As the top eight NFL teams square off this weekend in Divisional Playoff matches, we measured conversations around each team to determine which is generating the most buzz.

NFL Playoff team buzz Dec. 13 – Jan. 15

Over the last month, the Jets have generated the most buzz, while the Falcons, despite having one of the league’s best records, generated the least buzz among teams still competing in the Playoffs.

NFL Playoff team buzz Jan. 6-13

When we adjust the timeframe to just the last week, the Jets are still generating the most buzz and the Falcons still the least, however the Seahawks and Ravens are generating significantly more chatter after big wins last weekend.

NFL Playoff team sentiment Jan. 6-13

When we compare positive and negative chatter over the last week, the Packers generated the most positive discussion, followed by the Ravens, Jets, Steelers, Patriots, Bears, Seahawks and Falcons.

Last night’s lunar eclipse, which coincided with the winter solstice for the first time since 1638, was a hot topic of conversation. The eclipse surged past NFL, WikiLeaks, Facebook, iPhone, Twitter and even Christmas to become one of the most discussed topics online. Eclipse was mentioned in nearly nearly 1.5% of ALL online conversations through yesterday and today.

The Associate Press released their top 10 sports stories of the year:

1. Tiger’s lost year
2. LeBron’s free-agency
3. Saints’ Super Bowl win
4. Giants’ World Series win
5. Lakers’ repeat as champs
6. NFL concussion awareness
7. Canada Olympic gold hockey win
8. Spain’s World Cup victory
9. Jimmie Johnson’s drive for five
10. Stephen Strasburg’s debut

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around each topic. The top 10 AP stories are listed in order below with bars representing amount of chatter on blogs, Twitter and other news feeds.

As the Phillies, Giants, Rangers and Yankees compete in the MLB League Championship Series, the NFL in week 7 of its season is generating more than triple the amount of online conversation.

Interestingly, conversations around the MLB were more positive (79% positive) than conversations about the NFL (73% positive).

Hot topics of conversation for the NFL centered around the Brett Farve scandal, the trade deadline, the new dirty hit policy, and hot teams the Steelers, Jets and Cowboys.

Hot topics of conversation for the MLB centered around the Yankees, Rangers, Phillies and Giants.

Maybe the MLB needs more scandals and excitement fans can talk about?

The ratings tell a similar story. As sports writer Bill Simmons pointed out via Twitter, Monday night featured the “worst possible NFL game with 2 crap markets (7.2); best possible MLB playoff game with 2 huge markets (6.5).”

As the NBA season approaches, will the NFL continue to dominate the sports conversation in America?

With the 2010 NFL season kicking off tonight, we wanted to see which teams were most popular heading into the season. Each week ESPN publishes its NFL Power Rankings, which ranks teams based on overall performance. We thought it would be interesting to create a popularity ranking based on how much the teams were being talked about online.

We measured overall buzz for each NFL team throughout the last month. The table below lists ESPN Power Ranking and our Social Radar Buzz Ranking side-by-side for comparison:

In the chart below, teams are listed in order of ESPN Power Ranking, and the bars represent overall chatter for each team.

We will check back throughout the season with updates on popularity based on chatter.

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.

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.

The August 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 August 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during August 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 holds its reign at number 1 yet again. Disney jumps 9 spots and Marvel joins the list as Disney’s acquisition of Marvel made huge news at the end of the month. Playstation launched 11 spots due to the introduction of the PS3 Slim with its long-awaited price drop. Xbox 360 also made news with the announcement of a price drop, sneaking it up 3 spots.

Also worth mentioning, the build-up of chatter momentum for the upcoming NFL season rose NFL 13 spots. Firefox and NASA both take a dive as natural fallout from their big announcements last month: NASA’s 40 year celebration of Apollo 11 and Firefox’s version 3.5 update.

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.