Social networkers rate future technology products with their tweets

Apple's recently announced iPad has generated a lot of buzz on the internet, specifically on social networking site Twitter.

Business software applications firm Attensity used their semantic analysis application suite to analyze a total of 55,000 iPad-related tweets. Tweets about Apple's iPad posted in the lead-up to Apple's massive launch event on January 27 were compared to comments posted on the site two hours after the event and again with those made four days later.

More than 50 percent of tweets posted on Twitter in the two hours before Apple's keynote "expressed positive sentiments towards the iPad," wrote Attensity in their February 2 statement.

Extremely negative sentiments almost disappeared in Twitter messages in the two hours following Apple's iPad announcement. At this time social networkers seemed to have been caught up in the Apple buzz. More than 70 percent of the recorded Twitter posts shed a decidedly positive light on the tablet device.

Four days later, when technology blogs had almost all but finished ranting about the iPad's lack of features and were making attempts to cease posting additional iPad "female sanitary product" jokes on their website, the general public opinion of the iPad remained decidedly positive.

Attensity's analysis of iPad-related tweets posted four days after the event showed that 69 percent of the comments made on the social networking site were positive.

"The five issues most commonly discussed in those positive tweets were the iPad's applications, screen quality and keyboard; its comparison to the iPhone; and its potential as an Amazon Kindle(TM) 'killer,'" said Attensity.

"For those people who disliked or even hated the iPad, the reasons most often expressed are related to its lack of support for Adobe® Flash technology; lack of a camera; inability for the user to replace the battery himself; or that the person already has an iPhone or Kindle and thus views the iPad as redundant," explained Attensity.

http://www.attensity.com/en/Company/Blog/2010/02/iPad.php