Features

Pierre Lord — Sat, 26 May 2007 17:53:01 -0400

Here is an overview of the main features of the BuzzMonitor. Click on the image to get a larger screenshot.


		Group by site / blog
		If you subscribe to different search feeds from different search engines, you will have to deal with duplicates and will not be able to track one particular blog or site overtime. The BuzzMonitor parses all RSS feeds to extract the source, or root URL from the permalink, and groups all mentions under this URL, regardless of which feed brought the mention in in the firstplace. Handy to get rid of duplicates and see all the mentions from one blog in one page.


		Tag extraction
		The Yahoo terms API assigns keywords to all incoming mentions. It does a pretty good job at getting most of the important ones in there and we found the tag cloud pretty telling too. Useful to see what people are talking about today vs. last 7 days or last 30 days.


		Ranking
		Each source displays two widgets: the Alexa Link and Rank button and the Technorati authority widget. It helps figure out how prominent or authoritative the site/blog is.


		"Wisdom of the crowd" voting
		If you use the BuzzMonitor on memes or keywords that get lots and lots of mentions, you will want to let your users vote on mentions and let the "wisdom of the crowd" act as a natural filter. Each user can assign only one point per mention. The votes are then published on two pages: most voted on and most recently voted items and are also part of an most recently voted on rss feed.


		User tagging
		In addition to the Yahoo tags, user can assign their own. Tags can be assigned at the mention level or at the feed level. If you had a blog feed from an economist for example, tag the feed "economist" and all items will be tagged with the term. Handy to classify / organize content. Users can also tag mentions on the fly, either in a descriptive or collaborative fashion. Much like Del.icio.us, tags can be combined using a variety of operators.


		Bookmarking
		Every user can bookmark mentions. They are saved onto the site for future reference. The latest 10 bookmarks are conveniently accessible from the main navigation panel.


		Commenting
		Users can interact around a mention by leaving comments. Much like a regular blog, comments are threaded and appear in the latest comment block.


		Graphing
		To provide visual context, there are two type of graphs provided by the BuzzMonitor. A trendline showing the number of mentions for the whole site or by tag and a bar chart showing what the hot tags for the day are.


		Tag and Search Feeds
		Because RSS is the lifeblood of social media, the BuzzMonitor offers feeds for every single tag so that you get alerted when new items are tagged. Similarly, it offers feeds to keywords you search on.


		Tag clouds
		For both user and Yahoo! tags, the BuzzMonitor tag clouds of what is discussed today, the past 7 days, last 30 days and past 6 months. All this in a nice ajax tab combo.

APIs & Widgets

To help contextualize, organize and get a feel for the authority of blogs and sites, the BuzzMonitor works with the following APIs / Widget providers. Make sure you get your own API key for Yahoo!. We are pretty excited to use these services and want to thank them for letting developers and users across the web use their products.

		Yahoo
		The Yahoo Terms Extraction service assigns tags to each incoming mention. These tags are available under each mention and also on the tag cloud. We find it to be a really cool, reliable and useful service.

		Alexa
		Each source display an Alexa Site Stats button to quickly understand the authority / influence of the site.

		gdLibrary
		GD is an open source code library for the dynamic creation of images by programmers. GD creates PNG, JPEG and GIF images, among other formats. GD is commonly used to generate charts, graphics, thumbnails, and most anything else, on the fly. Read more here

		Technorati
		Each source displays the Technorati Authority widget to help you assess the authority / influence of the site. It is a nice complement to the Alexa button.

The BuzzMonitor - Features - Comments

Features

Group by site / blog

Tag extraction

Ranking

"Wisdom of the crowd" voting

User tagging

Bookmarking

Commenting

Graphing

Tag and Search Feeds

Tag clouds

APIs & Widgets

Yahoo

Alexa

gdLibrary

Technorati