Audi, the premium arm of the Volkswagen Group, has agreed to purchase Ducati, the Italian superbike maker, for $1.1 billion. Ducati adds high-end motorcycles to the growing VW empire that includes the VW, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Ducati mentions within Audi conversations

Ducati was mentioned in 25% of Audi conversations following the acquisition.

Ducati and Audi conversation sentiment

Conversations mentioning Ducati and Audi have been an average of 92% positive.

Seven years ago Monika Samaan ate a chicken wrap with her family at KFC. After the meal, Monika, her parents and brother were all hospitalized. Monika was diagnosed with salmonella encephalopathy, a brain injury linked to food poisoning; it infected her blood and sent her into septic shock. She didn’t recover.

The contaminated chicken left Monika wheelchair bound; she now suffers from severe cognitive, motor and speech impairment and spastic quadriplegia.

After a trial found that the chicken was contaminated due to employee negligence, KFC was ordered to pay Monika’s family $8.3 million.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around KFC online.

KFC conversation topic cloud

The lawsuit is appearing in nearly every major topic of conversation within KFC mentions online.

Has this lawsuit done permanent damage to KFC’s brand?

News broke last week about a bribery scandal at Wal-Mart’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. The company allegedly orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, Wal-Mart paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country.

Wal-Mart has worked hard in recent years to polish its reputation and give elected officials, community groups and shoppers a reason to say yes to their stores, but the scandal is giving critics a new reason to say no. Within the last week, a Wal-Mart building permit is getting a once-over in Los Angeles, City Council is investing a deal in New York, a state senator is pushing for an audit of a proposed store in San Diego, and Boston residents are pressuring politicians to disclose whether they have received contributions from the company.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around Wal-Mart online.

Wal-Mart conversation chatter

Conversations around Wal-Mart have been 42% negative over the last week. The term ‘bribery’ has appeared in 13% of Wal-Mart conversations.

Wal-Mart conversations were as high as 67% negative last week.

Wal-Mart content analysis

Approximately 49% of Wal-Mart mentions came via Twitter; 44% via blogs.

If you were in charge of Wal-Mart PR, how would you handle this situation?

Chrysler’s SRT Viper appeared on the cover of five auto magazines simultaneously: Automobile, Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Road & Track and Autoweek

“It’s very rare that this happens,” said Jean Jennings, editor-in-chief at Automobile. The last such occurrence might have been four years ago, when the new Dodge Challenger was introduced.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversation around the Chrysler Viper online.

Chrysler Viper conversation sentiment

Chrysler Viper mentions have been an average of 87% positive this month.

Viper mentions within Chrysler conversations

Viper was mentioned in 16% of Chrysler conversations in early April.

Will Chrysler’s PR and marketing campaign boost sales?

Social influence measurement service Klout launched a new app this week that enables users to monitor their influence on the go. The app icon displays a user’s score as a notification in real time. Klout measures influence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Foursquare to assign Klout users scores from 0 to 100.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around Klout online.

Klout buzz

Klout mentions tripled following the app launch yesterday.

Klout sentiment

Conversations around Klout are currently 59% positive, after averaging 78% positive this month.

Will the new app bring greater awareness and help Klout become the industry standard in rating your online influence?

As a startup, it’s probably pretty scary and frustrating when you hear that Google has launched a competing offering. Tuesday, that happend for Dropbox when Google launched Google Drive. Google’s announcement came on the heels of Microsoft’s SkyDrive update announcement earlier this week.

Many expressed concern over privacy, but Google’s policy is actually no worse than its rivals. Google’s new cloud-based document and storage solution is priced aggressively and boasts best-in-class integration with other Google services — including Google Docs.

The cloud storage and collaboration space is more competitive than ever before. Google faces competition not just from cloud companies such as Box and Dropbox, but from Apple, Microsoft and Amazon as well.

A 100GB Dropbox account costs more than three times what a Google Drive account costs. Can Dropbox survive? We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Dropbox conversation chatter

Google Drive was mentioned in 71% of all Dropbox conversations since yesterday. Although some of those mentions were to say things like Google Drive won’t be a Dropbox killer.

Google Drive vs. Microsoft SkyDrive vs. Dropbox buzz

Google Drive chatter more than doubled Dropbox and SkyDrive chatter online since yesterday.

If you’re a Dropbox user, will you switch to Google Drive?

Red Bull is known for strong marketing efforts. In fact, Klout recently partnered with Red Bull in a pilot to launch brand pages, a new way for companies to interact with, encourage, showcase and reward influencers of their brand across the major social networks.

What are the most discussed topics within Red Bull conversations? We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around Red Bull online.

Red Bull conversation analysis

Overall conversations around Red Bull have been 75% positive this month. Interestingly, Red Bull sponsored Formula One race driver Sebastian Vettel was the most discussed topic. Vettel finally scored his first win of 2012 at the Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix, and Red Bull Racing appear ready to defend Formula One title.

Klout was mentioned in 4% of Red Bull conversations.

Red Bull content distribution

Red Bull is mentioned every 0.6 seconds online. In an average of 138,834 mentions per day, 42% of Red Bull mentions came via blogs and 48% via Twitter.

For further analysis, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Now more than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around Earth Day online.

Earth Day mentions

Earth Day 2012 chatter eclipsed 2011 chatter by 4%, with more than 2.3 million mentions online April 22, 2012.

Earth Day sentiment

Earth Day conversations have been an average of 87% positive throughout the year. spiking to 91% positive on April 22, 2012.

Earth Day content distribution

Approximately 70% of Earth Day mentions came via Twitter, and 23% via blogs.

Pledge your act of green online to share how you will help save the planet.

After making headlines for the wrong reasons last fall, Netflix is giving customers news to get excited about. Netflix is planning to simultaneously release the entire fourth season of Arrested Development sometime next year. The streaming video subscription service is developing 10 episodes of the series, which was cancelled for poor performance in 2006. Netflix revealed in November that it had signed a deal to revive the beloved sitcom, which it would bring exclusively to its U.S. subscribers.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Arrested Development mentions within Netflix conversations

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Arrested Development was mentioned in 34% of all Netflix conversations following the announcement.

Netflix sentiment

Netflix conversations are 89% positive overall.

Wisconsin basketball head coach Bo Ryan joined Mike & Mike on ESPN radio this morning to discuss restricting the transfer options for freshman forward Jarrod Uthoff.

Bo Ryan became a trending topic on Twitter shortly thereafter, with a varying range of reactions. We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Bo Ryan mentions

Bo Ryan mentions spiked 800% today.

Bo Ryan conversation sentiment

Conversations mentioning Bo Ryan online today have been 71% negative.

While some praised Ryan for his stance, others voiced opinions online via Twitter that Bo Ryan should have been monitoring the negative feedback he was receiving online during the interview and just stopped.

One thing is for sure, in today’s social media age, everyone is under a public microscope. Sports reporter Darren Rovell may have said it best: “Lesson for Bo Ryan & others in the media: You can choose to avoid Twitter, but Twitter won’t avoid you.”

Are you doing everything you can to monitor your brand online?