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The nominations were one of the biggest topics last week. Josie, Dave and John James were eventually banned from nominating newbie Sam Pepper after breaking the rules by discussing putting him up.
Figure 1: Sentiment analysis expressed towards all housemates – 4/8 to 10/8
Looking at the sentiment analysis for the all of the housemates, those with the biggest buzz were nominated / or put up for eviction last week: JJ, Jo & Dave. Mario was put up by the house but saved himself in the ‘Save & Replace’ task and put up Sam instead.
Figure 2: Sentiment analysis expressed towards nominated housemates – 4/8 to 10/8
The sentiment for the housemates up for eviction last Friday backed the public decision to evict Jo.
As it stands today, Josie who has been given a free pass to the final by her fellow housemates, is the bookie’s favourite to win at 4/6. Corin is second favourite.
The end is now well and truly in sight. The final is on 24 August, the same night the ‘Ultimate Champion’ series kicks off. It’s been rumoured a double show will run for three hours – great if you’re a BB fan, if you’re not it might be a good night to wash your hair. And, before the kettle has had chance to cool, there’s a real buzz around who’s going in. Gerry from BB has posted the list of previous housemates he reckons are up for it.
Sophie and Nick have tweeted they will not be appearing. There’s also been a Facebook campaign for Shabby, who was the first of this year’s bunch to walk, to join the Ultimate cast.
Meanwhile there’s also been some chatter around the future of the ‘last ever’ BB. It’s been rumoured that media mogul, Richard Desmond, who now owns Five, has signalled he’s keen to talk to BB owners Endemol. There’s also talk that Endemol has requested an extended lease for the site of the house. (Inside Big Brother 6/8)
Ben was evicted. Sam became a housemate. Jedward played a live set in the garden. Davina McCall presented part of her live show from the house. An average Friday night in Big Brother land. Oh, and on Thursday, Laura became the third girl to walk out of the back door.
The Jedward and Davina stunt was all part of an ‘Ignore the Obvious’ task for the weekly shopping budget, where loads of random people went into the house and got up to all kinds of shenanigans.
So, that’s seven lines on Big Brother and no mention of John James and Josie. And, the good news? The two seem to have become love birds at last. But, Sam has been the biggest doubter so far, with questions for them both on what’s been going on and he then mentioned the ‘m’ word – magazine (deal). That caused another row with Josie. The consensus in the house was the relationship was real.
Figure 1: Topic cloud for the Big Brother conversation – 28/7 to 3/7
For the gazzillionth week running, John James has been the lead topic in the Big Brother conversation. But, Corin has held on her own as the bookies’ favourite to win at 6/4 with John James and Josie hot on her heels.
Figure 2: Sentiment expressed towards favourites to win – 28/7 to 3/8
A quick look at the sentiment analysis for the three front runners showed that although John James and Josie have had the biggest buzz, Corin has had the highest number of positive mentions (68.5%) and the least number of negative mentions (6.8%).
Figure 3: Sentiment expressed towards nominated housemates – 28/7 to 3/8
And, who will go this week? John James, Rachel and Mario were put up by the house. But, Mario saved himself in the ‘Save & Replace’ task and put Dave up instead. On balance, it looks like Rachel could go.
US-based Metro Bank has just opened its first branch in Holborn, London. The High Street debut is the UK’s first new bank for a century. It plans to open 200 branches or ‘stores’ in the Greater London area within 10 years.
Virgin Money, Tesco Bank and a new concept – dubbed Project New Bank – are also hot on its heels. Virgin Money will open branches in H1 2011 with plans for a 70-branch ‘Virgin Bank’ network. Project New Bank, led by two industry heavyweights, will prioritise its strong online strategy as well.
So, will these young pretenders shake-up the stalwarts of High Street banking with their own innovative vision? Is this what the jaded retail banking sector needs or are customers looking for a multi-channel customer service experience?
The first signs are the Metro Bank views its customers through the prism of the branch. The bank’s philosophy is ‘fun’ and it hopes to revolutionise the customer experience. It is on the offensive and will open seven days per week from 8am to 8pm on weekdays.
There’s also a five-year deal with Mastercard and promises of a 15-minute decision for over-the-counter payment card applications. However, analysts don’t think that Metro Bank will be topping any Best Buy tables anytime soon with uncompetitive rates.
In the past week, 75% of online mentions have been on social media. So far the response has been lukewarm with some criticism of the bank’s online services and cynicism that customers will bother to switch accounts. There was also a mixed response to the promise of a 15-minute credit and debit card service, a good move for some, but there are also concerns over security. (MoneySavingExpert 29/7)
If you are not a Londoner then the launch of Metro Bank may be neither here nor there to you. But there is a wider debate opening up on the future of retail banking, in terms of the competitive landscape and whether the time has come for banks and building societies to really look beyond bricks and mortar.
Brett King on Finextra (19/7) suggested: ‘P&L support for mobile, social media, internet and other such elements of the customer experience is still woefully inadequate because their real-estate based big brother still takes the absolute lions share of $$$’. But, is the demand there anyway or do customers just want to keep their money securely under the High Street mattress and talk to real people in the branch?
