Apple has posted impressive quarterly earnings for the 14-week period ending on December 31, 2011. According to a press release, the company reported a quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion, as well as a quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share, the company’s best quarterly results yet. Apple’s 116 percent profit growth helped push its total cash to $97.6 billion — enough to cover Greece’s debt payments due in the next two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads and 5.3 million Macs during the quarter.

What’s interesting is the continued growth of iPad sales.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around iPad, iPod and iPhone online.

iPhone vs. iPod vs. iPad buzz

iPad mentions topped iPhone mentions for the first time in December 2011.

Apple buzz

Overall Apple mentions have been in slight decline since 2008. Although Apple passed Exxon as the most valuable company based on market cap.

New findings from ChangeWave Research show that demand for the Kindle Fire, Amazon’s first tablet, is outpacing pre-launch demand compared to the iPad. Surprised, we decided to use Social Radar to analyze buzz around Kindle Fire and iPad online.

Kindle Fire vs. iPad buzz

iPad generated 35x more buzz over the last month than Kindle Fire.

Content distribution

Both iPad and Kindle Fire are receiving balanced press via Twitter and blogs. Though iPad is generating significantly more chatter online.

Can Amazon’s Kindle Fire take market share from Apple’s iPad?

British band Coldplay released its fifth studio album, Mylo Xyloto, Monday, Oct. 24. The album is positioned to head straight to the top of the Billboard 200 charts next week.

Coldplay chose not to make its new album available on Spotify or any other streaming music subscription service. Fans will either need to purchase physical copies or MP3 downloads from places like Apple’s iTunes store, Microsoft’s Zune store or Amazon. The decision is more likely financially motivated as Coldplay stands to make a great deal more money by encouraging the tens of millions of consumers who have streaming music subscriptions to purchase the songs.

How has the new album release affected Coldplay’s buzz online? We used Social Radar to find out.

Coldplay buzz October 2009-present

Coldplay buzz is currently more than 3x higher than its previous high point within the last two years.

Coldplay sentiment

Conversations around Coldplay are currently 76% positive online. The new album name, Mylo Xyloto, is currently being mentioned in 6% of Coldplay conversations. Rihanna, who collaborated with Coldplay on a song for the new album, is being mentioned in 5% of all Coldplay conversations. The classic Coldplay track “Fix You” is currently mentioned in 6% of all Coldplay conversations.

Apple announced the new iPhone 4S, but no iPhone 5 today. Apple executives insist that the 4S packs a lot of punch and unveiled a host of new features for the phone on Tuesday at Apple headquarters. The new iPhone 4S has a faster processor than the iPhone 4. Its camera’s resolution and sharpness have been nearly doubled. Web pages and videos load more quickly. And it will be available to Sprint customers in the U.S. for the first time.

The most anticipated feature is a talking personal assistant named Siri, which combines voice activation and artificial intelligence. Apple purchased Siri nearly a year and a half ago.

Are the new features enough to satisfy Apple customers, who have come to expect mind-blowing, amazing product announcements? Or is the public disappointed that Apple did not announce the iPhone 5? We used Social Radar to find out.

iPhone & Apple buzz

iPhone buzz increased 400% today, and was mentioned in nearly 1% of all Internet chatter.

Apple sentiment September 4 – October 3

Conversations around Apple were an average of 82% positive leading up to the announcements.

Apple sentiment October 4

Apple sentiment dropped to only 66% positive after Tuesday’s announcements.

iPhone sentiment September 4 – October 3

Conversations around iPhone were an average of 85% positive leading up to the announcements.

iPhone sentiment October 4

iPhone sentiment dropped 20% to only 65% positive after Tuesday’s announcements. The word “same” appeared in 4% of all iPhone conversations and was 46% negative. Are users afraid that the 4S is not different enough to warrant an upgrade?

After months of speculation, Amazon unveiled its new tablet this morning, the $199 Kindle Fire. Smaller and cheaper than Apple’s iPad, the Kindle Fire has a 7-inch display and runs on a heavily customized version of Google’s Android operating system. For a feature breakdown, visit Amazon Kindle Fire vs. iPad 2 vs. Nook Color: by the numbers.

Amazon’s focus is on media consumption — the Kindle Fire pulls together all of Amazon’s media services from the cloud, including 18 million digital books, movies, songs, magazines, apps, and games. The device is designed to tap into all of the digital media products and services Amazon has been building for the past few years: Amazon Web Services, Instant Video, Kindle Books, Amazon’s MP3 music store, cloud storage, and Android app store.

Priced at less than half the $499 starting price of an iPad, the Kindle Fire aims to undercut Apple’s popular tablet, which has sold 28 million units since its 2010 debut. ”The price is shockingly low,” Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also unveiled a new version of Amazon’s classic e-ink Kindle, now called the Kindle Touch, which will start at $99.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around Amazon and Apple online.

Amazon vs. Apple buzz

Amazon chatter spiked past Apple today following the announcements. Kindle chatter (purple) spiked up near iPad (green) levels today as well.

Content breakdown

Amazon and Kindle Touch are being heavily blogged about today. More than 51% of Kindle Touch mentions came via blogs this morning, while 83% of iPad mentions came via Twitter.

