If 2011 was the year of the tablet the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), 2012 seems to be the year of the ultrabook. With sales of budget laptops plummeting, computer makers are swinging the pendulum toward sleeker, metallic and pricier portable PCs that they’re calling Ultrabooks. That’s the term coined by chip-maker Intel for a new class of laptops that, similar to the MacBook Air, are ultra-thin yet with internal processing on par with other laptops. The ultrabooks — manufactured by Toshiba, Samsung, Lenovo, HP, LG and others — are designed to start up as quickly as possible when turned on.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around Ultrabooks online.

Ultrabook buzz

The term ‘ultrabook’ wasn’t mentioned at all before May 2011. The term gained traction in late 2011, and now thanks to CES 2012 the term is skyrocketing.

Ultrabook sentiment

Conversations around Ultrabooks are currently 84% positive.

• Acer appears in 23% of Ultrabook conversations and is 87% positive.
• HP appears in 18% of Ultrabook conversations and is 88% positive.
• Levono appears in 16% of Ultrabook conversations and is 96% positive.
• MacBook appears in 17% of Ultrabook conversations and is 61% positive.
• Samsung appears in 12% of Ultrabook conversations and is 80% positive.

Will you considering purchasing an Ultrabook?

Location-based mobile service SCVNGR will be automatically preloaded on certain Virgin Mobile handsets beginning later this month, thanks to a new partnership announced Tuesday. The announcement comes after last month’s partnership with restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings, which has more than 700 locations in the U.S. SCVNGR also recently launched a multi-city promotion for the Nissan Juke and before that, executed a New Year’s Eve program with American Eagle and a Black Friday-themed promotion with Coca-Cola.

Have all of the new partnerships helped increase SCVNGR’s buzz? We used Social Radar to run analysis on location-based mobile service chatter.

SCVNGR vs. Foursquare vs. Gowalla vs. Facebook Places

Chatter around SCVNGR has been miniscule compared to location-based powerhouse Foursquare, which had 200,000 users check into its experimental Super Bowl Sunday location. The chart looks a bit like Foursquare is flipping its competitors the bird.

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.

Rank	Chg	Brand
1		Twitter
2	(+1)	iPhone
3	(+1)	Google
4	(-2)	Facebook
5	(+1)	YouTube
6	(+2)	Mac
7		Apple
8	(-3)	Obama
9		iPod
10	(+2)	LG
11	(-1)	MySpace
12	(+2)	Windows
13	(-2)	Microsoft
14	(+5)	BlackBerry
15	(+8)	XBox
16	(-1)	Yahoo
17	(-1)	Fox
18	(+4)	BBC
19	(+1)	Playstation
20	(-2)	Disney
21	(+3)	Amazon
22	(+5)	Wii
23	(-10)	NFL
24	(+2)	CNN
25	(+4)	Linux
26	(-1)	Sony
27	(-10)	MTV
28	(+2)	Starbucks
29		Android
30	(+11)	NBA
31	(-10)	AT&T
32	(+1)	Firefox
33	(+3)	ESPN
34	(-6)	Nokia
35	(-1)	ABC
36	(+1)	Ford
37	(-5)	Skype
38	(-7)	eBay
39		UPS
40	(-2)	Dell
41	(+4)	MLB
42	(+2)	Wikipedia
43	(+3)	Canon
44	(-4)	Samsung
45	(+4)	BMW
46		Blu-Ray
47	(+3)	Nintendo
48	(-5)	Nike
49		HTC
50	(-2)	CBS

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 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.

Rank	Chg	Brand
1		Twitter
2	(+1)	Facebook
3	(-1)	iPhone
4		Google
5	(+1)	Obama
6	(-1)	YouTube
7	(+1)	Apple
8	(-1)	Mac
9		iPod
10		MySpace
11		Microsoft
12	(+11)	LG
13	(+6)	NFL
14	(-1)	Windows
15	(-3)	Yahoo
16	(+1)	Fox
17	(+13)	MTV
18	(-4)	Disney
19	(-4)	BlackBerry
20	(-4)	Playstation
21	(+5)	AT&T
22	(-1)	BBC
23	(-5)	XBox
24	(-2)	Amazon
25	(-5)	Sony
26	(+3)	CNN
27	(+1)	Wii
28	(-2)	Nokia
29	(-2)	Linux
30	(+2)	Starbucks
31		eBay
32	(+5)	Skype
33	(-9)	Firefox
34	(-1)	ABC
35		Oprah
36		ESPN
37	(-3)	Ford
38	(-3)	Dell
39		UPS
40		Samsung
41	(+3)	NBA
42		Intel
43		Nike
44	(-6)	Wikipedia
45	(-4)	MLB
46	(-1)	Canon
47	(-4)	Marvel
48		CBS
49	(-1)	BMW
50	(-3)	Nintendo

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

Once again, Twitter holds on to the top spot. MySpace jumped 17 spots, mostly due to MySpace’s new mail service. Amazon jumped 6 spots to #16 from chatter regarding the acquisition of Zappos. eBay jumped 8 spots and Skype joined the list this month due to a legal battle that may threaten the future of Skype.

There were some other surprises this month as well. The LG Chocolate helped LG jump 11 spots. Starbucks joined the list thanks to their Free Pastry day spreading lots of chatter. BlackBerry jumped 15 spots thanks in part to rumors about the new BlackBerry Storm as well as their new app store. Nintendo, Wii, Sony, Playstation and XBox all dropped this month after buzz from the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) subsided.

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.

Rank	Chg	Brand
1		Twitter
2		iPhone
3		Google
4	(+1)	Facebook
5	(-1)	Obama
6	(+1)	YouTube
7	(+1)	Mac
8	(-2)	Apple
9		Microsoft
10	(+4)	iPod
11	(+17)	MySpace
12	(+1)	Yahoo
13	(-3)	Windows
14	(+1)	Firefox
15	(+15)	BlackBerry
16	(+6)	Amazon
17	(+4)	BBC
18	(+16)	CNN
19	(+6)	Fox
20	(-4)	Linux
21	(-10)	XBox
22	(-10)	Sony
23	(+10)	Disney
24		AT&T
25	(-5)	Nokia
26	(-8)	Wii
27	(-8)	Playstation
28		Starbucks
29	(+8)	eBay
30	(-4)	MLB
31		MTV
32	(+6)	NFL
33	(+11)	LG
34	(-7)	Ford
35	(-12)	Dell
36	(+13)	NASA
37		ABC
38	(-21)	NBA
39	(-10)	Samsung
40	(+10)	ESPN
41		Nike
42		UPS
43		Skype
44	(-2)	Wikipedia
45	(-5)	BMW
46	(-15)	Nintendo
47		Kindle
48		Canon
49		Verizon
50	(-14)	Intel

There’s the iPhone…and then there’s everything else. iPhone generates more than twice as much chatter as the next highest competitor, dwarfing BlackBerry, Palm and Nokia. Interestingly, Nokia sells hundreds of different phone models; Samsung sells TVs, desktop monitors, etc. — doesn’t matter, iPhone still dominates web chatter.