While not owning a car is often frustrating, at times it has its advantages in Boston: no digging snow out from around tires, no fighting crowds for parking, and I don’t have to worry about the sticky accelerator pedal in my Toyota sending me to a fiery death. The recent Toyota recall has caused quite the international stir and, while no one in the office owns one, we couldn’t help but wonder what people on Twitter thought. Here’s what we found:

Not surprisingly, people think this is bad for Toyota. Just over a quarter of the tweets about the Toyota recall believe this will damage Toyota’s previously well-respected brand reputation.

Some 22% of the conversation speculated on how the recall would benefit Toyota’s competitors, especially those backed by the American government. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s comment that owners should “stop driving it and take it to a Toyota dealer” fueled theories that the government was looking to boost its investments in GM.

Twitterers dissatisfied with the Toyota response to the crisis thought the company moved too slowly and was wrong to send potential replacement accelerators to assembly plants to build new cars rather than dealerships to repair cars already on the road. The knowledge that Toyotas sometimes cannot be stopped by their drivers left others scared to drive in or around them.

Twitter is usually good for funny one-liners and Toyota’s tag line “Moving Forward” ensured that it failed to disappoint. These snarky tweets, joined by The Daily Show’s coverage of the “Toyotathon of Death” continue to add to Toyota’s collective embarrassment.

Tweets about the recall weren’t all bad for Toyota, as 12% were by Toyota drivers who pledged to remain loyal to the company. It’s great that they love their cars, but for now, I’m happy to keep riding the subway and avoid them on the road.

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It’s fair to say we were pleased when CNN aired our analysis of Twitter’s reaction to the State of the Union address.

We were thrilled when the Huffington Post quoted CNN SVP David Bohrman as saying, “This is light-years beyond what we’ve done”

So imagine our delight when Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show picked up the story in last night’s show.  (See 2:15)

Well, sort of.  He may have in fact said, “I’ve never seen a situation where more information helped me understand less.”

Ouch.

But hey, it was 75 seconds of a pretty packed 22 minutes, maybe people forgot about it? We turned to Twitter (of course) to find out.

Based on Tweets from today, Stewart’s (4 minutes long) take on Chris Matthews’s momentary venture into 1932 was the star of show, with 32% of total praise. In contrast, Stewart’s segment on our analysis barely drew more attention than Doris Kearns’s interview (5 min) with a scant 12%. That’s just a fraction of the total humor produced on that show.

Of course, per second of screen time, Stewart’s Twitter rant generated 28% more praise than his comments on Matthews and 451% more than his interview with Kearns. So maybe it was funny, after all.  What was that again about having more information?

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Last night, Crimson Hexagon’s analysis of over 200,000 tweets pertaining to the State of the Union Address was featured on CNN’s post-speech coverage. Broken down state by state, our technology helped John King and Wolf Blitzer report in real-time what people on Twitter thought of President Obama’s speech. We are very excited about our new relationship with CNN and hope to be making more appearances on the ‘magic wall’ in the near future!

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Today, Boulder, Colorado-based social media agency Room 214 announced that they chose Crimson Hexagon as a key strategic partner to provide next generation opinion analysis and monitoring to extend their social media research and business intelligence offerings.

Room 214 has been creating interpretive analyses of user generated content and aggregated online data since 2006. They remain tool-agnostic and are leveraging our monitoring platform to help large brands better distill opinions and meaning from social networking properties and online conversations.

The social media agency was one of two early enterprise agency partners we began working with in 2009.  Their insightful product feedback, deep understanding of our platform, and analyst resources make them an ideal partner to deliver and extend the value of our software.

Room 214 co-founder James Clark feels, “In stark contrast to straight up sentiment analysis, Crimson Hexagon data provides the intelligence to drill deeper into relevant opinions in the online conversation to better align marketing strategies and initiatives that incorporate the voice of the customer.”

