Release Notes: 3/31/2011 - SUPERHERO: UI Enhancements, Facebook Data Updates, Source View, Kryptonite

[#1]

In accordance with our #Superfan theme at SxSW, we have aptly named this release Superhero.  At Sx we encouraged people to explore the concept of Super Fandom – by asking customers what they were a super fan of, or marketers, why they believe super fans are important. In exchange, we gave them a pair of superhero underwear. Oh, the (albeit fuzzy) memories. Some of that awesomeness was documented here - Or, you can view our You Tube Channel - InSocialCRM.

As always, we abide by the rule that you deserve a product that is easy to use, that is nimble, and forgiving. You’ll notice UI enhancements on a frequent basis. In the previous release, we slyly rolled out a feature for search copying or duplication, and have now made the feature more accessible via each search results page. 

 

Understanding that the best of you take time and are thoughtful in building search queries (*wink wink, nudge nudge*) that will bring you the most insightful data, we thought it was a good idea to let you duplicate your existing searches which in turn enables you to drill deeper, faster, on demand. When you click on this icon, you’ll be taken to the editable version of a copy of the query you intend to alter. 

Probably the biggest enhancement we made this time around is the proper inclusion of Facebook data in the graphing and reporting tools. In laymen’s terms, we simply changed the methodology in which we calculate and display Facebook data in graphs, in a way that is less ambiguous. Now, if you have a FB page selected for each search you are graphing, there will be data in the graphs that represents activity on the page. If no page is selected, there will be no FB data in the graphs. In the example here, I am comparing search results on the same Facebook page, with 2 separate queries –  one for iPad, looking for occurrences of the word “iPad” on the page, and in the other search, I am looking for occurrences of the term “iPad 2” distinctly. 

Lastly, we enabled a search within a source functionality, which allows you to see all of the content we have indexed from a particular source that matches your search (step 1), or just all content we have indexed from a particular source (step 2).

Step 1 – See ALL results from a source that match your search query:

  

Step 2 – See ALL results from a source:

We hope you’ll let us know what you think should come next, but until then, we’re grinding away at adding 5 additional languages (5 new – and rather large – data sets), as we’ll as advanced influencer metrics across content categories. However, let’s bring it, and not just sing it. Please add your comments / feedback below. 

Thank YOU - Superfan 

[#2]

There have been some questions floating around about the change to how we've included Facebook in the graphs.

There were recent changes that are affecting the buzz stats, volume, and graphs. Previously, if you did not have a page selected, we would by default crawl the entireity of our Facebook data for your keyword and that would be included in, say, a report, if you had not selected a page for  any of the searches included in the report.

Yes, this sounds like it might be a good thing, but the reality is, the entireity of our  Facebook data is not substantial enough to be measured in this way. So you may notice a reduction in the totals, which may seem like we are taking it in the wrong direction, but please be assured we are doing the right thing when providing a less arbitrary benchmark. By measuring activity page to page, there is a level of consistancy that was previously unobtainable. Now, If you have apage selected for each search compared, you will see a measurement of that data in the chart, if you don't have a page selected for each search compared, the data from FB will be omitted. 

As we extend our crawl of FB pages, we'll audit what we have, making sure that it is a decent  sample of "everything we can get ", and provide the option to query all the Facebook we have indexed. But only after we've reached a more solid quantitative ground in terms of what our data actually represents, in relation to the whole. There is a lot of vaguery in what data is being measured in Social Media Monitoring tools out there. One of my goals as product manager is to expose more detail about the data that we provide, and put it in perspective, in relation to the vast cosmos that is the internet. Let me know if you have any other questions folks!