Analyzing Trends in the Blogosphere Using Human-Centered Analysis and Visualization Tools

The blogsphere is a valuable source of information. From simple topic analysis in the blogosphere—whats hot—to harvesting and analyzing valuable market trends—what product and features are suggested—require a tight integration of computerand human-based analysis capabilities. Computers can easily assist the processing filtering and visualizing relevant and key elements of the blogosphere, but coupling them with human evaluation and reasoning can provide the final steps to connect pieces of relevant information into better description map of the current trends of the blogosphere. An example of the need for such human-centered analysis was David R. Ellis film Snakes on a Plane (2006) which failed to properly translate blogosphere discussions into a successful commercial product—as a clear misalignment of both environments the blogsphere and the final targeted market. In this paper, we present some human-centered visualization and analysis tools that can help users to compare and reason synergies and misalignments revolving around a particular topic.