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June 29, 2006
Look! Up in the Air! In the Blogosphere! It's...the Caped Guy and an Assault on the Media!
For sheer entertainment, the upcoming "Superman Returns" movie (today's No. 15 top link) is generating its share of buzz, based on the fact that today's key people list contains the names of Lex Luthor (played by actor Kevin Spacey), Clark Kent (played by Brandon Routh) and Lois Lane (played by actress Kate Bosworth).
Truth, justice...and the media
But liberal-leaning political bloggers are paying attention to another battle being played out for real: what they perceive as an outright attack on the press by the Bush Administration, captured in today's top blog post by Glenn Greenwald, and fueled by White House Press Spokesman Tony Snow's video from Think Progress (No. 6 top blog post). In all of the hubbub, PressThink's Jay Rosen reminds bloggers why the definitions of "media" and "audience" are changing. And as some observers note, the whole debate boils down to an issue of truth vs. lies: whom do you trust to tell the truth, the media or the current administration? A BlogPulse graph plots the words "mainstream media/media" and "President Bush/Bush Administration" against words dealing with telling the truth or telling lies. And here's the result:
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:13 PM | Permalink
June 26, 2006
Maybe It's Just a Matter of Interpretation...
You've gotta wonder sometimes, how people can read the same information and interpret it so differently. Today's BlogPulse results provide two juicy examples:
Investigative Journalism...or Blabbermouths?
Today's most-cited news story is the New York Times weekend revelation that the Bush Administration is also scrutining personal bank records to track down terrorists. More uncontrolled government snooping, asks a Pittsburgh blogger? Or as today's No. 2 top blog post from Michelle Malkin describes it, "blabbermouths at work?"
WMD...or not
Then there's this: Fox News/Sen. Rick Santorum's claim that the U.S. HAS found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (today's No. 12 most-cited news story), and military officials' disclaimors that, no, indeed, they haven't. Which to believe?
Where the buzz really is...
...is over at Comedy Central, where news of new Futurama episodes (today's top blog post) has some folks all atwitter, and reports that Jon Stewart is responsible for the decline of democratic voting is well, laughable.
World Cup field narrows
Now that some of the World Cup teams are being paired for the semifinals....which ones are capturing the buzz?:
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:23 AM | Permalink
June 22, 2006
Watch it on the Web
Videos and images are big in the blogosphere today, what with Gawker Media's video clip sites (take your pick) among today's most-cited blogs posts.
Video flashbacks
Over at Pitchfork, they've culled YouTube.com for 100 Awesome Music Videos, which is also today's No. 5 most-cited phrase, so if you've wondered whatever happened to Adam and the Ants, or the Village People, or the Go Go's, knock yourselves out (for an entire day, says Box of Jack blogger, assuming you get addicted).
Suing MySpace
Who's at fault when a 14-year-old and 19-year-old meet online for sex? Read the comments on this Austin American-Statesman article (today's No. 5 most-cited news story) about a Texas lawsuit filed against MySpace...and you'll find opinion overwhelmingly blaming MySpace users (and clueless parents?) for what transpires on the Internet. What would Willie Nelson say? "Mamas, don't let your children grow up to be naive..."
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:08 PM | Permalink
June 21, 2006
Parting Ways, And Tech-Head Gizmos
Under the umbrella of parting ways today:
A LiveJournal blogger is hosting a petition drive for all the ways she'd LIKE to party ways with LiveJournal, such that it's today's top blog post after launching just five days ago. "What is needed is a clear, concise method of user compatibility and a sleeker, updated look. We have yet to receive one or the other," writes Aly. The blogger at Writer's Block says it's mostly an attempt to keep LJ from turning into a MySpace clone
Lost the love
Also among today's top blog posts (No. 10) is former Presidential candidate Al Gore's refusal to endorse (actually, his refusal to even answer the question of whether he will endorse) former running mate Joe Lieberman. One blogger asks: does that mean Gore, who already has shown he can win the popular vote, still has Presidential hopes...again?
Gates, as he leaves
On-his-way-out Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is also a hot blog topic today, and the farewell e-mail he sent to employees shows up at No. 17 among today's most-cited blog posts. Note the international flavor of the blog citations linking to it.
And Gizmos: Headless bears, cool shirts
Among the ha-ha techie discoveries this week: a Teddy bear USB drive (remove head; insert bear) featured at Engadget, and a USB air-conditioned shirt, compliments of Gizmodo.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:07 PM | Permalink
Miami Takes the Heat...and Survives
It was neck and neck right up to the buzzer, but the Miami Heat walked off Tuesday with the 2006 NBA Championship trophy by defeating the Dallas Mavericks 95-92. A BlogPulse trend graph shows the neck-and-neck trail of online discussion about the two teams...right up until the winner was declared.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:52 AM | Permalink
June 20, 2006
The War That Won't Go Away
Say what you want about all of of the others rumored to affect the 2006 and 2008 elections - immigration, health care, minimum wage, moral virtue and basic competence - the war in Iraq and the role of the U.S. military (today's 37th most-cited phrase) are issues that won't go away, and todays' blogosphere findings illustrate why.
