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.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last month, you have probably been hearing about the ad battle between AT&T and Verizon that is paralleling a political campaign with constant attacking on both sides. It all started when Verizon decided to make a silly spin on iPhone “There’s an App for That” ads by making a “There’s a Map for That” ad, exploiting AT&T’s poor 3G network coverage. To fight back, AT&T decided to sue Verizon, leading to a war of attack ads back and forth that has no end in sight.

What does the consumer do in this situation? Sit back and watch in amusement? Take sides? One thing’s for certain - they’ve been talking, and Social Radar is showing us some interesting insight. Let’s take a look.

Now let’s take a look at the sentiment after the ad battle.

The sentiment appears to have effected AT&T the most severely, appearing to be a success for Verizon. But, both brands gained at least some negativity. Though this is good news for Verizon, let’s take a look at this from another perspective.

Below is a trend chart from September 1st, 2009 through today of Droid Mentions (blue line) versus Commercial/Ad Mentions (red line) within Verizon chatter.

What’s concerning here is that as soon as Verizon began to run these AT&T attack ads, chatter around their beloved Droid devices has dramatically decreased. We can see very clearly that consumers are losing focus and beginning to chat more about their commercials than the very ammunition they are using to sell against AT&T and the iPhone.

It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out. Are attack ads a good way to point out flaws of competitors or does it simply lose their consumers’ focus?

The November 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 November 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during November 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

There were quite a few shifts this month. The success of Windows 7 has increased the chatter of Microsoft and Windows, raising their ranking three spots. Verizon has made it into the Top 50 this month and AT&T has increased rank mostly due to chatter around recent Verizon-AT&T attack ads. Also making an appearance this month is Oprah due to her announcement of the show ending in 2011.

The biggest surprise this month is Android, or “Droid”. It has made a remarkable jump to 11th place, surging past heavy hitters iPod, Blackberry, and even MySpace. It received nearly identical amounts of chatter as Windows and Microsoft this month.

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 October 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 October 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during October 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

There are no big surprises with the Top 10 this month. NFL dropped 10 spots as the season opening excitement has died down a bit, while NBA jumped 11 spots as the basketball season kicks off. AT&T has dropped, while other cell phone related brands have increased such as LG and Blackberry, as well as newcomers to the list - HTC and Android. With many new Android devices out and on the horizon, as well as the recent “droid does” campaign, Android has joined our list this month at a surprising 29th place.

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.

At this point, we’ve all seen the iDon’t advertisements for Verizon’s new Motorola Droid, which is rumored to be the ultimate iPhone killer/competitor. So how big of an influence is the release of this shiny new product having on our feelings towards the Apple iPhone? We used Social Radar to get a sense of whether or not the Droid is actually a threat to the Mac world.

First we look at overall activity for the past month.

Looking at this chart, overall Droid traffic has been no where close to that of the iPhone, however this gap is closing as news of more and more features are being brought to the public eye. So what about sentiment? Which do people like more?

At this point in time, it is interesting that feelings are leveled (for the most part). The Droid hasn’t even been released, yet people are responding fairly well to the information they’ve got so far. Could this mean that we’re all just straight up tired of the iPhone and we’re just THAT excited to get our hands on something different? Or are these number just reflective of how us consumers feed into the big boy reviews? Are we being brainwashed?

This last chart shows top sources for related content in relation to other posts and the reach each has amongst their audience. Who influences you?

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.

On the heels of Apple’s Sept. 9 Rock and Roll event, we decided to analyze conversation share around some of the big announcements.

The Nano made big news at the event with the announcement of its new built in camera, 2.2-inch display, Genius mix capability and built-in FM radio.

The iPod Classic increased capacity to 160GB while keeping the price the same at $249.

The iPod Touch was advertised as the most affordable gateway to the App Store at $229, with no monthly fees. The keynote called the Touch Apple’s fastest growing product line and highlighted its gaming and pocket computing capability.

Apple also highlighted iTunes 9, which includes Genius mixes, home sharing, iTunes LP and a redesigned store layout.

We used Social Radar to measure share of voice for the following words within coversations about “iPod” within the last month: Touch, Nano, Classic, Shuffle, iPhone, Zune and iTunes.

Conversation around Nano spiked dramatically following the announcements, but Touch still holds the highest share among iPod conversations online.

iPhone and Touch hold the largest percentage of posts within the last 30 days at approximately 30% each, with Nano and iTunes each under 10%.

In typical Apple fashion, leading up to the Worldwide Developers Conference 2009, no one outside of Apple had a clue what the new iPhone would be called, nor could they confirm with certainty that a new iPhone would even be announced. When they made the announcement during the keynote, everyone heard Apple call the device, “iPhone 3G S”. It was an odd decision for Apple to include a space between “3G” and “S”, as many search engines don’t even index the letter “S”. In fact, many people simply called it “iPhone 3GS”.

As Apple started to realize the issues with this decision, such as the fact that their new device developed two names, they decided to pull a switch-a-roo name change with no prior warning. Apple issued a press release on June 22 titled Apple Sells Over One Million iPhone 3GS Models.

Lots of bloggers, news sources, and others picked up on this name change and people followed the trend quite quickly. The chart below shows you just how quickly the Internet changed their spelling. Pretty fascinating.

The June 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 June 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.

Twitter held on to the top spot, though once again trending down this month. iPhone jumped two spots to #2 overall and Apple jumped three spots to #6 thanks to buzz around the iPhone 3G S release.

Firefox jumped 10 spots thanks to increased chatter leading up to its new Firefox 3.5 release, which was downloaded more than a million times within a few hours.

XBox jumped 5 spots to #11 overall after the Project Natal announcement at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Surprisingly, with both the Project Natal and Bing search engine announcements this month, overall Microsoft buzz only increased one spot to #9 overall.

CNN jumped 13 spots, due in large part to a steep surge surrouding the news of Michael Jackson’s death. MLB jumped eight spots as the baseball season heated up in the month of June.

Finally, HTC joined the Top 50 this month, with talk about its new widget-based HTC Hero Android smartphone announcement.

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.

Apple announced a new iPhone 3GS at their World Wide Development Conference in San Francisco on Monday. We analyzed buzz on several of the key features announced and ranked them below by percentage of posts. Video recording capability received a significant amount of buzz, with mentions in nearly 15% of all iPhone-related posts in the last 24 hours. Price and camera were also hot topics of discussion.

Overall user sentiment around the iPhone 3GS has been positive so far.

We also compared buzz around the iPhone 3GS to the Palm Pre launch over the weekend. iPhone 3G and 3GS generated significantly higher buzz after its 6/8 announcement than Palm Pre did on its 6/6 announcement. Which will continue to generate more buzz in the weeks ahead? Will buzz correlate to sales?