Our ongoing partnership with local CBS affiliate KCTV5 has produced some interesting samples on recent newsworthy topics. This week, Spark monitored sentiment on the Internet regarding the recent launch of Motorola’s new Droid smartphone. Part of that sampling was used on KCTV5′s broadcast (video below).

After extending the Droid sampling through this past weekend, though, we were able to consider a larger date range and compare the launch of the Droid (on Nov. 6) to the launches of iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre earlier this summer.

Droid post-launch sentiment

What a difference a weekend can make. After continuing the sampling for four more days, positive sentiment jumped 10%, putting the Droid in between the Pre and iPhone 3GS in terms of positive sentiment.

Green is positive, red is negative, and gray is neutral sentiment. Neutral sentiment is scored when URLs have a balance in the language of both positive and negative sentiment or no overt sentiment at all. The breakdown for the Droid is as follows:

• Positive: 65.26%
• Neutral: 12.37%
• Negative: 22.37%

Palm Pre post-launch sentiment

• Positive: 67.08%
• Neutral: 11.04%
• Negative: 21.88%

This is the post-launch node-level sentiment chart for the iPhone 3GS (released June 19) from June 19 – July 3 (bottom chart). The large amount of negative sentiment is notable here:

• Positive: 58.46%
• Neutral: 8.85%
• Negative: 32.69%

This is a statistical sampling and the measurement dates for the iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre were slightly longer, but this data shows that the release of the Palm Pre had 1.82% more positive sentiment than the Droid, but that the Droid had 6.8% more positive sentiment than the iPhone 3GS.

iPhone 3GS post-launch sentiment

Influence
Spark uses a proprietary influence algorithm to determine which domain has the largest amount of influence in a particular insight. It is no surprise in the Droid sampling that Twitter is at number one, but it is interesting to note that YouTube is the second biggest site mentioning the Motorola Droid. Many of these URLs were video user reviews or function walk-thrus where users explained the features of the new phone.

Popular tech sites and Droid forums are also influential online. This sampling is from a larger data set, which spanned 11/2 – 11/16.

1. twitter.com
2. youtube.com
3. droidforums.net
4. news.cnet.com
5. phandroid.com
6. pcworld.com
7. engadget.com
8. phonesreview.co.uk
9. pcmag.com
10. geek.com

Below is the news report that aired on KCTV about the sampling, with data up to Nov. 11:

Last night Spiral16′s social media monitoring platform Spark was featured again on Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV5.

This broadcast was part of the newscast’s Web Buzz segment hosted by Kurt Kloeben, who spotlighted some of the takeaways from a recent insight Spark ran on Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The week before, Kurt used Spark on KCTV5 to compare the sentiment of Kansas City Chiefs fans after weeks one and two of the NFL season.

Problems viewing this video? It is also available on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Flickr account.

We gave a presentation at the Kansas City Direct Marketing Association luncheon on Tuesday at Figlio Tower. It’s a basic introduction to social media and the many ways to measure the metrics associated with it. We’d love to hear feedback, so please leave your thoughts in the comments!

On Wednesday evening, Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV5 featured Spiral16 as part of their regular segment on technology and social media.

Problems viewing this video? It is also available on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Flickr account.

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Do you know the influence of your company’s official website in your online community? In this video, Whitney shows us how a company URL can be the center of your ecosystem.

Learn more about the Miller High Life one-second Super Bowl ad by reading our case study. You can also view this video on our Facebook page.

How many of you follow Southwest Airlines on Twitter? They’re on of the most engaged brands we know of, so we interviewed one of the women behind the curtain for @SouthwestAir and the company blog – Christi Day.

Christi is full of insights on working in social media for a large brand. Here are three of our favorite takeaways from our interview:

• “[Southwest] wants us communicating where our customers are.”
• “Our goal [with social media] is to provide great customer service.”
• “Measuring relationships will provide a better outcome for you as a communicator.”
• “A lot of our content is re-purposed and used in several different places.”

In Part 1 of our interview, we focus on Southwest as a company, including how they approach strategy, how their social media presence was born, and what to do in a crisis.

Part 2 focuses on Christi’s individual contribution. She tells us what she handles on a daily basis and how her job at Southwest is more of a “lifestyle” than a career.

Part 1

Part 2

In our third installment of our video series on social media in the “real world,” we take you to broadcast news.

WDAF-TV started dabbling in social media a few years ago, and now regularly integrates user-generated content into their broadcasts (specifically in the morning).

Meagan Kelleher, Web producer, has been at WDAF for nearly three years. She talked to us about their social media strategy, and how social media fits into providing the public with accurate information in real time.

We also discuss the struggles the station is facing as it relates to the current economy and the shift in information-seeking behaviors.

If you want to find Meagan, you can follow her on Twitter or shoot her an email at meagan.kelleher@wdaftv4.com. You can also find WDAF news and sports on Twitter, too.

Part 1

Part 2

We are living in the “largest increase in expressive capability in human history.”

That’s a bold statement from Clay Shirky. His inspiring TED talk is embedded below. Ponder these heavy thoughts as you start your weekend. How are you adapting (or planning to adapt) your organization to these changes?

Description from TED website:

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

Have you seen this music video yet? It’s a response from musician Dave Carroll about his experience on United Airlines. Carroll said his pricey guitars were damaged beyond repair at the hands of United employees.

Backstory via Mashable.com from Carroll’s blog:

In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say “no” to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.

