We caught up with the nice people over at Web Pro News to chat with co-founders John and Eric.  Check it out below!

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Right around this time every year, a few thousand peoples’ salivatory glands uncontrollably start to get excited.  They know what’s about to happen.  It’s good old fashioned Texas BBQ time at SXSW in Austin.

We’re pleased to say that review’d co-founders John and Eric will be there in full force helping to get this awesome Twitter sentiment analytics up off the ground.  That’s right, at SXSW 2010 (the interactive part), we’ll be attending the usual conferences, strolling our share of 6th Street and handing out invites for a free Basic account for 30 days to fortunate trade show goers.

So yeah, I guess you could call that a launch.  We’re excited about it and can’t wait to share some of the latest enhancements to review’d with you.

It’s been a little while since we’ve been blogging.  So here’s a quick update to what’s been going on:

• review’d llc is official! That’s right, we’re registered up as a fancy pants limited liability corporation.
• Thank you pre-betas. A huge thanks to the handful of those who helped us out with a painful early pre-beta review of review’d – esp @benkunz and @stephfrancoeur. We have incorporated a significant amount of your feedback into the latest instance of the system.
• PayPal is on its way. We’re pretty close to PayPal integration, which will make signing up and using review’d easier than slatering BBQ sauce on your friend’s face at SXSW.

There’s a lot of other behind-the-scenes work too. Calculations, algoritms, etc.. we’ll keep it to the sexy stuff.

So with that, we hope to see you at SXSW.  DM us @reviewd or @ericfleming to meet up.  We have lots of free invites to give away!

Apple’s buzz machine has been working overtime for past few months to create awareness, intrigue, a bit of mystique, and ultimate anticipation-in-awe surrounding the inevitable announcement of its tablet computer at a Steve Job event in Silicon Valley.  If you’re just coming out from under a rock today, just type in “Apple tablet” in Google news to muse through a few thousand articles about the product that hasn’t even been confirmed yet. Sites like Mashable have gone so far as to dedicate sections to this holy day that’s now upon us.

So over at review’d we’re always interested in what people are really saying by trying to put some numbers to some of the feelings we’re sensing.  Is it good/bad, how much of it is going on, and how strongly do people feel?

Apple was one of the first companies we started to track during early development of review’d. Recognizing the potential for confusion with, say, your granny smiths or macouns, based on what we’ve observed, it’s pretty safe to assume most of tweets with “Apple” in it are related to the company in Cupertino.

So with that, here’s a sense of what people have been saying:

Twitter Sentiment analytics of Apple Computer on tablet launch day

One thing that Apple is notorious for is having a base of über enthusiasts and brand haters. The result is typically a constant stream of polarizing comments from both camps. Just think about how passionate some Windows people still are today and don’t hesitate getting into an argument with black-attire sporting creatives with funky shoes and square-framed glasses any day of the week. But we digress… A look at the above shows a significant quantity of tweets expressing opinions (remember, review’d only tracks tweets that hint at either a positive or negative opinion, not all). The swell is evident and hints at mainstream involvement are present.

Chattiness
Chattiness is a new feature we’ve added on the development site of review’d and we thought that with a rockin’ high rating of 100% today, there’d be no better time to introduce it.  Chattiness is based on the quantity of tweets being expressed in the last 24 hours versus the previous 30 day period. Anything to the right shows you things are heating up. To the left, they’re dying down.  The confirmation is here, yes, people are jazzed up (albeit in both directions) about today’s announcement.

Here are some examples of tweets tracked by review’d in the last 24 hours to give you a sense of the playing field.

Thanks to darcyhooper and i_Karu.

On the other side, DrewsDictionary and SusanVJ.

Whether you agree that this piece of hardware has the potential to save the publishing industry and will live up to its anointed ”Jesus tablet,” that’s for time to play out. For now, the buzz is there, people are talking, and there’s not much better than your brand than that. Now, to pop some popcorn and see what happens today.

Recognizing that teeing-up perception of the new OS is critical to its initial success, Microsoft itself decided to stoke the fires on Twitter as a part of its marketing effort.  There was the #winwin7 campaign and other attempts by Microsoft as part of its multi-faceted campaign. @rupalparekh over at AdvertisingAge (@adage) covered the moves pretty thoroughly.  So we’ve been tracking sentiment against Windows 7 for several months now.  After all we’re interested in what people are really thinking (and saying on Twitter).

