Communications of the ACM
Getting a Grip on Online Buzz
Viralheat
Big-name companies increasingly recognize the importance of discussions about their products on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But keeping track of so many conversations in real-time is a daunting challenge.
A startup called Viralheat, based in San Jose, CA, has launched an analytics package designed to allow in-depth analysis of the tenor of this back and forth. The company hopes its software will help its clients sort through the often overwhelming amount of available data from the social Web.
"The huge issue that everybody is having with social media right now is that it's just incredibly fragmented," says Viralheat's founder and CEO, Raj Kadam. There are dozens of sites where users may be discussing a brand, Kadam says. "Big brands only have so many hours in their day to understand this," he says. "They need to listen, measure what's happening with their audience, analyze it, and then figure out a way to engage their customers."
Viralheat monitors tweets, blog posts, video uploads, discussion on Facebook pages, and other social data sources. A user can be quite specific about what she wants to monitor--for example, focusing on discussions about the movie Avatar that take place outside the United States. The tool collects data that fits the bill and lets customers view them individually or as graphs that show broader trends.
From Technology Review
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