy David conversation topic cloud

Rarely do we see a topic in the Social Radar database so overwhelmingly negative.

Content breakdown

This week 93% of Troy Davis mentions came via Twitter. The word ‘Georgia’ appeared in 32% of all Troy Davis posts, and was 90% negative, as many questioned how the justice system in the state of Georgia could execute a person who may have been innocent.

The country stopped to remember the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy yesterday. Family members, President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other political leaders visited the new National September 11th Memorial. NFL games across the country paid tribute to Americans who lost their lives. Many used social media to pay respects and remembered where they were when terror struck 10 years ago using the Twitter hash tag #on911.

We used Social Radar to measure conversations around September 11, 9/11, #on911, etc. online.

9/11 mentions

9/11 was mentioned in an unprecedented 1.7% of all Internet conversations yesterday, making it one of the most discussed topics online ever. Since we built our Social Radar database in 2007, we rarely see conversation topics pass even 1% of all conversations.

Content distribution

Approximately 93% of mentions came via Twitter. 61% of posts were made by males. For further analysis, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

The U.S. military is in outrage over rapper Soulja Boy’s new song “Let’s Be Real”, in which he raps “f**k the army troops.” Soulja Boy has since apologized. Is the apology too late? Has the rapper negatively affected his reputation? We used Social Radar to find out.

Soulja Boy mentions

Soulja Boy mentions shot up 400% following the incident.

Soulja Boy sentiment

Nearly all conversations around Soulja Boy mention the military incident. Sentiment around Soulja Boy is currently more than 70% negative overall.

Has Soulja Boy done permanent damage to his reputation?

How quickly can the Seychelles recover from the negativity created following two fatal shark attacks in August?  Social Radar looks at the worldwide buzz surrounding the query ‘The Seychelles’ since the beginning of August to assess the situation.

In the last 30 days there has been 34% less positive sentiment surrounding the Seychelles.  Social Radar has calculated that on 17 August  – the day after British honeymooner Ian Redmond was killed – there were 81,032 social universe mentions for the Seychelles, 71% of which were classed as negative.  Less than two weeks before on 2 August, one day after Frenchman Nicolas Virolle was killed by a shark, there were only 7,234 social universe mentions for the Seychelles with 18% negativity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The topic cloud for the last 30 days shows how social media has focussed on the shark attacks with only 5% of the posts referring to the Seychelles as ‘paradise’.  In the period 1 January to 31 July 2011 ‘paradise’ was mentioned in 27% of all posts.

The sentiment tracking graph shows positive sentiment remained high following the first attack at the beginning of August and only started to fluctuate with the second attack.  Now that the funeral of Ian Redmond has taken place it will be interesting to see how quickly positive sentiment returns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With hurricane alerts piling up as Hurricane Irene moves toward the East Coast in an unusually broad path that could affect 55 million people, we decided to use Social Radar to analyze conversations online compared to this week’s earthquake.

Hurricane Irene vs. earthquake chatter

So far the minor earthquakes this week generated significantly more chatter online than the impending hurricane. At one point the word “earthquake” appeared in more than 1% of all Internet conversations! We will monitor hurricane chatter over the weekend. Please everyone on the East Coast stay safe.