Bluefin Labs last week debuted its product for marketers, ad agencies and media operators that’s based on the technology platform the Semantic Web Blog discussed here. A web-based analytics app, Bluefin Signals accesses, interprets and analyzes social media data based on a system of metrics the company developed called Response Level and Response Share, which measure and benchmark how audiences respond to television through conversations in public social media.

Response Level measures the number of social media commenters for any given episode of a show, based on a 10-point exponential scale, the company says, and Response Share provides the percentage of a program’s share of social response within a specific daypart (breakfast television, prime time, and so on).

The TV Genome mapping the company has done enables these calculations, Bluefin says.

As CEO Deb Roy recently explained to The Semantic Web Blog, context counts in a big way when it comes to comparing and analyzing how a TV show really is resonating with viewers – and what those viewers’ social media responses may tell advertisers about placement choices. “We say public social media is a new data stream, and people who always talk about what they watched on TV now can give those thoughts and feelings public expression,” Roy said. “Our goal is to tap into that visible word-of-mouth and feed it back to anyone on the mass media side who want to close that feedback loop with their audience and adapt communication strategies so they are more effective.”

As an example, accompanying news of the product’s release were insights Bluefin determined related to the American Idol finale that aired on May 24. The show received an 8.0 Response Level. In combination with other data from the TV Genome to help it put into perspective that rating’s relationship to other competition shows on TV, it concluded that even the star power of Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez couldn’t keep American Idol from trailing three other big-bang finishes that lit up the social media commentary space in 2011:

• Super Bowl: 9.2
• Academy Awards: 8.8 (never mind the critical pans)
• French Open Mens Final = 8.2

On the other hand, for May 24, American Idol still topped The Voice (not a finale) episode, which received a 7.4, and The Biggest Loser (which was the Season 11 wrap-up), with a 7.0. Bluefin also was able to determine that American Idol started off the season with the same Response Level traction with which it ended it, but saw significant dips in between:

Chart above notes Response Level for American Idol charted for its entire TV season this year. (38 episodes total. Idol aired 2 episodes per week during a 19 week season.)

As for Response Share, the long-running singing talent competition actually takes top rankings related to other shows in the reality genre that aired that night, with a 44.3 percent share. Only The Voice, came within shouting distance of that, at 34.6 percent. Things really fall off the cliff after The Biggest Loser and its 14.1 percent rating:

* A 2.4 percent rating for Braxton Family Values (a top-rated show for WE tv, but that’s not saying much, is it?);

* 0.5 percent for Extreme Couponing (well, realistically, how much can you gab about grocery store savings?);

* and 0.2 and 0.1 percent, respectively, for The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Orange County (a sign of hope that someday these ladies, whatever city they hail from, may be retired from our TV screens?).

On the other hand, for the night of May 24, overall Response Shares for American Idol across genres seem more tepid (sorry, Scotty McCreery):

• NBA Finals = 45.4 percent Response Share
• Glee = 17.4 percent
• American Idol = 6.1 percent

Bluefin says its technology platform processes and analyzes over 3 billion public-facing social media comments each month, and video fingerprints more than 2 million minutes of linear TV each month. By early next year, it expects to have full coverage of all shows and commercials in the national market.

 

 

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