As we move into day 11 of the PlayStation Network fiasco, Sony continues to rebuild its beleaguered network while apologizing profusely to users.

Sony believes hackers obtained user account information, including home addresses, email addresses, birth dates, usernames and passwords and potentially even credit card numbers.

PlayStation chatter

Apparently some users don’t appreciate what they have until its gone. Chatter around PlayStation is up 79% as more news about the outage is revealed.

PlayStation sentiment

PlayStation sentiment, which is generally between 80-90% positive, spiked up to 65% negative.

XBox sentiment

Meanwhile, XBox sentiment is currently 81% positive. Can Microsoft XBox capitalize on Sony’s PlayStation Network woes and steal market share?

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 kicked off in Las Vegas this week with several companies making major announcements along the themes of mobility, 3D and 4G with new TVs, cameras, phones and games. But the biggest buzz of the conference so far has been generated around tablets.

The iPad’s success in 2010 validated the market, opening the door for countless other companies to attempt to make a splash and try to become true competitors to Apple’s popular device.

We used Social Radar to run analysis on topics of conversation around CES this week. The word ‘tablet’ has appeared in 25% of CES posts, and 91% of the discussion around tablets has been positive.

CES Conversation Topic Cloud

Several companies made tablet announcements this week:

• Motorola debuted an Android Honeycomb tablet, the Xoom, a 1080p device running Android 3.0, a version of the OS built specifically for the tablet form factor. Android 3.0 is the first version of Android to have a full tablet interface variation different from the phones.
• Research in Motion (R.I.M.) will be offering a tablet called the BlackBerry PlayBook designed to completely integrate and synchronize with BlackBerry devices.
• Microsoft announced Windows-7 powered tablets. Several different versions offer unique features, including touchscreens, slide-out keyboards, dual-screen machines, stylus-friendly tablets and more.
• Samsung announced a new Sliding PC 7 which bridges the gap between netbook and tablet. The device is a 0.78 inch thick touchscreen tablet that transforms into a netbook when you reveal its slide-out keyboard hidden underneath. In addition, Samsung also added an LTE modem and upgraded camera to its Galaxy Tab.
• Pandigital announced 7- and 9-inch tablets running Android 2.1.
• Microvision announced a prototype Android ‘mini tablet’ with built-in projector.
• OpenPeak debuts OpenTablet 10 with a transflective display, front-facing 720p cam, an HDMI out for 1080p video, a digital MEMS microphone, and optional 3G connectivity in addition to the standard WiFi.
• ASUS announced a new tablet lineup – three Android-based Eee Pads and one Windows-based Eee Slate, each with its own “twist” (the Slider, Transformer, MeMO and Slate EP121).
• Acer announced the Acer Iconia Tab A500, a 10-inch Tegra 2 tablet with Verizon LTE.
• T-Mobile announced a G-Slate tablet, the company’s first 4G tablet and running Android 3.0.
• Toshiba announced an Android-powered tablet with it’s 10.1-inch widescreen display, built-in SD card reader as well as a mini USB connection and full-size HDMI and full-size USB ports.
• Dell announced the Streak 7, deemed a ‘Generation Y tablet’ based on price. The device runs Android 2.2 with a 7″ multi-touch display.

Within all CES tablet-related conversations, Android Honeycomb appeared in 14% of posts while iPad appeared in 21% of posts.

CES Tablet-Related Conversation Topic Cloud

We ran further analysis on each of the tablets announced at CES 2011.

Mentions Within CES-Related Content/Articles

The Motorola Xoom is generating the most tablet buzz so far this week, followed by BlackBerry Playbook, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Toshiba Tablet, and ASUS Eee Pad.

We conducted topic analysis on each of the top five tablets generating the most buzz.

CES Tablet Conversation Topic Distribution

How does the tablet conversation compare when you group them by Android, Apple, Windows 7, and Linux/other?

CES Tablet Conversation By Group

CES Top Sources

Which are the key sources talking about CES 2011? Engadget is the top source, currently making more than 32 CES-related and generating more than 1100 links in per day.

We will continue to monitor CES buzz this week and tablet buzz throughout 2011. Which tablets do you think are best positioned to rival the iPad?

Facebook today announced its new modern messaging system, with an intent to make communication simpler. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, modern communication needs to be seamless, informal, immediate, personal,  simple, minimal and short. The new product includes seamless messaging, conversation history, and a social inbox, and provides a way to communicate no matter what format you want to use: email, chat, SMS. Zuckerberg said that 15 engineers worked on this product — the most that have ever worked on a single Facebook project.

Many speculated leading up to the announcement that Facebook would be announcing a Gmail killer, taking a direct shot at competitor Google. The new messaging system is “not an email killer” according to Zuckerberg, but the new service could transform email by melding messaging functions with people’s social connections to provide a more personal and intuitive experience. The new service would allow its more than 500 million members to communicate with anyone inside or outside the walls of the social network. Microsoft’s Hotmail, in contrast, has 361 million global users, followed by Yahoo Mail’s 273 million users and Gmail’s 193 million users, according to comScore.

Chatter around Facebook has been 77% positive in the last 24 hours.

Both Google and Facebook have launched features within the last year in direct competition, including Google’s “Facebook killer” Google Me.

