Tweeple have been loving tweetfeel and if you’re a programmer, we have a treat for you! The tweetfeel team has been hard at work developing a Tweetfeel API so that you can capture twitter sentiment and present it in any way you wish. The Tweetfeel API is now listed on ProgrammableWeb.

➔ Want to create your own desktop sentiment meter? Send your search term to the tweetfeel API, gather the most recent sentiment scores, and display the results on your website in a meter you developed yourself.

➔ Want to track a brand over time? Send your search term to the tweetfeel API, gather sentiment scores with the timestamp, and plot the results in your own chart.

➔ Want to track your competitors? Send their search term to the tweetfeel API, gather sentiment scores with the timestamp, and plot the results in your chart.

Your options are unlimited and bounded only by your imagination. Even better, you can access the API for free! Sign up for the tweetfeel API on WebServius. It’s available now.

In the 24 hours that elapsed after Steve Jobs made the iPad announcement, we collected almost half a million tweets about the iPad. Using TweetFeel’s proprietary sentiment engine, we scored a sample of about 40,000 tweets. Then, we dove right in to take a much closer look at a subset. Here’s what we discovered.

Overall sentiment sat at around 60% positive. Generally, people have positive opinions about the iPad.  But, among the 40% of tweets that didn’t talk about the iPad in a positive light, the majority of tweets were related to the name and it’s associated feminine hygiene references. In addition, people felt that the lack of Flash, multi-tasking, and a camera were huge drawbacks. The most common negative opinion was that the iPad is just a big huge iPhone – so what!

On the other hand, the positive tweets mostly reflected generic comments such as “It’s awesome” and  “I want one”.  In other words, people don’t really know what it is or what it does, but boy do they ever want one.

In 2001, the iPod kind of got the same kind of chatter so only time will tell now!

Jersey Shore is a new show focusing on a subculture that rarely takes the limelight on television, one populated by extreme personalities who call themselves guidos and guidettes. It has received a lot of heat for being offensive and racist towards Italian people. Some sponsors, such as Dominos Pizza and American Family Insurance, have pulled their ads from the show because of the controversy. In fact, UNICO National protested the show but this did not have an effect. On the other hand, some companies such as BeenVerified.com, a background checking service, have decided that Jersey Shore does in fact represent their brand and have  since become sponsors.

What do tweeple think of all of this? As the blue line in the chart below shows, the volume of chatter has steadily increased since the show previewed on television. Given the controversy surrounding this show, the volume of chatter will no doubt continue to increase.

What is particularly interesting is the sentiment trend. For the week before the show premiered, tweeple shared a range of opinions about the show resulting in fewer than 50% of opinions being positive. However, most recently, and after the show has aired, sentiment drastically increased and currently sits at more than 80% positive. It seems that the initial fears of racism were outweighed by the many people who seem to enjoy the peculiarities of the characters portrayed on the show. Time will tell how other sponsors react as the show increases its audience base, and more people are exposed to the controversy.

Years past saw Cabbage Patch Kids (adults will remember), Tickle Me Elmos (adults’ kids will remember), and other hot toys tempt the imagination and money of millions of people. This year is no different with Zhu Zhu pets, the electronic hamster that promises all of the fun without the mess, becoming the Toy of the Year. The toys were on people’s minds for a while, but as the chart shows, it wasn’t until early November that chatter volume broke through the noise and registered a blip in the Twitter stream. This blip reoccurred in the middle of November when the toys began to run out and consumers were attempting to find locations where they could still purchase the toy.

Despite the ups and downs in the volume of chatter, sentiment towards these toys has been near perfect reaching almost 100% positive every single week for a couple of months now. The low price-point is no doubt a major factor for their popularity in this economy. Notice, however, that just recently, sentiment has started to decline. This is likely the results of two factors.

1. The toys have sold out nearly everywhere and consumers are expressing their dissatisfaction with being unable to purchase them.
2. Concerns have just been raised that the toys may be recalled due to health issues.

We will be certain to track how sentiment changes as more is learned about whether there is a potential hazard. Stay tuned!

The war in Afghanistan is being called Barack Obama’s Vietnam, with many ups and downs over the last couple of months. We took a look at what tweeple were saying when they referenced both Obama and the war in Afghanistan. The chart reveals a few interesting things.

1. Over the last three months, positive sentiments towards Obama and the war have been increasing. This suggests that people who are chatting on Twitter are feeling more positive about how he is dealing with this crisis.
2. A large blip in chatter volume occurred at the end of September and the start of October when controversy erupted over whether Obama should take a trip to Denmark to support the Chicago Olympic bid. Clearly, the fact that something as trivial as sports was getting more attention than something as serious as a war caused outrage for many, particularly when the Chicago bid failed.
3. The recent announcement that Obama would be sending thousands more troops into Afghanistan created another increase in volume accompanied by a decrease in satisfaction. Both pro and anti-war tweeple could express both outrage and approval with the combined message of sending additional troops and giving a timeframe for ending the war.

