Turntable.fm, the upstart online music sharing service, received good press in June following its launch. Turntable.fm turns music into a social game by letting members set up or join rooms where they can play music for each other.

Fast Company reported this week that labels, promoters and bands such as Passion Pit are turning to Turntable.fm rather than Facebook or Twitter or even radio to announce concerts. Lady Gaga and Kanye West are listed among the company’s latest investors.

Will Turntable.fm turn into the best promotional tool for artists to interact with fans? We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Turntable.fm buzz

Turntable.fm buzz spiked in June following its launch and has since subsided considerably.

Online music sharing comparison

We compared Turntable.fm to other popular music sharing and discovery services such as Blip.fm, Pandora, Rdio and Spotify. Blip.fm consistently generated the most conversations online among the five services, followed by Pandora, Spotify, Turntable.fm, and Rdio.

Has the initial excitement around Turntable.fm already worn off? Or will we see more artists use the platform to launch music, make announcements and interact with fans?

Not many words appear more often in the Social Radar database than ‘Obama.’ ‘Facebook,’ ‘Google’ and ‘Twitter’ regularly challenge ‘Obama’ for the most mentioned word online. But as of today, the word ‘debt’ has officially surpassed ‘Obama’ mentions.

Debt mentions

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the Senate today that they will remain in session “continuously” every day until Congress passes legislation that prevents a default in raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

If something is not passed before the August 2 deadline for action, the federal government would, in effect, go dark. Reid warned, “Literally every function of government could cease. Social security checks, payments to our veterans.”

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?

Last month, we wrote a post comparing chatter for each of the major scandals in 2011 and predicted that another scandal would come along next month to capture the nation’s short attention span. Sure enough, the Casey Anthony verdict this week provided plenty of fodder online.

After less than 11 hours of deliberation, a jury Tuesday found Casey Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder and the other most serious charges against her in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter.

We used Social Radar to measure conversations online comparing Casey Anthony vs. Charlie Sheen vs. Anthony Weiner vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Casey Anthony vs. Sheen vs. Weiner vs. Schwarzenegger chatter

Casey Anthony buzz surpassed Charlie Sheen chatter at its highest point in March to become the most talked about scandal of 2011 so far.

Casey Anthony verdict chatter

As anticipated, nearly every conversation around Casey Anthony was negative. Nearly 75% of conversations around Casey Anthony were negative.

How soon we forget

Chatter around Casey Anthony is already down 54%. Tuesday’s outrage has been replaced with tweets about Facebook’s new video chatting capabilities and other news announced today. Has social media officially shortened our collective attention span?

Last Thursday, June 30 was Mashable’s second annual Social Media Day, a day to acknowledge and celebrate the revolution of media becoming social. Mashable organized more than 600 meet-ups all over the world to celebrate the event. Mashable used Twitter handle @mashSMday to provide real-time updates and developments on the celebration and encouraged people to upload photos to Flickr, post comments on Facebook, visit their SMday.com website and tweet using the #SMDay hashtag.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online comparing 2011 vs. 2010 chatter.

Social Media Day chatter

Overall chatter around Social Media Day increased in 2011. The number of mentions for Social Media Day and #SMDay were higher on June 30, 2011 vs. June 30, 2010.

Social Media Day sentiment

Conversations around Social Media Day were 95% positive. Mashable appeared in 13% of all Social Media Day mentions.

Content category distribution

More than 80% of overall chatter around Social Media Day came via Twitter.

Gender distribution

Approximately 65% of Social Media Day mentions were by men and 35% by women.

Mashable buzz

Overall Mashable’s second annual Social Media Day was a success from the standpoint of generating conversations online. The event also created buzz for Mashable, which generated its highest number of mentions of the year on June 30.

How did you celebrate Social Media Day?

Google’s latest attempt at social networking was unveiled yesterday as Google+. As AdAge pointed out, Google sorted out the web and made it searchable; can it also create the connections between people that are making it social?

The major difference between Facebook and Google+ is that instead of having a massive friend list, users collect each other into groups, such as family, work and friends, called “circles.” So users can keep their weekend party photos from being seen by coworkers. And on Google+, there are no friend requests. People do not need to agree to be friends with one another and can view updates without sharing their own.

Can Google+ compete with Facebook?

Facebook vs. Google chatter

Google is currently appearing in nearly 1.25% of all conversations online. Chatter around Google is up 14% over the past month, while chatter around Facebook is down 8% overall.

