Software Tracks Blogosphere Mood Swings

holy_calamity writes "Dutch researchers have figured out a way to measure the mood swings of the blogosphere. It can pick up peaks of flirtiness from bloggers around Valentine's Day and drunkenness at weekends, the plan is to create a search engine that returns the prevailing mood in the blogosphere about a topic. Companies are already interested in using it to track consumer confidence. What's the mood of Slashdot on this one?"

Comments

Can it detect the entire spectrum of moods?

[koweja]

From whiney to really pissed off?

Re:Can it detect the entire spectrum of moods?

[mctk]

The entire spectrum of moods is from whiney to really pissed off? You're married aren't ya?

::ducks

So...

[TechnoGuyRob]

The blogosphere is female? Oh wait, we're on our way to understanding it. Nevermind then.

Tracking bad hair trends, too?

[cno3]

The software, called MoodViews, was created by Gilad Mishne and colleagues at Amsterdam University, The Netherlands. It tracks about 10 million blogs hosted by the US service LiveJournal.

Monday - Mood: Emo
Tuesday - Mood: Emo
Wednesday - Mood: Emo ...

Re:Been there, done that.

[JordanL]

FTA: On Valentine's Day, there is spike in the numbers of bloggers who use the labels "loved" or "flirty", but also an increase in the number who report feeling "lonely".

So let me get this straight... all this to discover that people either think about their relationships or lack or relationships on Valentines Day...

This is the ultimate geek software. "What is this strange thing... emotion... I'll build a software program to explain it to me."

Re:BuuurrrPb

[Nesetril]

d00d, it's only thursday. you should feel "flirty and lonely" today not drunk and merry. you GODDAMN OUTLIER, remove yourself from the blogosphere or you will spoil our sales pitch to Google.