Two new soldiers
While politicians like Sen. John Murtha and White House advisers like Karl Rove (No. 22 and 9, respectively among today's most-blogged-about people) debate the policy and strategy of war, two soldiers found dead in Iraq - privates Kristian Menchaca and Thomas L. Tucker - are the latest casualties and among today's burstiest names in the blogosphere. And bloggers simply hash out the right vs. the left positions (among today's top blog posts)...and nothing ever changes.
A BlogPulse trend graph shows an upward trend in conversation about the war, with fairly flat discussion about Iraq and "democracy," and occasional spikes about the insurgency in that Middle Eastern country.
Tangential...or not
Other hot items in the blogosphere today that are related to Iraq include the transcript of an embassy communique (today's No. 5 top news story) sent to Washington just before President Bush's surprise visit to Bagdhad last week, and a Time magazine excerpt of Ron Suskind's new book about terror plots in U.S. subways.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:03 PM | Permalink
June 19, 2006
Germany, England, Brazil, Italy: Generating the Most Online Buzz About the World Cup
According to Internet users who are sharing thoughts about the World Cup online, teams from Germany, England, Brazil and Italy are generating the most online buzz and fans are talking about Germany, Brazil, the United States and Italty with the most passion.
While the World Cup games play out on the international stage from Germany, the BlogPulse team has been capturing online discussion about the World Cup to provide added perspective and insights about the soccer phenomenon.
According to an analysis of 44,000 English-language online messages (48% from boards, 45% from blogs, 7% from Usenet) analyzed from May 1-June 16:
Leaders by Group: Group B (England, Trinidad and Tobago, England, Sweden and Paraguay) is generating the most buzz (39%), followed by Group A (Germany, Poland, Ecuador, Costa Rica) at 34%; and Group F (Brazil, Australia, Japan, Croatia) at 29%. Next in descending order: Groups E, C, G, D and H. These numbers were analyzed before last weekend's matches. The gender breakdown of the pool: 62% male, 10% female; 20% gender cannot be determined.
Leaders by country: Based on the sheer volume of buzz, World Cup teams from Germany, England, Brazil and Italy are generating the most discussion.
Most passionate posters: Countries that are creating the most emotional online discussions, as gauged by negative-positive sentiments discovered in postings, are England (50% of posts indicate negative/positive emotion), Brazil (46%), the United States (33%), Italy (32%) and the Netherlands (30%).
The most popular online news sources for World Cup news, as cited in blogs, are Handelsblatt.com, the BBC News Web site and Sports Illustrated.
And while it stil hasn't reached the peak of online saturation as the 2006 Super Bowl (2.5% of all blog posts on the day of the big game), buzz about the World Cup spiked at 2.25% of all blog posts on June 9, opening weekend. Look for it to creep back upwards again as the July 9 championship game approaches. Who will the last two teams be?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 01:22 PM | Permalink
June 15, 2006
Women Shake it Up: Ann Coulter (hot seat), Daryl Hannah (up a tree) and Katrina (show us the money?)
Looks like it's women's day in the blogosphere, what with ultra-conservative author Ann Coulter (today's third most-blogged-about person) on the hot seat again for her latest book, the timidly (ahem) titled Godless: The Church of Liberalism. People either hate her (Henry Rollins' "love" letter here, with a language warning) or love her (Update: the Rollins video has been removed). Most days, we just wish she'd go away.
Darryl, come down?
Actress Daryl Hannah (today's fifth burstiest person) made a news splash this week, too (no pun intended, or maybe it was) by climbing a tree to protest the destruction of a 14-acre garden in Los Angeles; the environmentalist actress was later removed from the tree and arrested. According to the TreeHugger blogger, the protest was fruitless and the community garden/farm was razed. Snarky bloggers chime in on the brou-ha-ha.
Katrina redux
And just in time for the 2006 hurricane season, Katrina makes a return visit, although not yet in the form of high winds and crashing waves. This time it's in the form of billions of un-accounted for funds from FEMA for Katrina relief, such as that in the form of today's No. 2 most-used phrase: "dom perignon champagne and other alcoholic beverages." That's what some of anestimated $1.4 billion was spent on by FEMA, as well as porn, Caribbean vacations and sex change operations. Agency spokesperson Aaron Walker is today's burstiest person for having to justify the report about the bogus expenditures. And how sad it is when one blogger's "ooooh, big surprise" headline commentary seems to be more like par for the course rather than a sarcastic reference to an extraordinary screw-up? BlogPulse is already picking up buzz for the upcoming hurricane season:
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 01:57 PM | Permalink
June 14, 2006
Crashing News: Quarterbacks and Leak Investigations (And Beer!)