In fact, one of the key reasons Room 214 chose Crimson Hexagon was that our opinion monitors go far beyond automated sentiment, which in their words is unreliable and only provides a breakdown of positive, negative or neutral conversations.

We are excited about this relationship and the great potential it has going forward.  As strategic partners, we are working closely together on product feedback, training, joint marketing and selling initiatives.

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Being a little Twitter obsessed here, we couldn’t help but notice that Seesmic released the brand-new Seesmic Look yesterday. Touted as featuring extensive upgrades to the UI, the product is aimed at making social media adoption easier for consumers.  As founder Loic Le Meur put it, “We were challenged to reach out to an untapped market – a mainstream audience not familiar with Twitter – [...] (think “Mom” or “Dad”), that heard of Twitter but were never interested, or never had the opportunity to have a positive and friendly experience.”

So how’d they do?  We went to Twitter to find out.

VoxTrot Opinion Breakdown of Twitter Conversation

Overall reaction was fairly positive, with about 60% of Tweets praising the design, although a small portion of these (9% of total) felt that the product still lacked key functionality.  This mirrored about the feelings of about another quarter of Tweeters who were generally unimpressed or were sticking with arch-rival Tweetdeck.  Some users didn’t have a choice in staying put; Seesmic Look isn’t available on Macs, as about 11% of the conversation pointed out.

Seesmic’s done a great job with the release and we’re looking forward to Tweetdeck’s response over the next few months.  In the meantime, we’re battening down the social media hatches for Apple’s tablet mystery product reveal next week.

Tags: Seesmic, social media, Twitter // Comments

Here in Cambridge, MA, every other TV commercial for the last two weeks has been a senate campaign spot. Yesterday, Republican Scott Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts special election after taking full advantage of social media campaign tools. Now that the dust from the election has settled, we decided to take a look at the online conversation about the election and see if claims that Brown’s campaign dominated the social media arena were true. This is what we found:

Tweets On Election Day

Yes, social media strongly favored Scott Brown.

-          41% of tweets specifically favored Brown, referencing votes, time and money given to him.

-          An additional 9% were anti-Coakley for her political views and poorly run campaign

-          A further 21% were conservatives happy that stopping Coakley meant hamstringing the Obama agenda in the senate as well (mostly focused on health care and carbon cap and trade)

-          Even the 16% of tweets that were anti-Brown focused mostly on him being too liberal

The lonely few pro-Coakley Twitterers managed to capture 9% of the overall conversation flow and their candidate took 47% at the polls.

Blogs And Forums Throughout The Campaign

Analysis of conversations on blogs and forums showed similar results to the Twittersphere of pro-Brown, anti-Coakley, and anti-Obama sentiment over the course of the campaign, though Coakley’s support was twice that of what it was in Twitter. With access to more than 140 characters at a time, bloggers and forum-dwellers tend to express many opinions over the course of one post, so our categories were a little broader to reflect this (it turns out people who disliked Coakley tended to also think that Scott Brown is great.)

Monitoring over time revealed a brief bump in the conversation focused on stopping Obama’s agenda on 1/8. On that day, Scott Brown appeared on Sean Hannity’s show, bringing a more national, conservative audience to the Massachusetts race. Over the rest of the race, the sentiment held steadily.

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Last week, tens of thousands of tech junkies flocked to Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), eager to get their hands on the latest electronic gadgets, network with like-minded professionals, and maybe catch a glimpse of visiting celebrities. With so many savvy users in the same place, it’s no surprise that the event generated a massive Twitter buzz. We thought it would be interesting to let loose our VoxTrot Opinion technology on the CES-related tweetstream – here’s what we learned.

New TV and 3D technologies overwhelmingly garnered the most praise on Twitter, led by the Boxee Box, which directly links internet content to your TV, and four separate television manufacturers who launched 3D sets. The Boxee Box took top honors in the “Last Gadget Standing” competition for most exciting new gadget at CES (as judged by audience applause).