There was no eviction last Friday, so to keep the Big Brother audience happy, three new housemates joined the house – Jo, Laura and JJ. This was after Andrew and Corin mumbled / sang / mimed / ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life’ from Dirty Dancing to the live audience standing outside the house.
The performance was the final bit of a Glee-style task for the shopping budget. It was choreographed by temporary housemate Andrew Stone from Pineapple Dance Studios.
Figure 1: Boys buzz volumes – 21/7 to 27/7
A quick look at the buzz volumes for the most-talked about housemates showed John James led the boys and Josie the girls.
Figure 2: Girls buzz volumes – 21/7 to 27/7
The John James / Josie ‘he likes her – she likes him’ carry on – well carried on – in a non-committal kind of way. As Caiomhe had walked out last week – the love triangle was squared for a moment – then JJ was added to the mix. On Monday, the tension between the two bubbled over and after an ‘exchange’ of words’ John James tried to leave the house by the fire exit. The production crew persuaded him to stay. Then love finally struck – for now.
There’s definitely been a bit of John James / Josie fever in social media. But Corin is the new bookie’s favourite to win at 2/1.
Figure 3: Topic cloud for the Big brother discussion – 21/7 to 27/7
There’s also been a buzz around the start of the ‘Ultimate Champion’ series which will start after the finale of this series. Chantelle and Preston have been touted as potentials to join previous ‘uber’ housemates to find the ultimate winner. (Big Brother Blog 27/7)
So, back to this years’ housemates who nominated Ben, Steve and John-James for eviction on Friday. Dave was added to the list for breaking the rules on discussing nominations. Steve won the ‘Save & Replace’ task and put up Andrew, who last week was one of the bookies’ favourites to win. But the tide may be turning. Davina McCall told the BB website: “I think he’s tricky. I think he’s got a gameplan. His whole thing recently, he always does the thing that will win him the popular vote.” (Digital Spy 26/7)
Figure 4: Sentiment expressed towards nominated housemates – 21/7 to 27/7
Ben is the bookies favourite to go at 4/7. Looking at the sentiment analysis it will be a close run thing and Dave could be the curve ball this week and be voted out.
Twitter dropped the ball at the beginning of the World Cup finals when it buckled under the weight of tweets in the build-up to the first match on 11 June. It experienced a few outages and had to post an explanation on the technical difficulties which led to its poor performance.
But, as the competition got underway, momentum really built and records for online traffic were broken. For example, there were a record-breaking 3,283 tweets per second sent at the end of Japan’s victory over Denmark. Fan enthusiasm wasn’t just limited to 140 characters. On June 24, 20.7 million people looked to news sites on the day Slovakia knocked out Italy, according to Akami. At the start of the finals, there were just over 12 million surfers.
The Netherlands was the most tweeted team and Cristiano Ronaldo was the most tweeted player, (Mashable 15/7). The World Cup topped What’s the Trend’s Twitter Top 10 for the week ending 17/6. The Vuvuzela stayed in the charts for six days. When England’s tournament started with its match as the USA, a staggering 30 per cent of all status updates on Facebook were linked to the game.
So, that was some of the general numbers. We tailored our research to the conversation around the World Cup and social media and had a quick look at the lead topics for both Twitter, and the wider conversation on social media and the finals.
Figure 1: Buzz volumes for Twitter in the social media discussion for the World Cup -11/6 to 11/7
Figure 2: Twitter Topic cloud for the World Cup conversation around social media – 11/6 to 11/7
We noticed a couple of stand-out topics from the usual suspects in terms of the media. The Guardian had the most prominent mention among media sources. One tweet linked to the paper’s stunning Twitter replay graphic of real-time tweets sent as matches played out. Mashable’s official World Cup tracking page was also one of the most tweeted topics.
It wasn’t just the fans that had a social media tournament. The official sponsors moved from traditional advertising channels to social media. The big winner was Coca Cola, which even advertised as a trending topic on Twitter. It registered 86 million impressions and an engagement rate of 6 per cent in the 24 hours following its first promoted trend ad (Mashable 27/6). The company added 1.4 million fans during the tournament.
All in all, this time, it was right to believe the hype, there really was a social media pitch invasion at the World Cup.
We have a bird’s eye view from the Sentiment Metrics office of the Farnborough Airshow – literally. All is quiet and then the Airbus A380 flies past the window, Eurofighters, the Red Arrows. We’ve seen some pretty impressive arial acrobatics in the past few days.
It’s planespotter heaven and fun for us. But, there is a very serious side to the show and billion-dollar deals are being signed a few hundred metres from us at the iconic global aviation event. Analysts are looking to the show to gauge the health of the aerospace and defence industries.
The first buzz around the event focussed on the debut of the much-anticipated Boeing 787 Dreamliner which is light and fuel-efficient. It arrived at the show on Saturday.
In the first few days, there’s been a degree of optimism about a recovery in the industry which has been severely hit by the recession. The signs that confidence has returned to aerospace are there. Boeing Commercial Airplanes president Jim Albaugh says that the market:”has come back faster than we expected,” (The Scotsman 20/7). Boeing has twice raised its forecast for orders and Airbus also reported a strong first day and a buoyant order book. It announced a deal for 51 A320 jets from Air Lease Corporation, valued at $4.4bn.