Even when the discussion is specifically focused on Afghanistan, other countries remain top of mind. Iraq leads the list representing 34% of discussions about other countries, and this is obviously because of the war occurring there. Pakistan follows with 25% of the mentions particularly in relation to stability of the region. In contrast, Vietnam has the third largest share of conversation with 16% due mostly to discussions about whether Afghanistan is “Obama’s Vietnam.”

Obama is dealing with far more issues than just the war in Afghanistan, each of which is just as serious. So stay tuned as TweetFeel continues to track the sentiment of tweeple about Obama’s performance.

Well, not literally, but Tiger Woods did crash his car and he is getting burned! But what do real folks think of the whole situation? The volume of tweets related to Tiger had been relatively low prior to November 27 at which time it registered a 9000% increase. Even now, several days later, the spike remains, though only about 4000% higher. If that’s not statistically significant, we don’t know what is!

Sentiment showed a similar significant change as a result of the incident. Sentiment was hovering around 100% positive until November 27 at which point it suddenly dropped when people learned about the accident and became concerned for his well-being. Now, instead of nearly 100% approval, Tiger is dealing with an approval rating of about 60%. And that’s a big drop for someone whose income depends on consumer approval.

But as we all know now, it wasn’t simply his well-being that peaked our interest and kept us going. On day 1 after the incident, 92% of the chatter was focused on the car crash or accident. This quickly transitioned, however, such that by day 4, just 43% of tweets were about the car crash and 57% were about a supposed extramarital affair, perhaps the transgression that Tiger today announced he was regretful for. One can only wonder how will this impact his marketability.

The lighter side of this whole incident though, is that the drama brought us a fantastic set of new jokes. Here are just a few of our favorites. Enjoy!

• Police say Tiger Woods injuries are not serious, however he is feeling a little under par

• Maybe Tiger Woods should change his name to ‘Cheetah’ Woods

• What’s the difference between a Titleist and a Cadillac?? Tiger Woods can drive a Titleist 400 yards without hitting a tree

• What’s the difference between a car and a golf ball? Tiger Woods can drive a ball 400 yards.

• Tiger Woods is so rich that he owns lots of expensive cars. Now he has a hole in one.

• Hollywood is making a film based on this incident: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Hydrant

In a story that had nothing to do with weightloss or people jumping on couches, the Oprah Winfrey show was in the news yet again on November 19th and 20th 2009. The announcement that Oprah had decided to end the Oprah Winfrey show after 25 years was a shocker for some people.  This stunning announcement is quite clear in a very simple chart of the volume of Oprah tweets. In the days before the announcement, the volume of tweets fluctuated slightly. Then suddenly, on Nov 19 and 20, tweets mentioning Oprah showed a tremendous spike. You don’t need to have color vision to know which is the blue line in the chart below.  The spike, however, lasted only a couple of days after which time the volume of tweets returned to its standard trend.

However, overall sentiment did  not show any major change. Sentiment hovered around 75% positive for the Oprah Show before Nov 19. Then, it then decreased very slightly to around 68% positive at the time of the announcement. Within just a few days though, sentiment had increased once more to about78% positive. Why is this happening?

What types of emotions were people exhibiting in their tweets? As shown in the pie chart below, nearly half of the emotions expressed by tweeple were those of love.  Even though fans might have been upset at the announcement, they were still very fond of Oprah and her show. The next most popular emotions were equally split between expressions of anger and sadness, each reflecting 19% of the pie, but not in sufficient volumes to cause a significant shift in the overall positivity of emotion. Surprise and courage were next in line, finishing off the last 8% and 6% of the pie.

These sample tweets show exactly why sentiment stayed high. Fans had no difficulty expressing both their love for Oprah and their sadness about the show.

• @Oprah SAD SAD SAD BUT,IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE LET THEM GO.I WOULD LOVE TO SEE ELLEN GO ON AT 4:00PM.WE WILL STILL SEE YOU LOVE SUE
• @Oprah I love your program,I loved having you on Twitter
• The Oprah Winfrey Show to end in 2011 after 25 years on air! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8370789.stm sad times…
• awww! Oprah is crying! I love her!

So, where do we think viewers will turn? One of the sample tweets should have given you a clue. If you look at the chatter, Ellen Degeneres seems to be unstoppable with 73% of the chatter among Oprah fans. Tyra Banks is next in line with 15% of the chatter, followed by Rachael Ray with 12% of the chatter. It would take a miracle for Tyra or Rachael to jump over Ellen, but who knows, maybe Oprah will still be number one… except on her OWN network.

Balloon Boy quickly faded into history once the story was discovered to be a hoax. But, the tall tale of a boy set adrift in a balloon provided much fodder for the twitter world. Let’s go on a Balloon Boy journey ourselves, but this time through the eyes of tweetfeel/biz.