We analyzed chatter around both Google and Facebook within the last year. In November 2009, Google was clearly generating more chatter online than Facebook. Today, the two have nearly swapped positions, with Google’s chatter steadily declining while Facebook chatter increased throughout the past year.

Will Facebook’s new messaging system take users from Google’s Gmail service and increase the social networking site’s popularity even more?

Microsoft announced yesterday its answer to the iPhone and Android devices: Windows Phone 7. After initially releasing Windows Mobile 10 years ago, Microsoft has finally embraced the new smartphone philosophy. It threw away the stylus and created a completely new, finger-friendly UI, coupled with an OS that enables easy integration with Microsoft services Xbox Live and Bing, as well as social networks such as Facebook.

Windows Phone 7 is a sprawling mobile platform that, by year’s end, will power about a dozen devices, from four manufacturers, spanning 60 carriers through 30 countries.

Buzz around the new Windows Phone spiked yesterday.

Windows 7 chatter trend

But chatter around Windows Phone is minuscule compared to iPhone and Android.

Window Phone 7 vs. iPhone vs. Android chatter

Windows Phone 7 has six “hubs” organized around common tasks. The first is “people,” and includes things like speed dial, speed text and “speed wall postings.” The second is “pictures,” which organizes photos. There are also hubs for “office mobile,” “music and videos,” “apps” and “games.”

Apps were the most talked about feature within the Windows Phone conversation, followed by games, people, office, videos, pictures and movies.

Windows Phone 7 “hubs” chatter

How does the phone perform? Techcrunch claims that while Android phones can often feel like a cheap imitation of an iPhone, the Windows Phone 7 feels completely different, and better than Android.

What are people saying online? Sentiment around Windows Phone 7 has been 75% positive the past two days. Comparatively, iPhone was 84% positive, Android was 83% positive, and BlackBerry chatter was 75% positive.

Windows Phone 7 vs. iPhone vs. Android vs. BlackBerry sentiment

Microsoft is positioning the phone as “the phone to save us from our phones,” with ads for the new phone mocking smartphone addiction, as well as entrenched leaders BlackBerry, iPhone and Android. Interesting brand message. Is Microsoft claiming that it will make a phone that customers will want to use less?

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) beta this week, offering an overhaul on design and user interface. The new browser is now compliant with HTML5, CSS3, SVG2 and W3C standards, includes javascript support as well as full hardware acceleration to improve speed. New features and layout changes include a minimalist design with streamlined toolbars that focuses more on web content to provide a cleaner experience. Read more in this Engadget review.

We used Social Radar to analyze Web chatter and determine initial reaction.

Sentiment around IE9 the past few days has been 90% positive.

Internet Explorer 9 sentiment

Comparatively, sentiment around IE8 during past month was only 52% positive.

Internet Explorer 8 sentiment

We analyzed chatter around IE9 vs. competitors Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Notice the IE9 spike below.

Overall chatter IE9 vs. Safari vs. Chrome vs. Firefox

Microsoft worked closely with developers to integrate feedback into the IE9 development process. Now Microsoft is reaching out to the Reddit community, asking for users to test and provide additional feedback to incorporate into enhancements.

In other good news for Microsoft, Neilsen announced this week that Bing passed Yahoo to become the #2 search engine. As part of the IE9 demo, Microsoft touted improvements to Bing, which will work like a native application in IE9, enabling a better integrated search experience.

IE9 was appearing in 21% of Microsoft related conversations online yesterday. And with 90% of those conversations being positive, Microsoft is poised to regain browser market share.

Internet Explorer 9 chatter within Microsoft conversations

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 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.

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) has concluded and we have analyzed the most discussed announcements from the show.  Microsoft’s motion-tracking Project Natal unsurprisingly took the top spot followed with the PSP Go.  Metal Gear Solid, the most discussed game, came in third.  Some other notable mentions are Gran Turismo 5 versus Forza 3, for which GT5 generated the most chatter.  Also, Scribblenauts is quite far down the list, but today the game as been generating a strong upsurge in mentions and we expect this one to get a bit more attention over the next few days.

Wednesday we posted a sentiment comparison between Project Natal and the PS3 motion-tracking controller you can see here.

The full top listing is in the chart after the jump, displayed by the percentage of E3 discussions mentioning that announcement.  The Top 10 is in the image below:

Top 10:

Continue reading…

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 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is wrapping up in Los Angeles. At their respective keynotes, both Microsoft and Sony made major announcements in a similar vain.  Microsoft presented their Project Natal, a camera-based device which can track full body motion without needing a controller. Shortly after, Sony demonstrated a prototype high-precision motion tracking controller for the Playstation 3.  Both exciting and impressive in different ways.

We decided to see the web’s reaction to these announcements, and threw the Wii Motion Plus accessory in for comparison.  MotionPlus is an add-on coming for the Nintendo Wii controllers which improves their motion tracking accuracy and capabilities.

Project Natal had the most positive response. Additionally, in regards to overall conversation volume, it had around three times what Sony’s motion controller generated.  Interestingly, after these announcements, we saw a notable increase in negative chatter around the Wii Motion Plus, with negativity increasing around 8%. This is attributed to users seeing these new developments as superior to Nintendo’s long-time-coming accessory.