The Social Radar Top 50 measures the brands with the most active Web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the Top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the Web during all of 2008 and 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

This year has certainly been interesting. Several new brands made their way to the mainstream making our 2009 Top 50 list, such as Kindle, Amazon’s hit e-book reader, and Android, Google’s mobile OS that is spreading onto smartphones like wildfire. Interestingly, Samsung and Nokia took a big hit this year, as sexier smartphones such as iPhones and Android-powered devices from HTC and Motorola gain more attention.

The list certainly shows that 2009 was the year of Social Media. Twitter moved ahead of Google to take the number 1 spot, while Facebook and MySpace made significant leaps over big brands as well. Most video game related brands were down this year as well, including Sony, Wii, Xbox, and Nintendo. It also appears TV brands all jumped this year including Disney, MTV, Fox, BBC, CNN, ESPN, and ABC.

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View the full list below, or download the PDF. For additional information about how you can analyze chatter sentiment to gauge positivity/negativity, view key words mentioned about your brand and identify key influencers, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

Social Radar Screenshot:

Questions or comments? Twitter me @adamcoomes.

The September 2009 Social Radar Top 50 measures the brands with the most active Web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the Top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the Web during September 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during September 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

Twitter falls a bit, but still takes top spot. LG’s new BL20 Chocolate helped LG jump 11 spots. NFL rises again this month as the NFL season heats up. MTV jumps 13 spots due to buzz around the MTV Video Music awards. AT&T’s announcement of MMS support on the iPhone raised AT&T’s position up 5 spots.

View the full list below, or download the PDF. For additional information about how you can analyze chatter sentiment to gauge positivity/negativity, view key words mentioned about your brand and identify key influencers, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @adamcoomes.

One of the biggest stories of the week has been Iranians’ use of social media to communicate with each other and the outside world during the Iran election crisis. Protesters used Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Wikipedia and blogs to disseminate information and help people take action.

The Iran crisis has literally given journalistic power to the people, as individuals spread news of developing events in the country. Twitter users adopted the hashtag #CNNfail to proclaim that “new media” (individuals using Twitter) had provided better coverage than “old media” (CNN) throughout the early stages of the crisis.

We decided to use Social Radar to analyze and compare the reach of messages posted by individuals with low influence vs. high influence. Social Radar tracks influence based on the number of links to a specific blog or account. For example, most average Twitter users or bloggers would be considered low influence, while sites like Engadget or CNN would be considered high influence and major media news sources.

The chart below provides interesting results. We measured the number of posts over the last few weeks for low influencers vs. high influencers on the topic of Iran or Iran election. Iran election conversation among low influencers is spreading twice as quickly as conversation among high influencers. The Iran crisis has proven that individuals can report relevant news quickly. What does it mean for “old media” in the future? Will we continue to see more and more examples of individuals using social media to beat established journalists to news stories?

With all the hype surrounding the Facebook land grab, Facebook buzz surged late June 12 and early June 13. At 9 p.m. PST on June 12, Facebook usernames opened to the public enabling users to choose a vanity URL for their profile page.

Vanity URLs encourage sharing and increased activity on Facebook. Mashable reported that 200,000 users registered usernames within the first 3 minutes, and more than 1,000,000 users registered within the first hour. Will vanity URLs affect your interaction on Facebook?

The May 2009 Social Radar Top 50 measures the brands with the most active Web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the Top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the Web during May 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during May 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

The top six brands held their positions in this month’s list. Twitter, Google, Obama, iPhone, Facebook and YouTube remain strong with increased buzz across all online mediums. Windows jumped past Mac this month thanks to buzz on Windows 7. Linux moved up two spots, while the NBA jumped six spots thanks to an exciting month of Playoff games. The NBA’s active Twitter account has nearly 700,000 followers, and several players are also tweeting. Notably, @dwighthoward, who gave a shout out to his Twitter followers in a post-game interview, has quickly amassed nearly 200,000 followers and has been called the next big ad man by Ad Age.

