On the proximity operations, we actually can use proximity queries against our index, but it is something that we have not enabled in the UI. We try to achieve powerful capabilities balanced with ease of use and this type of operation isn’t intuitively obvious to many users, but perhaps it is something we should look to enable as an “advanced user” feature. I’m wondering, is this something you would have liked to see at the topic profile configuration level or as a capability right in the widgets?

Also, a new feature we introduced this weekend might have been helpful in your analysis – not sure if you have checked it out yet. Now you can launch widgets from other widgets to drill further into conversations. For example, in the comparative topic monitor in your post above, you can now click and hold the mouse button on one of the terms (like “Palin Pick”) which will bring up additional options including the ability to open other widgets such as a topic cloud which then specifically drills down into conversations about “Palin pick” showing you the most frequently mentioned topics where “Plain Pick” is mentioned. And on it goes… you can then pick a word from that topic cloud (ex: “experienced” and trend it on a time series.). Or, you can launch a time series directly from your “Palin pick” bar and see if the conversation volume is spread out over several days or if it spiked suddenly, then you can click on a any spike in the time series and bring up a topic cloud to analyze the conversation on that specific day.

In terms of your other comment on automatically sorting out phrase combinations, it is a great idea and we do have something on the drawing board for that.

I find your election analysis quite interesting.

Regards,
Marcel