Google sentiment

Conversations around Google were an average of 79% positive over the last month and are currently 81% positive.

Facebook sentiment

Conversations around Facebook were an average of 72% positive over the last month and are currently 64% positive.

Will Google finally succeed at social and give Facebook a run for its money? Or will Google+ fade into oblivion just like Google Buzz and Google Wave?

Old Navy is launching its first campaign specifically targeting men this Thursday with hopes of igniting conversation among the male target. The campaign will feature videos distributed on YouTube and Facebook, and print ads in publications such as Maxim.

We used Social Radar to analyze current chatter by gender.

Old Navy chatter gender distribution

Over the past year, 58% of chatter has been generated by females and 42% by males.

Old Navy said the decision was made to focus on videos that would run online or via mobile devices rather than on TV because men aren’t in the right mindset to look at clothes when they’re watching male targeted TV like sports.

Old Navy chatter hourly distribution

The most chatter around Old Navy is currently being generated between midnight – 1 a.m.

Content distribution

Within the past year, 65% of Old Navy chatter has been generated via Twitter, and 32% from blogs.

Will the new campaign help Old Navy generate conversation among men? We will run analysis in a few months and follow up.

Ad Age posted an interesting article Wednesday about all of the key executives running Facebook who used to work at Google. In fact, an estimated 358 current Facebook employees (out of 3,600) used to work at Google.

Perception is that Google has peaked and is headed for decline. And, according to the article, Google’s 26,000-person workforce creates the kind of bureaucratic slog that deprives creative minds of oxygen, forcing entrepreneurial execs to run for a breath of fresh air. The Googlers who run Facebook know the enemy all too well. Is Google primed for a fall?

We used Social Radar to measure chatter around Google and Facebook over the past 3 years.

Google vs. Facebook chatter

Our query produced interesting results. Since July 1, 2008, Google chatter has steadily decreased, while Facebook chatter has steadily increased.

With Google’s Eric Schmidt admitting at this week’s D9 tech conference in Los Angeles that as CEO he “screwed up” and was too busy to do anything about social media as Google’s CEO.

Google launched their +1 buttons for recommended content across the web today. But the +1 button only shows up for signed-in users of Google.com and only pulls social graphs from Buzz, Reader, Talk and Gmail. Until Google pulls in Facebook friends and Twitter followers, will the +1 button help them gain any traction?

Altly is aiming to build an alternative to Facebook because, well, every Coke needs a Pepsi.

Altly’s founder Dmitry Shapiro, founder of Veoh and former executive at Facebook rival MySpace, listed his critiques of Facebook and said that most people believe that no one can possibly create an alternative. So he’s doing it himself.

Remember Diaspora? The open source social network and potential Facebook challenger launched last year and has since seemed to fade into oblivion.

Does Altly stand a chance?

Altly buzz

Altly is already generating more buzz than Diaspora. That’s good for them, right? Let’s add Facebook into the mix…

Altly vs. Facebook buzz

Ohhhhhhhk, can’t even see the little spike anymore.

Mr. Shapiro does have a point. Competition ultimately drives companies to innovate and perform. Somebody has to challenge Facebook. Anyone? Bueller?

LinkedIn and its investors are selling $352.8 million worth of stock in its IPO, marking the biggest U.S. Internet IPO since Google. The amount of money LinkedIn is raising makes it the fifth-biggest-ever U.S. IPO in the Internet software and services sector. Google’s 2004 IPO ended up raising $1.67 billion. The offering valued Google at $23 billion, a dollar figure The Wall Street Journal pointed out was bigger than the market value of General Motors.

Shares of LinkedIn soared to more than double their offering price in the company’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange this morning. LinkedIn began trading around 10:00 a.m. ET under the symbol LNKD and quickly surged to above $90 per share. The company had priced its shares at $45 each on Wednesday ahead of the IPO, and the move significantly higher now values the company at more than $8 billion.

We used Social Radar to measure chatter around LinkedIn.

LinkedIn buzz

Chatter around LinkedIn is currently twice as high as its average buzz throughout the last year.

LinkedIn sentiment

Chatter around LinkedIn is currently 86% positive. The word ‘facebook’ is currently appearing in 29% of LinkedIn conversations.

LinkedIn’s IPO is viewed by many as a barometer of the public market’s appetite for Internet and social media companies, with the likes of Facebook, Groupon, Pandora and Kayak expected to IPO within the next year. Today’s huge surge in LinkedIn shares sends a signal that the market is hungry for tech.