Dell jumped 22 spots thanks in part to a new Studio line of laptops, as well as the continued growth of @delloutlet, which has nearly 600,000 followers on Twitter. BlackBerry jumped five spots, corresponding with their strong sales — BlackBerry Curve is outselling iPhone so far in 2009. Nintendo dropped 8 spots as some of the video game chatter shifted to Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony’s Motion Controller.

View the full list below, or download the PDF. For additional information about how you can analyze chatter sentiment to gauge positivity/negativity, view key words mentioned about your brand and identify key influencers, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @adamcoomes.

The April 2009 Social Radar Top 50 measures the brands with the most active Web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the Top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the Web during April 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during April 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

Twitter once again dominates the Top 50 list in April 2009. Already the hottest brand on our March list by a wide margin, Twitter accumulated an additional 10% in chatter in April.

Content sharing website Digg joined the Top 50 this month thanks in part to the April 2 launch of the DiggBar. Enterprise software company Oracle also joined the list with an increase in chatter due to its April 20 acquisition of Sun Microsystems. And as the NBA and NHL Playoffs heated up in April, the NHL joined the Top 50 while the NBA jumped 9 spots.

Dell dropped 23 spots this month as buzz around the March announcement of the new Dell Adamo faded. Kindle also dropped out of the Top 50 as hype around the Kindle 2 subsided.

Conversely, CNN jumped up 10 spots thanks to the race to a million Twitter followers with Ashton Kutcher. IBM also jumped four spots thanks to increasing focus on social media.

View the list below, or download the full PDF. For additional information about how you can analyze chatter sentiment to gauge positivity/negativity, view key words mentioned about your brand and identify key influencers, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @adamcoomes.

It seems that Twitter is changing the world 140 characters at a time. We reported last week that Twitter was the most social brand in the month of March. Twitter experienced 76.8% growth during March as everybody from Snoop Dogg to Fortune 500 companies to local churches to President Obama is tweeting on a regular basis. Here are just a few headlines this week:

Twitter Passes New York Times
Is Twitter Killing RSS?
AT&T uses Twitter during service outage
New York church brings Good Friday to Twitter

Think about that for a minute. Twitter is surpassing one of the most established publications in the world, eliminating the need for feed readers, providing reliable communication during an outage for one of the biggest cellular service providers, and even spreading the gospel.

Rainn Wilson says he has more twitter followers than the population of Tulsa after just a few months on Twitter.

John Mayer says he was lamenting the loss of fan mail in the tech age until he realized Twitter is the next best thing.

Golfweek says Twitter is the biggest trend to hit the Masters since the green jacket.

Ad Age says that advertising agencies need to think more Twitter and less TV.

How has this micro-blogging company with only 30 employees surpassed behemoth Google in buzz within the last few months? Check out the chart below to see how Twitter has surged past big names like iPhone, Facebook and even Google in web chatter.

Nearly 1 out of every 100 online conversations mentions Twitter. And only a fraction of the population has actually realized the power of Twitter. Where is its ceiling?

Update 04/08/09: For more details on how we determine our ranking, view The new rules of branding

If sheer volume of conversation is any indication, Twitter is the hottest brand in the market. Twitter dominates a tech-heavy list of brands in our March 2009 Social Radar Top 50. The Social Radar Top 50 measures the most social brands by the number of unique topics of conversation. These brands are top of mind for consumers and bloggers today — Social Radar determined rankings according to the number of individual websites with at least one post about each brand to accurately capture the brand’s reach across the web.

The list below is based on overall conversation volume through the month of March 2009, including blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts. The +/- number represents the ranking change since February 2009.

For the full March 2009 list, download the PDF. Be sure to visit our Social Radar Top 50 page for access to each month’s results.

Questions? Comments? Tweet me: @adamcoomes