Since we have such a uniquely flexible and accurate sentiment tracking system, we’ve been debating for some time whether or not to attach it to Twitter directly. Summize beat us to the punch with their algorithmic sentiment tracking system last year, and then Twitter acquired them — so we’ve feared competing with the “mother ship.”
Summize appeared to be great at analyzing large volumes of data, and is an impressive general twitter search engine. Unfortunately, like all other traditional text-mining systems chasing sentiment, it had sporadic but gaping accuracy holes that may have turned off those looking to do detailed brand monitoring. We’re speculating that this may be why after Twitter acquired them, the sentiment feature has been largely buried.
Joel Spolsky just posted at length today that he’s chosen to buy the Nokia E71 over the Apple iPhone 3G largely because of focused twitter searches:
When Apple’s iPhone 3G came out, I was pretty sure I’d get one. It had all the features I was waiting for. But the lines just weren’t going away.
I searched Twitter. For a week, then two, every day brought fresh reports of five-hour waits.
And then the reports of bugs started coming in. The Exchange synchronization features weren’t up to snuff, I heard. The phone crashed regularly, I heard. Basic operations were painfully slow. Battery life was abysmal.
Adam Curry suggested getting a Nokia E71. I had never heard of this thing. Nokia? Really? For years I had always thought that Nokia made chunky Europhones that were always just one button short of a usable user interface.
But, no, the more I investigated, the more it seemed that the E71 was a truly credible alternative to the iPhone 3G. The reviews coming in from Europe were stellar…
If stories like this don’t convince the luddite PR professionals that are still so prevalent, to get on the Twitter bandwagon I don’t know what will.
We’re in the middle of engineering several Sentimine tests for clients and prospects for new dashboards, services, and reports, but it seems like it’s time to put a Twitter sentiment system plan on the whiteboard. If anyone reading this has a concrete monitoring project (preferably brand, product or stock-oriented) they’d like to alpha test let me know. Steve AT parnassusgroup DOT com.
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