Mashable reports that United called and apologized to Carroll. But how much good does that do if the video goes viral (which it has) and people aren’t aware of the apology? Is an apology enough? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

June 2009 saw two major product releases. The Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS hit stores two weeks apart, and the cheers and jeers were loud on the Web.

Monitoring consumer reaction to a product release is a fantastic way to get feedback on features and prices while brainstorming ideas for upgrades. We wanted to compare the launches of this summer’s most popular smart phones using Spark’s features.

By collecting, organizing, and analyzing this public data, we hoped to discover any patterns, similarities, or differences between the two launches. To give each product a fair shot at data collection and sentiment, we started by monitoring the Monday before each product launch and the immediate two weeks following the launch.

Palm Pre: June 1-June 20 (released June 6)
iPhone 3GS: June 15-July 3 (released June 19)

Category Breakdown

The Site Type Breakdown pie chart separates each URL in the ecosystem into categories. By analyzing these categories, we determined where the bulk of conversation happened for each phone.

In the Palm Pre’s case, nearly 71% of conversations took place on social technology sites or sites that allow user-generated content (videos, blogs, social bookmarks, and social networks).

For the iPhone 3GS, nearly 66% of online conversation took place on social sites.

You can compare these two charts in more detail by clicking the images for a larger view. Palm Pre is on the left, iPhone 3GS is on the right.

It’s hard to call this round, but because the Palm Pre generated more social technology content, we’ll give it to the Pre.

Score: Pre 1, iPhone 0

Insight Growth

The Insight Growth gadget is a line graph that shows the amount of URLs added to an ecosystem by date. You can select fixed dates or relative dates based on the information you want to analyze.

This makes it easy to spot spikes or dips in activity.

On top is the graph for the Palm Pre. Below that is the graph for the iPhone 3GS. Click on either picture for a larger image.

Each graph has peaks and valleys, but there are a few interesting observations based on these graphs.

First, notice the huge spike the day of the iPhone 3GS release. It coincides with the biggest spike in content for the Palm Pre.

In fact, more content was generated about the Palm Pre after the iPhone 3GS release.

This suggests that consumers were comparing the two phones’ features and technology.

It also suggests (due to the lack of content before the iPhone 3GS release) that iPhone buyers are more inclined to talk about the product online.

It seems obvious that iPhone 3GS wins this round.

Score: Pre 1, iPhone 1

Semantic Analysis

Semantic analysis is key to learning the vernacular that your consumers use to talk about your brand. The clouds below list the most frequently used words across both insights (Pre = top, iPhone = bottom). The most frequently used words appear in larger font.

Some words are present on both clouds, which also suggests people were comparing the two phones. The most obvious are listed below. The percentages next to each number represent the amount of URLs from each insight that mention that specific word/phrase (Palm first, iPhone second):

• Apple (50%, 70%)
• Palm Pre (93%, 28%)
• iPhone (63%, 90%)
• Business (33%, 31%)
• Video (37%, 50%)

There are other standout words related to features and functions of both phones. For the Pre, these include:

• blackberry
• itunes
• hardware
• music
• nokia
• screen
• tethering
• touch

… And for the iPhone 3GS:

• camera
• community
• games
• faster
• nokia
• price
• speed
• upgrade

Sentiment Analysis

Watch the video below for an explanation of sentiment as it relates to the two phones.

Based on these results, it appears sentiment weighed more positively toward the Palm Pre.

Score: Pre 2, iPhone 1

Key Influencers

Spark ranks key influencers in two different ways (by domain influence and domain volume). These are the most influential URLs for any given topic. If you’re managing a brand, these are the people who your audience is listening to, and it’s their top destination for information on your brand.

These are the top five key influencers in both categories for both phones:

Palm Pre (Individual URLs)
1. Engadget review (read it)
2. Gizmodo’s Palm Pre page (read it)
3. Cnet review (read it)
4. Engadget’s Palm Pre “hub” (read it)
5. IsYouGeekedUp article on enabling tethering (read it)

Palm Pre (Domain Volume)
1. Twitter
2. YouTube
3. Digg
4. Gawker
5. Gizmodo

iPhone 3GS (Individual URLs)
1. Macworld home page (read it)
2. Cnet review (read it)
3. Engadget review (read it)
4. Apple.com iPhone page (read it)
5. Gizmodo review (read it)

iPhone 3GS (Domain Volume)
1. Twitter
2. YouTube
3. Digg
4. Apple.com
5. PC World

There are two key points to be made by looking at these top engagement targets. First, professional tech blogs rank among the top influencers for both products. These are the top destinations for consumers seeking information on each phone, so Apple and Palm should continue keeping these blogs well informed.

Second, Apple’s corporate website appears in both lists of influencers for the iPhone 3GS. Unlike Palm, it seems Apple is respected as one of the top locations for learning about their products. This gives Apple the upper hand when it comes to brand control.

This round goes to Apple.

Score: Pre 2, iPhone 2

Virtualization

Spark’s virtualization is a 3D map of a topic’s online presence. By visualizing this data, you are able to identify communities and discover their connections.

The virtualizations for the Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS reveal an interesting trend when it comes to traditional online media vs. social media. Watch this video for more information.

We’ve embedded these two virtualizations on a separate page so you can experiment with them yourself.

Conclusion

Judging by the connectivity across multiple communities, the virtualization round goes to the iPhone 3GS. That gives us a final score of…

Pre 2, iPhone 3

These “scores” reflect only the phones’ online activity related to the product launch. Spark’s data suggests that the iPhone 3GS had the more successful product launch.