White House advisor Karl Rove's escape from scrutiny -- and Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback Ben Rothliesberger's sudden exposure to it -- top the blogosphere today. Rove is today's 2nd-most-discussed personalty (Big Ben ranks No. 3) because, respectively, the former is not being charged with a crime in the federal investigation of who leaked a CIA agent's name to the press and the latter is being charged with reckless behavior for crashing his motorcycle and not wearing a helmet. Six of the day's key phrases refer to news of Rove's clearnance, while Rothliesberger's injuries are starting debates (again) about helmet safety laws (and common sense).
We'll drink to that! (or not)
In a morning e-mail, a colleagued pointed out that Budweiser's sponsorship of the World Cup soccer championships (covered at AdRants, among others) is getting some definite "reaction," especially from those offended that the host country is one of the world's renowed brewers of fine beers, many of which are not on sale at the games. A BlogPulse search for the words "Budweiser" and "World Cup" produce some interesting results, including this MySpace review of a Czech flavor test. Assessments included "quite good" and the pithy "I don't know how to say. It is missing ... um, yes. I miss the, uh, typical taste of beer." This Bud's for you...
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 01:58 PM | Permalink
Tracking the "Buzz" On Hardware, Software Products
Nielsen BuzzMetrics, the parent company of BlogPulse, today announced that it's making "buzz" data available to CNET's TechRepublic web site, where IT professionals provide peer reviews of hardware and software products.
Data from BuzzMetrics' reservoir of online consumer discussions - culled from boards, blogs, forums, Usenet, etc. - are automatically fed into two charts that are integrated into the TechRepublic reviews. A Buzz Score measures the volume of online buzz about the products being discussed; a Slant Score tracks the percentage of positive posts for each product reviewed. It's the first in a series of publisher applications being made available by BuzzMetrics to media firms, publishers, portals, advertisers, etc. See a sample here for Microsoft Windows.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:00 AM | Permalink
June 12, 2006
Bloggers Cover Their Favorite Subject: Themselves?
Never let it be said that bloggers are empty in the ego department. News that blogger Robert Scoble (today's sixth most-blogged personality) is leaving Microsoft (for Podtech Network Inc) is by far the biggest blog news of the day. So much so that over the weekend, Scoble himself had to set the record straight about why he's leaving, and that piece of writing is today's No. 2 most-cited blog post. The blogger at Publishing 2.0 likens it to the Pope leaving Catholicism, while another simply wishes him well.
And that's not all...
And what's the most-cited news story? Bloggers meeting with other bloggers: the recently completed DailyKos convention of progressive/liberal bloggers held over the weekend in Las Vegas. "Cogito, ergo blog," writes the Mahablogger ("I think, therefore I blog").
World Cup fun and games
Before the FIFA World Cup soccer championship began last Friday, Mighty Optical Illusions deocrated soccer balls representing each country and asked readers to explain the themes. And check out the varied topics discovered by searching the posts in today's No. 13 most-blogged phrase, "watching the World Cup." They encompass everything from watching the games on a rainy weekend to small-screen viewing (why?) to riots in Mogadishu, where residents protested when Islamic leaders prevented them from watching the games on "evil" television. And the knitters are back at it with the Knitting World Cup, whereby knitters (who did the same during the summer Olympics) create knitting projects from opening game (June 9) to final match (July 9).
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:25 AM | Permalink
June 08, 2006
The Killing of a Terrorist
Within minutes of the announcement that U.S. forces had killed Iraqi-based al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the blogosphere starting popping. If you check out the BlogPulse Live graph on the home page, in fact, you'll notice a uptick in blog discussions about "politics" (the orange line on the graph), which encompasses any mention of the war in Iraq and related issues.
An internal BlogPulse tool that tracks blog posts as they're published shows these keywords dominating the list of most common phrases in blog posts by 9:30 a.m.: abu, musba, al-zarqawi, iraq, airstrike, osama, al-qaida, al-qaeda, Baquba (the Iraqi city where al-Zarqawi was killed), terrorist, beheaded, bombing and Bagdhad, among others.
The fallout?
Omar at Iraq the Model resorts to all-capital letters to proclaim: "CONGRATULATIONS TO IRAQ, CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WHOLE WORLD ON THIS VICTORY." The blogger at Military News provides the military talking points, while in a counterpoint post, the Current Era Blog reports that as recently as this week (before today's news), some military officials were saying the war in Iraq is already lost.