We begin our journey on October 15, 2009. The news broke and Twitter was immediately alight with Balloon Boy tweets. Based on the two week period from October 15 to October 29, the blue line shows that 31% of tweets occurred on Day 1, dropped to half that amount by Day 2, and almost disappeared ten days after that. Day 1 tweets hovered at the 50/50 positive negative line (green line) as some people immediately felt it was a hoax while other people expressed concern for the safety of the phantom boy. But, the tide shifted just a few days later as it became widely known that Balloon Boy was a hoax. At this point, the sentiment, among those few people still tweeting, became overwhelmingly positive.

But what were people really thinking? Why did emotions become so positive for a situation that caused dire panic among emergency rescue personnel? A bit of digging into some tweetfeel/biz themes helps to build this story. It turns out that people weren’t expressing their positive sentiments in the sense of being happy about the situation, but rather they were expressing happiness by way of humor. In fact, about 65% of tweets focused on the humour of the situation! People were particularly interested in the fact that the media picked up on the tale even though it was a hoax.

• LOL I love how Balloon Boy is a trending topic.
• Haha, #balloonboy was in the house the whole time. American news just got pranked.
• LMAO balloon boy. Nicely done.

Not everyone thought it was so funny though. Another 21% of people were angry about the situation for several reasons. They were upset that they had been deceived themselves, that people’s time had been wasted worrying and attempting to save a child, and that the parents had simply behaved in a disrespectful manner towards everyone including their own children. Another 13% of tweets expressed sadness, particularly in the early days, about the situation assuming it was real, and then the sadness subsequently turned to disappointment.

• BOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! I hate you Balloon Boy. Way to let me down. You trickster.
• i hate #balloonboy as much as I hated #eliangonzales
• Eff you balloon boy!
• Awww the 911 call made me cry balloonboy
• The Colorado Balloon Boy family is pathetic !
• It landed, and nobody was inside. This is very sad. #balloonboy

If you’re still curious about the incident, Wikipedia has an article that will answer all your questions. If you’re curious about tweetfeel/biz, give it a free testdrive yourself over at tweetfeel.com/biz.

Conversition Strategies announces the launch of www.tweetfeel.com/biz, a subscription based service site that lets companies track the sentiment and content of Twitter chatter with accuracy and specificity.

Toronto, November 4, 2009: CONVERSITION releases www.tweetfeel.com/biz, a subscription service website that allows users to monitor the feelings Twitter users express towards products, companies, and other popular topics such as celebrities and movies. This new offering builds on the success of the free consumer version, and includes an increased focus on accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Tweetfeel.com/biz incorporates traditional research methodologies to ensure that the entire process of measuring and reporting sentiment is as valid and reliable as possible. After users specify the relevant search terms and keywords, www.tweetfeel.com/biz immediately begins to gather tweets in real-time. www.tweetfeel.com/biz then uses a multitude of complex algorithms to evaluate tweets in terms of both positive and negative sentiment.

Unique features available in www.tweetfeel.com/biz include the ability to create very specific and accurate search terms by specifying terms that must be searched and terms that must not be searched. Users can also build customized stories to monitor exactly how people are talking about each search term. These stories, or themes, allow users to identify the most popular and least popular topics, thereby permitting actionable insights to occur. Charts and graphs allow users to easily monitor changes in brand sentiment over time.

Tessie Ting explains, “Sentiment analysis is a difficult process in itself, but by developing a very comprehensive set of algorithms, and relying on our knowledge of valid research practices, www.tweetfeel.com/biz demonstrates a level of validity that makes brand tracking of Twitter data highly reliable and very simple.”

“This industry is no longer just about sentiment,” says Jean Davis. “It’s about understanding why people have positive or negative feelings towards something. Understanding the story behind the emotions turns raw data into useful data.”

For a personalized demonstration of www.tweetfeel.com/biz, please contact Jean Davis.

www.tweetfeel.com/biz offers subscriptions for individual or small business users as well as enterprise pricing.

About Conversition Strategies:

Conversition Strategies is a marketing research firm that listens to consumers by applying scientific research principles to the collection and analysis of online social data. Our strength lies in combining the expertise of respected market researchers with that of social media mavens. Our services are complementary to traditional market research methodologies and help you gain a more holistic view of how people engage in conversation regarding your product, service or brand.

For more information please feel free to contact:

Jeremy Chaput | jeremy@conversition.com | 647.998.3854

Jean Davis |  jean@conversition.com | 631.838.6460

http://www.conversition.com | http://www.tweeteel.com/biz | RESEARCH EVOLVED

tweetfeel/biz is ready to leave the nest and we’re ready to announce it at two upcoming conferences.

First off is TWTRCON in DC on October 22 where we are a sponsor and will be running demos of tweetfeel/biz. Then, on October 27, we will be at the 140 conference in LA also sponsoring and running demos for attendees. Both Jean and Tessie will be there signing autographs as well so be sure to stop at our booth! They’d also love to give you a personal demonstration of how you can use tweetfeel/biz to help your business. See you there!