Mobile technology also got people at CES excited, making up 15% of relevant CES related tweets. This conversation was driven mostly by Google’s Nexus One, RCA Airnergy’s wireless charger and FLO TV’s mobile live TV player. There were far too many new gadgets to create a category for each of them, but rave reviews for all other consumer electronics at CES made up fully one fifth of tweets.

Not everyone was satisfied with what they saw at CES, however.

• Ten percent of people were less than impressed with the new technologies and exhibits they saw at CES. Some thought that 3D TVs and games were gimmicky, while others simply didn’t see anything that wow’ed them
• Another 13% thought that the atmosphere at CES was lacking, especially as compared to last year. This included seeing lower profile displays, fewer giveaways and fewer “booth babes”
• Finally, AT&T frustrated many iPhone users with spotty 3G and wireless coverage at the Las Vegas convention. The increasingly popular hashtag #attfail saw a lot of use as tech junkies lashed out at AT&T (13% of conversation)

With CES 2010 now a memory and a whole year of new technology ahead of us, we know that people will continue to tweet about their favorite (and least favorite) gadgets – and Crimson Hexagon will be right there to measure the conversation.

Tags: Consumer Electronics Show, Twitter // Comments

In the war that is apparently the norm in soft drink pricing, negotiations are usually held behind closed doors. But on November 17th the doors were blown open as Costco refused to restock Coca-Cola products because they failed to offer “competitive pricing.” When a similar pricing dispute occurred in February between Delhaize, a supermarket chain, and Unilever brands, Delhaize lost 31% of its customers, while Unilever lost 47% of Delhaize shoppers.

So does anyone win these disputes? We decided to turn our VoxTrot monitor’s attention to the online conversation surrounding the Costco/Coke dispute to see what the Twitterverse thought.

The Twitter users who chose a side in the dispute were closely split, with 11% supporting Costco and 14% for Coke. Many Costco supporters saw them as a champion of the consumer, while supporters of Coke said they shouldn’t back down from corporate bullying. One in five mentions were just plain sad about the situation, trying to figure out where they would now purchase their pallets of Diet Coke.

Not all Tweets were concerned. Some were incredulous about the lack of Coke products in Costco, as 18% thought that the whole public dispute was crazy or astonishing and 12% cracked jokes about it. The rest of the conversation was pessimistic about the clash, with 15% ready to dismiss it as simply two corporate giants battling over a few cents per can and the last 10% remarking that competitors to Coke (Pepsi) and Costco (Walmart) were going to benefit.

So who is winning? Perhaps the question should be: is anyone winning? For the few who take a side, the sentiment is even, but most everyone else is sad, disdainful, amused or betting on the competitors, none of which seem positive for either company. As far as the Twitterverse goes, it appears that everyone is losing, including the consumer.

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Our office here in Cambridge, MA is blessed with talent from all parts of the country.  As a result of our mixed geographical heritage, few topics are as hotly debated in the office this time of year as pro football and coffee chains.  After a recent debate on the latter topic in which every side claimed that ‘most people’ agreed with them, we decided to take a peek at the online conversation and see if our assumptions were reflected in reality.

Deciding to limit ourselves for the time-being to Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, we analyzed over 230,000 blog and forum posts from June 1 to yesterday in an attempt to settle the debate whether internet’s perceptions of these brands matched our own.   We analyzed content every day, but summarized the results as the conversation was fairly stable  over that time.  Dunkin’ Donuts, as a mainly regional player had about 10%  of the volume of its much larger peer.

As those who have grown up in the Northeast know, DD is much-beloved local institution and 14% of the conversation were  general exclamations of love.   Those who had moved away from the region and missed their local shop were especially passionate in their praise for the chain.    Matching our own experience in the office, a large number of people (17%) mentioned Dunkin’ as a regular fixture of their daily routine;  particularly for morning coffee runs.