A BlogPulse trend graph indicates that while al-Zarqawi was a central figure in the terrorist movement, the movement is perhaps bigger than one man.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:58 AM | Permalink
June 07, 2006
Perspectives: Gay Marriage, Divorce, the War, Gas Prices
Is a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage -- BlogPulse's 7th-most common phrase today and the subject of seven of today's top 40 news stories -- what's REALLY on people's minds? Only in the context of other issues, and only because it's now on the agenda, apparently. Other issues seem to generate more discussion and concern, including the simple mention of "divorce" (which at a 50% rate among first marriages seems a much better target for something that undercuts the institution, wouldn't you think?). A BlogPulse trend graph plots discussion about divorce, gay marriage (with December spikes associated with a Massachusetts' legal ruling allowing gay marraige), the war in Iraq and gas prices:
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 02:02 PM | Permalink
What Fans Like
What keeps us entertained? What keeps us engaged? TV and sports, that's what, and a BlogPulse Trend graph today compares buzz about three major events: one past, one recently past and one future: The Super Bowl, the "American Idol" season (hence the weekly peaks) and the FIFA World Cup soccer championship games, which kick off on Friday: 
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:13 PM | Permalink
June 06, 2006
The Blogosphere's Serious Side
It's apparent the blogosphere has a very serious side when, in addition to popular citations today for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour v3.0 (today's third most-popular phrase), the season finale of "The Sopranos" (No. 2) and 98,657 search results for "Britney Spears," the words "human rights standards" pop to the top of the list of the most popular keywords typed in the last 24 hours by bloggers. And it's fueled by a Los Angeles Times piece about attempts to remove the prohbition of such standards from newly revised military rules governing the treatment of military detainees. Coulnd't help but notice this blog entry from a soldier's wife and other commentary from bloggers.
Speaking of serious...
Also showing up on the serious meter is former Veep and former Presidential candidate Al Gore, (today's third-burstiest person) whose "Inconvenient Truth" documentary (fourth most-cited link) about global warming keeps creeping up in popularity, fueled primarily by word-of-mouth recommendations, many of them from folks who went in skeptical and came out impressed, and others who are reviewing the reviews:
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 05:55 PM | Permalink
June 05, 2006
Border-Country Threats (Only This Time, it's Canda)...and Planning for the Party from Hell
Curious, how with all the recent attention paid to illegal immigrants from Mexico and places south of the border, attention can turn suddenly to the U.S. neighbors to the north. Today, fully one-quarter of all the news stories cited most frequently by bloggers deal with the weekend arrests of 17 Canadians (12 adults, five teens) alleged by authorities to have been involved in "homegrown" terrorist plots to use explosives against key Canadian landmarks and targets.
Reaction galore
No More Mister Nice Blog points out the difference between Internet monitoring and domestic spyings. The Cat's Meow wonders if the arrests signal just another sign of the times? The discussion that's taking place on Myblahg indicates that Canada's populace is undergoing some of the same red-blue/left-right hackling discussions as U.S. voters.
Devilish party!
Elsewhere, the approach of Tuesday - 06/06/06 in d/m/y parlance - is causing equal parts excitement and dread for thsoe who associate 666 with the symbol for the devil/Satan, and Hell, Michigan's preparations (today's No. 8 most-cited news story) are only part of the buzz.
Random (but interesting) blog stuff
Author/blogger Seth Godin has turned off comments on his blog, and here's why. LiveJournalers who breastfeed have an issue with LJ's photo-dinking policy. Anyone gearing up for the 2006 mid-term elections might be interested in Rolling Stone's examination of at what might have happened in 2004 (today's most popuarly cited news story), while former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich examines the Republican-led tax cuts and what's (or who's) behind them. And don't expect BoingBoing to get all excited about the World Cup.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:30 AM | Permalink
June 01, 2006
Sports Fever, in Context (And WWJF?)
Strange and curious sightings in the blogosphere today...
From the sports desk
It's obvious that blogging is a worldwide phenomenon when there's far more buzz for the upcoming World Cup soccer championships in Germany than the ongoing NBA championships in the states and the French Open tennis matches in France. A BlogPulse trend graph shows the way:
Suddenly, the eBay grilled cheese sandwich makes sense
Popping up at No. 12 today among top links is an ad, obviously, for the Jesus Pan, which allows culinary believers to cook the image of Jesus Christ right into whatever they're fryin' up. WWJF indeed?
Paint With Numbers, literally
Another popular link today is OneThousandPaintings.com, which allows you to buy from Sala, a Swiss painter, an original painting (blue on white) of all the numbers, apparently, from 1-1,000. Discussion ranges from "cool idea" to "a sucker born every minute." He paints. You decide.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:24 PM | Permalink
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