Been really busy writing my Social Media Analytics Book – the site for the book is live but still being worked on (hopefully it won’t be taken down much for additional work but that’s a possibility).  The trip to London and Oslo ended Sunday night with jet-lagged me on  a flight back to JFK.  I put my presentation at the CIPR below in case anyone wants to view it.  Also the first two parts of the talk that followed mine is here and here (still waiting to upload the third and last clip)

As far as the book site, I’m getting ready to share some teasers for the book and lay out a vision of what comes next in the monitoring field.

Meanwhile, on Saturday night I was in Brighton meeting with Giles Palmer, CEO and founder of BrandWatch and interviewing him for the book.  Giles gave me a lowdown of how data is collected for Social Monitoring platforms and I came away with a new appreciation with for platforms such as his that crawls data instead of buying most of it from data aggregation services like Moreover and BoardReader.  Here’s a video of the visit – let’s put it this way, I have 3 or 4 hours of solid information and I’m not even half way from processing it all.  Having said that, information Giles provided me will probably make most people hyper aware of the difficulties in collecting data and how much of it is questionable.

Before meeting Giles I filmed this clip just outside the Hotel Du Vin, where I stayed last Saturday night – every room of the hotel is named after a wine and Giles told me it’s the best hotel in Brighton, and it’s not hard to see why.

As far as the whole trip, I sensed many of the vendors I spoke with are waiting for the big shakedown in Social Media Monitoring to happen, not sure it’s going to be like that or not, but the market in Europe is much smaller and more segmented.   Having said that, many of the technological advances in the European systems are better than the one platforms that originated here in the US and I clearly saw that.

I’ll be back in the UK and Davos in mid to late February, after my book is submitted to McGraw Hill, and be able to access the situations more closely then.   Finally, there was a lot that I missed in the US while I was gone, including Thanksgiving and a nasty article about Google in the New York Times.  Try as I may, I can’t get the article to render for me.   Also, Google is buying Groupon, and some people think Groupon is evil, but some people say that about Google, too.

I’ll have more to say soon, but with the writing of my book, my time is cut down and it’s harder to post – then again, traveling to Europe last week didn’t help there – I stayed in 5 different hotels over 9 days I was in Europe, including one night in Oslo, Norway.

But it was the best trip to Europe I’ve taken yet!   And if I could tell my readers just how many weird, fated things seem to be happening to me, things that can’t be chance, the whole thing is almost surreal, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just me, doing the stuff I meant to do.

I’m speaking at the Glide Technology event tomorrow morning here in London focusing on Glide Intelligence, Glide Technologies new platform.  Posting has been as light as the activity and social interactions in London this trip have been intensive.   I’ll be returning to New York late this weekend.

I also spoke at an Integrasco Event at the Soho Hotel on Tuesday, November 23rd which went very well.   Tomorrow’s event has 55 registrants which is pretty packed for the Certified Institute of Public Relations (looks like a brownstone from the photos on Google Maps).

Here’s the information about Friday’s event at the CIPR

Breakfast Seminar 26th November 2010

How to measure the engaged web; what worked yesterday does not work today. New methodologies for new challenges.

To coincide with the launch of Glide’s revolutionary new automated sentiment analysis tool, this seminar will examine the challenges of successfully measuring your brand in a socially networked world.

Find out

• How to effectively track your reputation across thousands or tens of thousands of media outlets
• Why traditional methodologies simply don’t work when it comes to measuring social media
• How to cost-effectively benchmark against the competition
• How to measure traditional media (print, broadcast) alongside social media, whilst understanding the connections

Spaces are free but limited so register now to reserve your place.

About the speakers

Marshall Sponder is an independent Web Analytics and SEO/SEM specialist working in the field of market research, social media, networking and PR. He provides digital data convergence generating ROI and develops data metrics, KPI’s and dashboards that drive businesses by setting and evaluating benchmarks. Read his influential blog here.

Keith Woods-Holder is a pioneer in automated sentiment analysis. A former Research Director of Saatchis, he began his career creating advanced mathematical models for the UK Government. He also worked at IBM where he built one of the first commercial sentiment analysis models.

