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.

An unusual earthquake startled millions of people from Colorado to New York on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from office buildings in Washington, D.C. and New York City. According to @Twitter, within a minute of Tuesday’s earthquake, there were more than 40,000 earthquake-related Tweets. People were seeing tweets before they even felt the quake. Another small earthquake shook San Francisco later that night.

Also on Tuesday, triumphant rebel fighters and thousands of ordinary Libyans stormed Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s fortress compound in Tripoli, Libya, carting off mementos of his 42-year dictatorship. The capture of Col. Gadhafi’s complex stands as one of the rebels’ highest moments in their six-month battle to topple the world’s longest-tenured current ruler. The whereabouts of Gadhafi himself were unknown.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around both topics.

Earthquake vs. Tripoli, Libya buzz

Both topics were mentioned hundreds of thousands of times on Tuesday, but ‘earthquake’ was mentioned 34% more times than ‘Tripoli’, ‘Libya’, ‘Qaddafi’/'Ghadafi’ combined.

Last week the U.S. fired hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles in Libya aimed at stopping attacks led by Moammar Gadhafi and enforcing a U.N.-backed no-fly zone. The United States military actions have already cost more than $100 million, and could end up costing several billion dollars.

We used Social Radar to measure online conversations around Libya.

Libya sentiment

Conversations around Libya are currently 62% negative. The word ‘price’ currently appears in 15% of conversations around Libya.

Libya vs. Japan chatter

The earthquake and following tsunami disaster in Japan has generated 3x more chatter than Libya online this month.

Content category distribution

Microblogs are generating the greatest amount of chatter for both topics: 87% for Japan, 82% for Libya.

In the days since last Friday’s quake and tsunami in Japan, the word ‘Japan’ has been appearing in more conversations online than any major brand or topic.

Japan mentions online

As a point of reference, we compared Japan mentions to the top 3 most mentioned brands online: Facebook, Twitter and Google. The day of the quake, Japan was mentioned in nearly 2.5% of all Internet conversations.

Japan mentions by country

The United States has generated the most chatter about Japan since last Friday.

If you are interested in helping support disaster relief efforts, you can text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund.

As the digital world continues to develop, companies are continuously thinking of ways to better target their consumer. From iPhones to smartphones, mobile campaigns are now becoming a focus for several companies. Large brands such as Nike, are now integrating mobile campaigns into their marketing efforts. Other organizations like the American Red Cross are using the power of technology and the development of mobile phones to help relief effort abroad. The American Red Cross has developed a Text 2Help campaign to help those devastated by the earthquake in Haiti.

Haiti is known to be one of the worlds most depressed and underdeveloped countries in the world. On January 12, 2010 a massive earthquake struck the country leaving mass devastation. The magnitude 7.0 quake damaged buildings throughout the capital leaving many feared injured and dead. In addition, the debris and collapsed bridges have made access to several areas extremely difficult.  However, the people of Haiti are not foreign to struggle. The country has experienced constant political battles, health crises, and environmental degradation throughout the years.  On a positive note, Haiti’s government is backed by the U.N. peacekeeping mission and many are moving fast to help those in need. The outpouring support of the general public as well as organizations like the American Red Cross have helped tremendously with the relief effort.

We took a look to see what the overall sentiment was regarding Haiti.

You can see that ultimately people have both positive things to say about the country but also realize how poor and sad this massive earthquake has left the people of Haiti.

If you would like to support the relief effort in Haiti, you can text “Haiti” to “90999″ and a $10 donation to the American Red Cross will be made! (Donations will be taken out of your next monthly bill)Participating carries include Alltel, AT&T, Sprint-Nextel, T-Mobile, and Verizon. 

Please join the many others and text to help!