Skype is setting out to “make travel a little more pleasant this holiday season” by offering a free hour of Internet access to third-party wireless hotspots in select airports across the U.S. December 21 thru December 27.

How does the gesture of goodwill affect public opinion toward Skype? We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Skype conversation sentiment

The terms “free,” “wi-fi,” “50,” “airports,” and “holiday” are appearing in more than 26% of all Skype conversations online currently. Conversations around Skype are 71% positive.

Content distribution

Approximately 66% of Skype mentions are currently being made via Twitter, 28% via blogs.

Do you think Skype generated more positive buzz and goodwill by making this investment rather than traditional advertising?

Wrapp, a social gifting service, raised $5.5 million, led by the venture capital firm formed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom. Coming soon to the U.S., Wrapp lets friends give, receive and redeem digital gift cards using mobile devices, and allows friends to contribute to gifts given by mutual friends.

Gift cards are a $100 billion industry in the U.S. so Wrapp could be entering a lucrative market. Wrapp is looking to partner with retailers like Best Buy and Target at launch.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Wrapp buzz

Wrapp mentions increased 6X this week upon the funding announcement.

Wrapp sentiment

Conversations around Wrapp are nearly all positive.

Can Wrapp change the gift card market in the U.S.?

On Tuesday Twilio annouced the launch of Twilio Client, a set of developer tools that enable any browser or mobile app to be a phone, with just a few lines of code.

The new feature lets developers integrate the flexible and cost-efficient power of VoIP — the sort of technology used by services like Skype and Google Voice — into their own applications. For example, a social network such as LinkedIn that wanted to let users initiate voice calls with other users could use Twilio Client. Users would simply click a button next to a friend’s screen name and the other party would see a popup asking if they wanted to talk, and the call would be routed over Twilio’s VoIP pipes.

Twilio vs. Google Voice chatter

Twilio chatter spiked past Google Voice chatter following this week’s announcements.

Twilio chatter is still far below Skype chatter. Will Twilio’s new service change the VoIP game?

Last Wednesday, President Obama squared off against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a battle of online programming.

At 1 p.m. ET, Facebook aired a live stream of a product announcement from Mark Zuckerberg. At 2 p.m. ET, President Obama took questions via Twitter during Twitter’s first ever live-streamed town hall, encouraging citizens to ask questions using the hashtag #AskObama.

Which one generated more buzz? We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

Obama vs. Facebook

Zuckerberg’s Facebook announcements, including Skype video chatting capabilities and group chat — generated significantly more buzz than President Obama’s Town Hall.

Did you participate in either live stream?

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?

Microsoft yesterday unveiled Windows 8, which includes a touch-optimized, tile-based main interface, melding the user friendliness of modern smartphones with powerful PC features like complete access to the file system, the ability to see more than one app at a time on screen, and desktop caliber apps.

Apple, on the other hand, is poised to announce the eagerly awaited cloud system iCloud during Monday’s WWDC, among many other new features and announcements (OS X Lion, iOS 5).

We used Social Radar to measure buzz around Microsoft Windows 8 to Apple iCloud, OS X Lion and iOS 5.

Microsoft Windows 8 vs. Apple iCloud, OS X Lion, iOS 5 buzz

Windows 8 is currently generating more buzz than Apple iCloud, iOS 5 and OS X Lion.

Microsoft vs. Apple buzz

Throughout the last 30 days, Apple has generated more chatter overall than Microsoft, despite a large spike for Microsoft around May 10 following the Skype acquisition.

Microsoft sentiment

Microsoft conversations are currently 65% positive, which is below the average 80% positive throughout the last month.

We will check back Monday following Apple’s WWDC with further analysis around Apple buzz.

Microsoft announced plans to buy Internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion in its biggest-ever acquisition, placing a rich bet on mobile and the Internet to try to best rivals such as Google. The software company outbid Google and Facebook, which sources said offered to partner or buy Skype for $3 billion to $4 billion.

The news comes shortly after Apple was named the world’s most valuable brand, dethroning Google, which held the title for four years. In its annual BrandZ ranking of the world’s 100 top brands, Millward Brown estimated the worth of Apple’s brand at $153.3 billion.

We used Social Radar to measure conversations around both stories.

Skype, Microsoft & Apple buzz

Chatter around Skype is up 793% today following the acquisition announcement.

Microsoft – Skype acquisition sentiment

Conversations around the acquisition have been 62% positive today.

My biggest question is…will Skype work on my MacBook and/or iPhone anymore?

Facebook and Skype are working on a deal that would integrate Facebook Connect with Skype accounts, which will enable users to SMS, chat or call Facebook friends directly from Skype.

Chatter around Skype has already doubled today in the hours since the announcement.

Skype chatter trend

Chatter around Skype is currently 79% positive.

Skype sentiment

We also compared chatter around Skype to Google Voice, a new service that provides a single phone number for all a user’s cell, home, and work numbers, and lets the users manage voice services online.

Skype vs. Google Voice chatter trend

Unlike Skype, Google Voice is a browser-based service. Google Voice is not tied to a geographical location nor linked to a specific handset nor matched with an IP address; it’s tied to a person.

After rejecting the Google Voice app last year, Apple has now approved and will offer Google Voice via the iTunes app store. The Google Voice mobile app would allow a caller to send and receive free SMS and use cheap long-distance calling.

The future of communication is coming fast, it will be interesting to watch how innovative companies and providers prepare and react to new opportunities.

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 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.