I was vaguely interested in how much online buzz was being generated about Microsoft’s Origami Project, so I spent a few minutes on IceRocket.com using their blog trends tool. Here’s what the trend line for mentions of the word “origami” looks like over the last month:

The chart tells me what I already knew – that bloggers are talking about the Origami Project. Tools like Icerocket’s blog trends graph interest me, but ultimately the insights these tools provide are superficial and anecdotal.

Say I was charged with tracking blog coverage for a company like DuPont (which is not a client of ours). I might see a spike in mentions on blogs when DuPont releases an earnings report. But I might also see a spike when DuPont’s Nascar team runs well. Or when someone with the last name “DuPont” posts some gossip about Lindsay Lohan. Or when someone uses the word DuPont as an example in a post about blog tracking.

Tracking the volume of conversation alone isn’t sufficient. You’ve got to understand the context of the conversation. You’ve got to block out the background noise and find the two nuggets that might be posted on a given day that truly impact your company/organization.

Clarification: Mark Cuban, the owner of Icerocket, wrote in to point out that I could exclude Nascar results by typing in the phrase “dupont -nascar”.

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