When

Friday 26th November 2010, 8am to 10am GMT

Where

CIPR, 52-53 Russell Square, London, WC1B 4HP

Meanwhile, the one day trip to Oslo was to address the Board of Directors of Integrasco.   I had no idea Norway was so big and far from London (2 hour flight).

I’m speaking at Monitoring Social Media 2010 London today and presentations are great ( mine is posted in the post previous to this one). one piece of news is the Announcement about BrandWatch. More later.

Here’s a playlist of the Small Business Monitoring Panel I spoke on today http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=476DB8826EB7AFDA

I’ll also be speaking shortly on Social Media ROI.

Main release

DURRANTS INVESTS IN BRANDWATCH

Durrants, the UK’s leading media intelligence business, has taken a stake in Brighton-based social media monitoring company Brandwatch after being “blown away” by the company during a trial to find a social media monitoring partner.

The deal will enable Brandwatch, which already operates in 10 languages, to expand its current offer in the US and extend its service to cover Russia and China.

The investment in Brandwatch is the latest in a series of big deals in the social media monitoring space as companies gear up to tackle the challenges of monitoring brand conversations and reputation online. The social media marketing industry is growing by 34% a year and is expected to be worth $3.1bn a year by 2014.*

The investment comes after Durrants went to the market looking for a specialist social media monitoring company and Brandwatch came out on top following a rigorous trial period alongside several other leading international monitoring firms.

Jeremy Thompson, Durrants MD, said: “During the trial it quickly became clear that Brandwatch was head and shoulders above the competition. We were blown away by their relevant and timely coverage, strong account management and technical support, robust platform and user friendly service. It really was a case of liking the company so much we wanted to invest in it.”

As well as the investment, Brandwatch’s social media monitoring data will be used by Durrants’ sister company Metrica, the award-winning global media analysis and evaluation company to track brands and conversations online and offer an enhanced social media service.

“There is a baffling amount of choice for PRs when it comes to tracking brand or client conversations online and our own research tells us that most PRs find social media monitoring one of their biggest challenges.** We’re confident that Brandwatch, working alongside Metrica, will help PRs cut through the confusion and provide meaningful analytics,” Thompson said.

Giles Palmer, Brandwatch CEO, said: “When it comes to monitoring social media it is important to find a supplier and data you trust. We’ve always been confident about what we provide but this move by Durrants provides a ringing endorsement of our service.”

“We operate in a competitive space and I’m very proud that we were able to beat off stiff competition from several North American providers and managed to impress Durrants so much they wanted to invest in the company. The investment comes at an explosive time in the social media monitoring market and will help us push our product to the very top of the global pile.”

Notes to Editors:

About Brandwatch:

Brandwatch (www.brandwatch.com) is one the world’s leading tools for monitoring and capturing social media. Today, social networks are a massive indicator of consumer influence and brand positioning online. So for companies to know what and where discussions are taking place surrounding their brand online is imperative. Brandwatch captures, digests and translates this data into meaningful and useful information; armed with this information, Marketers and PR professionals can structure and track the direction and focus of their social media campaigns. Launched in August 2007 Brandwatch is used by customers around the world to monitor, capture and analyse trends in social media.

About Durrants, Metrica and Gorkana:

Durrants, the market leader in media monitoring (www.durrants.com), Metrica (www.metrica.net), the global media analysis and evaluation specialist and Gorkana, the UK’s most trusted media/journalist database and community network (www.gorkana.com) are part of Discovery Group. This latest investment in Brandwatch supports Discovery Group’s ambition to deliver greater insight to the PR and Marketing communities. The integration of intelligence from these services will deliver unique insights to help companies plan, monitor and analyse their PR more effectively than ever before.

Discovery Group is based on Old Street near the Silicon Roundabout, an area of East London where more than 100 tech and design companies have set up over the last five years. Prime Minister David Cameron recently announced that he wants to establish an East London Technology City and lure Google, Facebook and Microsoft to new offices in Olympic Park, a few tube stops from the Silicon Roundabout.

Metrica was acquired by Durrants in October 2009 and Gorkana was acquired by Durrants in April 2010.

For more information and interviews please contact:

Giles Palmer
giles@brandwatch.com
+44 1273 234290

Richard Bagnall
Richard@metrica.net
+44 20 7664 0800
*Forrester Research

**Gorkana survey of 205 Social Media Panel Event attendees, June 2010