Intelliseek adds Blog analytics to its BrandPulse Internet solution

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Sept 13, 2004

Intelliseek Inc., a marketing intelligence firm specializing in online consumer "buzz" analysis and word-of-mouth measurement, has enhanced its BrandPulse Internet solution by identifying and analyzing content from millions of blogs. Blog is short for "web log," an easily published online diary, journal or daily log that represents one of the fastest growing areas of new content on the Internet.

The new blog analytics capability is designed to help marketers and brand managers track, measure and analyze information from nearly two million blogs a day--information posted and shared by influential, active online consumers and opinion shapers.

"This new capability is another innovative application of Intelliseek's advanced text-mining technologies," said Mahendra Vora, Intelliseek CEO. "Blogs have quickly emerged as leading-edge sources of influence, opinion-sharing and consumer voices on the Internet, and it's critical that today's marketers systematically understand and measure what's being said by bloggers to gauge the full impact of online word-of-mouth behavior."

Intelliseek's BrandPulse Internet solution, used by more than 60 corporate clients and brands and receiving growing attention from industry analysts, finds and analyzes consumer-to-consumer discussion, or consumer-generated media (CGM), in publicly available online consumer message boards, discussion forums, and direct company feedback. Its state-of-the-art text-mining technologies locate active discussion and analyze it for volume, issues, trends, potential trouble spots, corporate reputation, depth of pass-along, sentiment and polarity. Some clients also integrate internal company feedback and data into the mix, such as sales transactions or marketing spending, for a 360-degree view of key data.

"Blog writers serve as leading indicators and creators of news, and they use publishing platforms, photo and video to spread their influence," explained Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek's CMO. "Understanding a blog writer's depth of emotion can help brands anticipate the spread and velocity of good and bad news."

BrandPulse's blog-analysis capabilities enable clients to systematically track and measure emerging trouble spots and help them manage corporate reputation, quality control and other critical marketing tasks, including:

--Message Effectiveness: Is brand messaging being noticed, resonating or backfiring among millions of bloggers?

--New Product Launch Evaluation: What are blog writers saying about a product before launch, and how those insights be used by marketers?

--Influencer Management: Where are prolific and influential blog writers concentrated? What specifically are they saying?

--Company Blog Campaigns: Are company blog campaigns being noticed or shared by consumers? Are campaigns perceived as genuine and trusted?

--Media Penetration & Impact: Is blog commentary feeding or influencing mainstream news or financial analyst coverage?

BrandPulse's new blog analytics capability is built on the cutting-edge Internet search, advanced text-mining and natural language processing technologies developed at Intelliseek's Advanced Research Center (ARC) in Pittsburgh. It is also an outgrowth of Intelliseek's BlogPulse.com, a free, public blog portal launched in May that showcases the firm's blog analysis technologies. BlogPulse analyzes and ranks key issues, phrases and links found in each day's blog postings.

In the last two years, easy-to-use blogging software and low-cost web-hosting fees have spawned hundreds of thousands of blog authors and sponsors, from independent individuals to media outlets, organizations to political causes, social observers to quirky personalities. The Internet now hosts an estimated five million blogs, and about 11% of Internet users have visited a blog, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Others discover blogs while using search engines to find information.