BuzzMetrics, or Niesen BuzzMetrics as is it these days, is the company most associated with the growing field of WOM (Word of Mouth) research. So, what is so special about what they offer?
The first point of interest is the way that BuzzMetrics has focused on CGM (Consumer Generated Media). Examples of CGM include blogs, message boards, online review sites, and more exotic options such as the files uploaded to youtube.com. This is an exploding area of interest and is beginning to replace older media.
In traditional media the key areas of interest were how important was the medium (e.g. the Financial Times was more influential than a local newspaper) and how many people read or viewed (the opportunity to view). With CGM the issues are: how many people are saying something, how many people are reading it, and how many people are linking to it. This change needs new, more flexible, approaches.
In stressing the importance of CGM, BuzzMetrics point out that research has repeatedly shown that consumers prefer to trust personal recommendations and online reviews to most other forms of information.
For more information on CGM you can go to articles written by BuzzMetric's Pete Blackshaw and posted at Clickz, such as The Pocket Guide to Consumer-Generated Media and Is CGM a Long-Term Strategy?.
So, what can you find at the BuzzMetrics website? First of all there are numerous papers, articles, and links to other sources of information, invaluable to anybody trying to get to grips with WOM. Secondly, there is BlogPulse.
BlogPulse is a search engine that provides a wide range of feedback. Want to know the top 40 blogs, want to know the top 40 links, or news sources or personalities, then check out BlogPulse. You can use TrendSearch to enter phrases and track how they have appeared in the blogosphere over a set period of time, counting the number of posts and listing the posts.
Conversation Tracker can be used to select a particular posting on a site and to then track who is talking about that article. Featured Trends highlights flags up the main topics and subjects that people are talking about in their blogs.
So, to find out more about how to research the blogosphere, or simply to find out more about what is going on, visit BuzzMetrics.
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