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?

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?

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.