Marketers scan blogs for brand insights

Wall Street Journal, June 2 3, B1


'marketers say bloggers' unsolicited opinions and offhand comments are a source of invaluable insights that are hard to get elsewhere.' however, 'In the cacophony of trivial', 'useful nuggets have been hard to find'.

Umbria communications, a boulder, company that iams to identify demographic groups online based on theri speech patters and discussion topics, help U.S. Cellular group to discover teens' anxiety' about exceeding cellular munites and incoming calls that pusing minutes up.

Intelliseek's blogpulse', a part of P&G based in Cincinnati, find mentions of 'Natalie Portman' surged beofore the release of Star Wars which indicates the effect of pre-release marketing.

MotiveQuest, an Evenston firm has clients like Motorola and Citigroup. David Rabjohns, the presidents calls the field of blogwatch 'online anthropology' and he regards his firm as 'almost a mouthpiece for the consumer'.

Blog-monitoring services typically charge big comanies 30,000 to 100,000 a year.

other parties mentioned in the story include Edelman Chicago, walter of Northeastern University who studied 'word-of-mouth' communication and marketing, Technorati and Yahoo's Buzz Index.

Between disparate worlds-A Cal State professor is the wit behind the bite in the Angry Arab News Service blog.

Los Angeles Times, June 7th. 2005

Angry Arab News Service, a popular blog "that provides links and edgy leftist commentary about the war in Iraq, Lebanese politics, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and yes, even Saddam in his skivvies", was created by As'ad AbuKhalil , a Cal State Professor, who claimed "I am politically angry, but in my personal life, I am a happy guy." What makes his political stands out is 'its sense of humor in the dour left-wing landscape'.

"With every reason to mope, AbuKhalil does not".

"Each day at the top of the blog, AbuKhalil reproduces a 20th century painting, just for art's sake. (A disclaimer at the bottom of the blog states that it is an "educational web site and may include copyrighted material in accordance with … US Copyright Law.") "

"He devotes about 2 1/2 hours a day to his blog, reading three Arabic-language newspapers, plus the New York Times, and headlines from the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. Sitting on his bed with his computer on a special stand, he monitors the information delivered to his Sony Location Free TV via two satellite dishes that bring the world to his Modesto home. "