BlogMonitor

BlogMonitor is a (new to me) blog monitoring service from Infuz.com. They provide a service which is characterized by the following steps:

SEEK
First, we use our expertise to help you prepare a search concept key word list that meets your objectives. Then, based on those key words, we use exclusive tools to comb the Internet for relevant data.

SIFT
Next, we sift through the data to filter out information that is bogus or irrelevant to you.

SORT
A professional reviews and categorizes the remaining content to meet your specific needs.

REPORT
We present user-friendly aggregated data reports with our evaluations and recommendations for action. You may choose to receive immediate notification, in-depth analysis on a monthly basis, or both.

It is not clear which, if any, of these steps involves any significant technology. They appear to be positioning themselves as a competitor to clipping services rather than the more established players in the social media monitoring space (such as my employer BuzzMetrics).

Search engines and clipping services may use technology to gather data, but they don’t discriminate when it comes to sharing it with you. Blanket, untargeted Web searches don’t effectively tap into “authentic media.” Often they’ll send you meaningless spam results (up to 60%!), inaccuracies, and noise. Then you are forced to spend your time and resources sorting through it all.

However, the issues that they highlight are also those which social media monitoring systems handle in a more automated and scalable manner. Ultimately, the report is the important thing, and from their website, they appear to be more qualitative then measurement based:

• Understand what the buzz is regarding your company, industry, or your competition.
• Discover honest perceptions consumers have about your brand or company, both positive and negative.
• Find new product ideas, innovations, and marketing concepts.
• Identify and track market trends and other insights that are important to your business.
• Help corporate governance by finding out what your partners and employees are saying about you publicly.
• Gather competitive intelligence by finding out what bloggers say about your competition.
• Identify your loudest friends and foes!

Comments

[Hans]

It's fun to see my own project mentioned on feeds I subscribe to.

I'm not in marketing or sales, so I can't speak much to the copy on the site. I can say, though, that our clients use BlogMonitor more as an alternative or complement to traditional market research techniques like surveys and focus groups.

Ours is a service that involves a lot of human intervention. This is more focused and accurate at a higher grain than a more automated manner, but (as you've hinted) is less cost effective to scale.