A number of Dunkin’ customers weren’t as satisfied with the experience of grabbing their coffee – complaints about sloppy service emerged quickly as a theme.  However, the regional devotion to DD’s syrupy take on coffee far outweighed the complaints.   We knew about the coffee but in training our analysis algorithm we were surprised at the amount of love for DD’s low-cal flatbread sandwiches and praise for their taste / calorie ratio.

Not everyone was impressed by DD’s commitment to their health, with 18% complaining about the caloric content of their baked goods.

Starbucks managed to avoid major health complaints despite Starbucks’ fattening drinks, which owned the cravings of many posters.   Their regular coffee, on the other hand, did not feature nearly as prominently or as well, with a category of negative posts specifically about the coffee and only a scattered few posts in praise of it (we rolled these compliments into the ‘Other Positive’ category.)  Despite the lack of enthusiasm about the basic coffee, a significant slice of the conversation mentioned Starbucks as part of daily routine as well.   For us, its position less than a block away trumps any concerns for pleasing our taste buds during our caffeine fixes.

Commenters also complained somewhat about the price of Starbucks’ offerings, long a symbol of casual decadence, but perhaps not as much as we expected.  An equivalent number of people felt that Starbucks was ‘evil’ on account of their scale, competitiveness with local business, and homogeneity. (The company is addressing this)  Not exactly shocking for us, as the DD proponents usually bring up the Austin Powers reference at least once an argument.

These complaints were minor compared to the biggest surprise to come out of the analysis:  that such a large number of Starbucks customers are vocal and satisfied with the shops’ ambiance (Good Experience.)  We read a number of posts by students who appreciated Starbucks as a study space and stressed out moms who sought it as a daily sanctuary.  The Seattle-based company has long emphasized this component of their brand, and it appears that their attention to the details of everything from the furniture to the music continues to pay dividends.

We haven’t managed to settle any internal debates here with this analysis, and no money changed hands on the side bets, but at least next time we’ll have proper statistics to hurl at one another.  Or possibly just stick to debating whether the Vikings are overrated.

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Crimson Hexagon’s battle of the brands series highlights how consumers feel about the brands they interact with on a regular basis.  Applying this lens to social media content is intriguing because it provides unique access to the ever-elusive “voice of the customer.”  While conventional social media monitoring tools can’t focus on this level of detail, Crimson Hexagon’s underlying science can quantify abstract concepts without keywords.

For our second head-to-head match-up, we looked at two brands of pain reliever that are in most household medicine cabinets: Tylenol and Advil.  With the FDA announcement about the risks of acetaminophen earlier this summer and the widespread discussion about the H1N1 virus (Swine Flu), there is no shortage of conversation, advice, and opinion about these brands online.

We analyzed opinions about Tylenol and Advil from April 1^st to September 6^th of this year.  Using our technology, we focused on customers’ experiences with the medications, drawing from blogs, forums, and public Facebook and MySpace content.  Here’s what we found:

Themes in Online Conversation: Tylenol & Advil

Brand Focus: Tylenol

Brand Focus: Advil

• Advil is primarily associated with strong pain relief, especially for headaches (60% combined), while Tylenol has more varied discussion.
• Overall people seem to think that Tylenol is safer.  More people (18% vs. 9%) trust Tylenol enough to give it to their children.  While there is conversation about the risks associated with each product, only Tylenol also inspires discussion about its safety and gentleness (8%).  6% of people talk about Tylenol as the brand their doctor recommends while no detectable proportion of the Advil conversation points to a doctor’s recommendation.

Trends over time: Tylenol

NOTE: Spike corresponds to FDA recommendation on lower maximum dosage for acetaminophen (June 30, 2009)

• When the FDA announced a recommendation to lower dosages of acetaminophen, the main active ingredient in Tylenol, conversation briefly spiked as people became concerned about Tylenol and liver damage, then fell back to its original levels.

Tags: Battle of the Brands // Comments