So it’s with a little surprise (and reaffirmation of the importance of what we’re doing here at review’d) to see what we Microsoft has up as its home page today for launch.  Check it out:

Microsoft's home page on Oct. 22, 2009

Cheers to Microsoft for bringing users statements to the forefront!  But are they?  A couple of searches on featured tweets yielded no results in Twitter’s own search engine.  That doesn’t mean they didn’t exist (tweets are purged out of search over time unless you indicate the specific date range).  Still, if Microsoft is featuring “real-time” reviews for marketing efforts, the tweets better be fresh.  Jury is still out on whether or not this one is a little too stale:

Windows 7 tweet citation fail

Seriously though, what are people really saying about Windows 7?  Dare we believe the editors behind this revolving feed of rainbows, unicorns and 100% positive reviews? Here’s the latest from review’d:

Oct. 21-22, 2009

The numbers on the above graph are as follows: 226 tweets total (131 positive and 95 negative for a 58% positive hurrah on launch day so far). I’d say reviews are a little more skeptical than Microsoft would lead you to believe.  Still, people can be pretty harsh out there on the interwebs, shrouded in anonymity and separated by screens and input devices.  Here are some verbatims we collected from the two camps.

First on the positive side:

Positive tweets as tracked by review'd

Thanks to @mattymax, @Ducky11, and @troymccabe for the above tweets.

And on the other side of the fence:

Negative tweets as tracked by review'd

Credit to @tweeetosaurus, @djDeficit, and @jimtac for their words of wisdom.

Fact of the matter is that an aggregate of these messages helps to create an aura about a product.  It’s intensified by the consumption quantity (followers receiving) and authority level of the originator – something that Microsoft has reduced down to “Twitter User” in its questionable citations.

In this little journey through Microsoft’s marketing today, we also found this fun little feed to help visitors understand “What people are saying about Windows 7.”  It pulls in reviews and discussions from all the fun sources such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and an RSS blog feed.  To join the conversation, you tag your message or content with #win7, #windows and the like.  So we sat and watched the stream for a good bit of time waiting for anything negative to come through…zilch.

Microsoft, if you want to play fair in social media, censoring (if that indeed is what you’re doing) is off-limits.  For the rest of us, the best piece of advice today might be to just take a peek at the same hash tags within Twitter’s search or set up a column in TweetDeck to get the unfiltered truth.

What’s review’d?
review’d is this a brand new sentiment analytics service that is in beta right now.  It scours Twitter based on keywords and returns only the most important tweets that also express either positive or negative opinions with the statement.  The tweets are scored and then a assigned a review’d Score that is tracked over time.  With it, you can see and understand what’s working and what isn’t.  Adjust your social media and online marketing efforts and observe and quantify your results.

When can I start using it?
Soon.  We’re tracking a number of companies already and will be sharing some of our findings with you right here.  So sign up for the Feedburner feed and keep check back with us so that you can be some of the first to sign up.

What’s unique about what you do?
review’d is one of the first sentiment analytic services out there for short online communications.  We’ve been testing and refining the algorithm for a couple of months now and we’re pleased with where it’s headed. With review’d, you’ll get quality custom reports and a baseline score to help you keep track of how you’re fairing on Twitter. 

Yes, we acknowledge that there are some others out there doing similar things. review’d was built by people who needed its offering and did so without any start-up funding. Call it “by the people for the people” if you must…at the end of the day, you’ll get a whole lot more value out of review’d.

We’ll be constantly improving
review’d needs to be just as much you as it is us. We need your feedback in order to improve. So please know that we’re not so proud to think that we can’t do better. We’ll be constantly making adjustments to the system to improve accuracy and usability while still maintaining a solid baseline for you to track your social media efforts over time.

How do we send in our feedback?
There are multiple ways to make yourself heard. Share your comments here, follow us on Twitter: @reviewd or contact either of us directly at @docjohng (john [at] reviewd [dot] com) or @ericfleming (eric[at] reviewd [dot] com).

Who are you guys again?
John and I have been around the Internet for quite some time.  In John’s case, he’s worked to build the Web’s largest and oldest mental health and psychology Web site over at www.PsychCentral.com.  It’s seriously helpful stuff and after 14 years of publishing more content that you click on, it was time to apply some of what he’s been up to (from a technical and biz dev perspective) to help get this up off the ground.

In my case, I’ve been living and breathing the Web for more than 10 years with a media, PR, and marketing eye.  Most of this time, it’s been marketing and online community development through my experiences at a high profile start-up company. There, myself and a great team have worked to create social media sites, tools, and content while also developing and deploying some pretty cool b2c and b2b lead gen systems. Tack on loads of sweet branding and creative asset development and that gets us to where we are today.

I’m sure we’ll have more to say about ourselves and why we’re on to sentiment analytics.  For now, we’re pleased to flip the proverbial lever and welcome you to review’d.

What’s coming next?
We want to show you our stuff. Here’s a preview of a couple of topics we’ll be taking a look at over the next couple of weeks:

• An overview from around the Web with titans in focus
• MLB heads into the postseason
• NFL in full swing

~Eric