Microsoft working on social media Analytics tool

Thu 24 September 2009 16:15, Bas van den Beld

Avinash Kaushik, amongst other things a Google Analytics evangelist, will release his newest book on the analytics topic in October. In the book he will describe that you need different ways of measuring. Not only site analytics are important, so are social media stats. The number of Twitter followers, the niche you might be in and retweets for example are all points of measurement.

Being a Google evangelist Avinash might look at Microsoft with a suspicious eye. But the new tool Microsoft announces at Advertising Week 2009 this week must be something he will look at with interest as a analytics-guru. The "proof-of-concept prototype business tool, code-named LookingGlass,” is something in the lines of what he believes people should look at. The new tool analyzes social media and "helps companies to listen and participate".

On the Microsoft Advertising Blog Mel Carson writes about the new Microsoft initiative. He talked to several people involved in the project. According to Jamey Tisdale, group product marketing manager for the platform strategy group in Developer & Platform Evangelism and director of business innovation Marc Mercuri Microsoft is "trying to make social media actionable for businesses.". The tool will be using Silverlight techniques and run through a webbrowser so anybody can use it.

In the post Tisdale comments more on the development of the tool:

"The proof-of-concept we wanted to build was to connect business data with advertising data and bring social media into the equation. If you do that, it settles a hot topic and makes things actionable that weren't actionable before."

So what can you do with it? With LookingGlass you can "track customer sentiment across an array of social media sites." This mean you can follow what is being said or posted about your company, brand or product around the web. You can then also rank any comments based on sentiments and act on it. The tool will let you really monitor and act on the conversation.

"So, when will we get our hands on a tool like this?" Is off course the first question you would ask, since it sounds like a very interesting tool. Well, not just yet. Carson emphasizes its "just proof-of-concept right now". So we'll have to wait and see how good this will be.

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