Amazon sentiment

Conversations around Amazon are currently 84% positive.

Apple sentiment

Despite excitement around Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 announcement October 4, overall conversations around Apple are currently 76% positive, 8% less positive than Amazon.

iPad sentiment

Conversations around the iPad are currently 86% positive.

Kindle Fire sentiment

Conversations around Kindle Fire are currently only 75% positive.

Kindle Touch sentiment

Conversations around Kindle Touch are 85% positive, 11% more positive than Kindle Fire currently.

Can Amazon Kindle compete with Apple iPad? There are plenty of reasons why the Kindle Fire is no iPad killer. What do you think?

Netflix Inc.’s move to separate its movie-streaming business and its DVD-by-mail service failed to soothe many customers’ anger over the company’s recent price increase. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced the split in a blog post Sunday night, saying the move was the impetus for a recent price increase that outraged customers and sent the company’s stock price plummeting. He apologized for not having given the explanation sooner.

Some are already saying Netflix is doomed. The future lies in streaming, which make Netflix’s core strengths — the DVD library and its logistics — irrelevant. And it’s competing against massive companies, including Apple and Amazon.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Netflix sentiment trend

Negative chatter, which was already steadily increasing since July thanks to Netflix previous price adjustments, has now surpassed positive chatter for the first time.

Netflix conversation topic cloud

Qwikster, the new name of a spin-off company Netflix created to handle all its DVD-by-mail service, is currently being mentioned in 36% of all Netflix conversations, and is 81% negative.

The move highlights the challenges facing even successful companies as they navigate the transition from old media to new media. Will you continue to use Netflix and/or Quikster?

Steve Jobs, the ailing tech visionary who founded Apple Inc., said he was unable to continue as chief executive of the technology giant and handed the reins to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Steve Jobs buzz

Steve Job mentions spiked more than 900% overnight following his resignation announcement.

Apple buzz

Apple buzz is at its highest point since the iPad 2 event in March.

How do you think the departure of Steve Job will affect the Apple brand?

Google announced today that it would acquire Motorola Mobility, the cellphone business that was split from Motorola, for $12.5 billion. The acquisition, by far Google’s largest ever, turns Google (which makes the Android mobile operating system), into a full-fledged cellphone manufacturer, in direct competition with Apple

With the acquisition, Google gains a portfolio of 17,000 patents and another 7,000 patents pending globally. The word “patent” was mentioned 24 times on Google’s conference call this morning to discuss the deal. Google CEO Larry Page and other executives talked about how Motorola Mobility’s portfolio of patents will help protect google and its Android phone software from “anti-competitive threats” from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Google and Motorola buzz

Nearly 79% of conversations around Google and Motorola today have been positive.

Where does this acquisition leave other Android phone makers?

Typically anytime a watershed event happens, my Twitter stream is full of people chiming in with opinions. Amy Winehouse, Grammy Awards, Super Bowl…you can’t really miss a major event and expect to login to Twitter without a spoiler alert. So today when President Obama asked all Americans to “call, email and tweet their GOP lawmakers if you want to see #compromise,” I expected an overload of tweets on the subject. Surprisingly, I saw very few. Then the @BarackObama account proceeded to post the Twitter handles of the GOP lawmakers in each state, so that Twitter users may voice their opinions to the people in charge. Still not much activity in my stream.

In other news, Apple now has more cash than the U.S. Government.

We used Social Radar to analyze which was generating more chatter online.

Apple vs. The U.S. Government

Wow. iPhone and Apple are generating significantly more chatter than Obama and the compromise he asked Americans to tweet about.

Tweet mentions within Obama chatter

Despite the President’s plea and his staff’s diligent work to provide contact info for all 50 states, the word “tweet” only appeared in around 3% of all Obama mentions today.

Will the American public step up and make their voices heard on this important topic?

Last week Facebook attempted to create buzz about an upcoming announcement today, inviting people to an “awesome” event online. It didn’t take long for the news to leak that the event would focus around Facebook’s long-rumored video chat product.

Facebook unveiled today video chat powered by Skype, as well as group chat.

Facebook buzz

Overall chatter around Facebook today is about equal to its average for the month.

Facebook vs. Google buzz

Many called today’s announcement Facebook’s response to Google’s Google+ announcement last week. Overall chatter around Facebook still trails chatter around Google.

Facebook’s new Skype video chat feature continues the integration between Microsoft and Facebook, including Microsoft’s Bing search engine, which indexes Facebook’s social data. With Facebook’s entry into the video-chat market, they’ll be competing with Apple’s FaceTime, Google Talk and the new Google+ Hangouts.

Skype mentioned within 6% of current Facebook chatter

We measured the number of Skype, video chat and group chat mentions within Facebook conversations, as well as the number of “awesome announcement” mentions to determine whether the attempted hype helped create buzz. Skype is currently generating the most buzz within those topics, being mentioned in nearly 6% of all Facebook conversations online. The “awesome announcement” hype attempt did not appear to help generate significant buzz for Facebook.

What are your thoughts on the new Facebook features announced today?