So far, there has been £19.6bn worth of commercial orders. These included: Emirates which placed an order for 12 Boeing 777s worth $3.6bn and Aeroflot signed up for 11 Airbus A330-300 aircraft worth $1.7bn. FlyBe also announced a £850m order for 35 Embraer 175 jets to facilitate its expansion into Western Europe.
Today it’s military firepower and with a warning that defence procurement budgets will be cut – all eyes will be firmly focussed on a small airfield in Hampshire.
Leading figures from the top echelons of social media have backed up rumours that Google has been building a head on, social networking challenge to Facebook. Digg founder Kevin Rose has already confirmed speculation the search behemoth was working on ‘Google Me’, touted by some as ‘the Facebook killer’.
Facebook chief technical officer, Adam D’Angelo, also said it was true: “This is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this”. He added the project would be built on Google Buzz. “They realized that Buzz wasn’t enough and that they need to build out a full, first-class social network. They are modeling it off of Facebook.” (CNN 12/7)
So is it real?
The Blog Herald (13/7) has added fuel to the fire with news that a Google research team has been charting social networking functions, posting their findings on SlideShare. One of the key areas it was reported to be working on was better organisation of a ‘group of friends’ to separate out work and home life with limits on the information seen by colleagues.
TechCrunch (10/7) also reported that Google has invested up to $200m in Zynga, the online social games maker of ‘FarmVille’ and ‘Mafia Wars’. It was a highly strategic deal that gave Google the capability to build a true social graph as gamers log into Google to play. This raised the next question – if Google Me was a reality would Zynga pull its games from Facebook?
The internet is buzzing with rumours but we’ll have to sit it out with the rest of the blogosphere until an official announcement. It’s all pretty much guess work at the moment. But the consensus is the rumours are real and backed by very credible sources.
So, Nathan was evicted on Friday and three new housemates arrived in a spaceship in the garden. It could only be Big Brother. Jonathan, Keeley & Rachel joined the Borehamwood nine late Friday night. The house was taken over by Big Brobot for a futuristic shopping task and the week ended with the arrival of the three newbies dressed as spacemen (and women).
The simmering relationship between Josie and John James came to the boil at the weekend and they had one almighty bust-up. And, what was at the centre of the seismic row? Two insults flipped between the two: ‘crab eyes’ and ’28 chins’. The fallout sent reverberations around the house – eventually Big Brother stepped in to calm them down once John James threatened to leave the house on Sunday.
Figure 1: Girls buzz volumes – 7/7 to 13/7
Figure 2: Boys buzz volumes – 7/7 to 13/7
Evicted Nathan was the most talked about boy and Josie was the most talked about girl. John James was once again the leading topic – and he was also the most tweeted housemate. Over the week, ThisisDavina, with almost 300,000 followers, was the most influential Twitter account by miles.
Figure 3: Topic cloud for the Big Brother conversation – 7/7 to 13/7
Back to the nominations, Caoimhe, Ife and Corin were nominated by the house. Caoimhe once again saved herself in a paintballing task and put Mario up instead.
Ife is the bookie’s favourite to go and after a quick look at the sentiment analysis for the nominated housemates we’re in agreement again this week. But it is really close in terms of negative sentiment between Corin and Ife and Corin could go.
Figure 4: Sentiment expressed towards nominated housemates – 7/7 to 13/7
Josie is still the bookie’s favourite to win at 11/4. But John James (5/1) and newbie Jonathan (6/1) are also in the running.
The coalition government has announced a tie-in with Facebook to source ideas from the site’s millions of members on the much-talked about spending cuts. So, has crowdsourced government finally arrived?
Members can submit and vote on ideas to reduce the deficit via a link on the networking site’s Democracy UK page to microsites which focus on public discussion.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg commented: “The governments’ willingness to reach out and engage with Facebook users is going to go a long way because I’m sure that all the people using Facebook in the UK have a lot of great ideas on how they could do this. It’s really innovative to open up policy making and engage the public in this way to try and create more social change.” (BBC News 9/7)
Not everyone has been convinced by the idea though. A post by Simon Jeffrey (9/7) pointed out the deal was based on a link to the Spending Challenge site hosted by the government, it’s not actually on Facebook. Also, the internet was famed for its ‘mischief’ making and suggestions may not be taken seriously. Remember, web users had a field day photoshopping election campaign posters.
A quick look at the sentiment for the coalition move shows that comment is mostly neutral at the moment. But, nothing in social media stands still for very long and the story throws up all kinds of thorny questions on whether the strategy will work. And, will the government really be listening? Without universal web access in the UK, will the opinions of all voters be heard if the Facebook camapign will be the “primary channel” for feedback?
Meanwhile, the Irish Government has also captured the zeitgeist for engaging in the social media conversation. It has just launched its social media-led public news service. MerrionStreet.ie has been set up as a communication tool for the public and media. It uses WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr tools.
