Viralheat Offers Web-based Sentiment Analysis

MIT's Technology Review reports that "social-media analytics startup Viralheat, based in San Jose, CA, is now offering free, real-time access to the data it is collecting on attitudes toward particular topics or products.

"Viralheat uses natural-language processing and machine learning to sift through Twitter, Facebook fan pages, viral video sites, and Google Buzz posts to determine the Web's collective sentiment toward everything from popular browsers to Pepsi to Steve Jobs.

"The company sells its data and analytics service for a monthly fee, but CEO Raj Kadam says that Social Trends will provide a free way to people to access data the company is already collecting. When a paying customer asks Viralheat to track a particular term, they have the option to share that information publicly. Kadam says that about 70 percent of users agree to share this information. "

Viralheat also offers a free widget option that you can embed on your own Website and have updated periodically by Viralheat.

Kadam told Technology Review that he isn't worried that the company's free offerings will decrease the number of paying customers. "Social Trends widgets only offer a snapshot of the data that paying customers get access to (72 metrics instead of just five metrics), he point out."