Sometimes you just need let the numbers tell the story. I'm beginning to pull together various notes and conclusions from 2007, and in the process ran a series of trend charts on BlogPulse.com. This tool charts out the number of references against a given term or phrase among total new blog postings. Nielsen's BlogPulse tracks about 66 million blogs, and roughly 700,000 new posts are indexed every day. Here's a shortlist of buzzmakers for the year.
Wikipedia Still Trumps the Encyclopedia: The meteoric rise of Wikipedia.com continues to fascinate me (and many others, obviously). This form of "group CGM" continues to nurture trust and credibility across the web, and the number of blog links into Wikipedia punctuate that point. Who would have imagined, only a few years ago, that quirky sounding utility like Wikipedia would draw over five-times as many references online as the ostensibly durable term encyclopedia? Go figure!
Facebook Takes a Leap, YouTube Keeps Marching: As conversation goes, Facebook has jumped well ahead of peer social networking sites, especially Linked-In, and I suspect much of this stems from both the open-sourcing of application development on the platform and the hardly veiled discovery, if not embrace, by the marketing community.
Of course, these numbers may under-represent the true level of discussion about Facebook because most Facebook conversation is taking place on, well, Facebook, not just blogs. My own Facebook group , Consumer Generated Media, quickly grew a membership base that now exceeds email subscribers to this blog. YouTube, meanwhile, continues to burrow itself even deeper into the conversational vibes, aided by user growth, many tipping points of critical mass, increasing diversified content, and aggressive marketing by just about anyone who puts up a video, including marketers.
Iphone Creates a Buzz Halo: But the Real Halo Also Impressive: Unless there's a big surprise between now and December, it will be difficult to dethrone the iPhone as 2007's biggest buzz story. The buzz was strong, sustained, and diversified, which in turn kept the popular device always conversational. Meanwhile, "Halo 3," designed by Bungie Studios for Microsoft's X-Box, also has been a big CGM winner this year, peaking shortly around its release on September 25. Sample the conversation.
As Buzz Goes, We'll Always Have Paris (Hilton, not France): Not sure if this is the best news for the French tourism bureau but Paris Hilton kept pace with overall buzz that explicitly referenced Paris, France, and even far exceeded that during the ubiquitous celebrity's more controversial moments. It's hard to say whether any of this will die anytime soon. You can peruse her HeyNielsen conversation to understand some of the root drivers behind her often-polarizing discussion. Her David Letterman appearance probably takes the cake in terms of elevating her buzz levels above the competition out there.
Steroids Buzz Bonds to Barry Bonds: Guilty or innocent, Barry Bonds just couldn't dodge the vast majority of conversation on blogs related to steroids. Where buzz about steroids spiked, conversation about Barry Bonds was even higher. The only exception was around late June, when steroid related conversation spiked related to the death of professional wrestler Chris Benoit.
Rehab Talk Can't Quit With Lindsay Lohan: Similarly, where discussion related to "rehab" was concerned, it was mostly inseparable from the trials of Lindsay Lohan. Then again, the discussion over rehabilitation programs was hardly monolithic. A much broader discussion ensued across blogs of every variety about whether rehab programs actually work. Many bloggers shared first hand experiences. 
Pete, Good stuff here. At what point does Mike Huckabee (via Chuck Norris) register on the buzz scale?
As for Wikipedia, I can tell you that university students are no help on its inexplicable rise to grandeur...in spite of my constant counsel against it, I get a number of students every semester who use Wikipedia as a source. Amazing.
You've got some great reads on this blog...
Posted by: B. G. Smith | December 22, 2007 at 03:51 PM
Well, thats the lindsay profile that i know.. :) thanks for the information. Anyway nice to see your blog here...:)
Posted by: Account Deleted | December 11, 2008 at 10:56 AM