I posted some time ago, with some amusement, that The Green Man blog had come onto the radar of the US military. Someone later told me that Green Man is a code word for US soldiers, which may explain it, or perhaps they just picked up on some comments that they viewed as "unAmerican". Which, of course, is OK. Since I am not American everything I say is Australian not American.

Well it turns out that they are not alone and that market research companies have discovered an enormous and free focus group, it is called the blogosphere. (A geekish term for the collection of blogs on the net, if you were not already aware.)

Intelliseek Inc. in Ohio is one company leveraging of this massive unstructured database of consumer feedback. Intelliseek, like a number of other companies, have developed sophicated lexical analysis software that spiders its way through the blogosphere analysing the content of blogs on topics of interest to their clients; reporting back detailed analysis of customer sentiment on everything from the war in Iraq, to hamburgers or what types of shoes are hot.

A look at some of Intelliseeks clients will show you how seriously large corporations are taking this new form of market research, they include Ford, Honda America, Sony and Microsoft. (Shame it doesn't include Motorola. They should know how pissed off I am with the crappy Motorola Razr V3 mobile phone I purchased some time ago.)

As I indicated earlier this software is quite sophisticated and analyses 475,000 individual blogger posts not only determining customer sentiment towards products but also gleening if a blogger is a male or female, what profession they work in, where they live, their rough age etc. You could of course be greatly offended by this but, hey, you probably started the blog as a soapbox, be pleased that the powerful are actually listening.

This whole general area is know within the marketing domain as "consumer generated media" and it is a major new force in the shaping of public opinion vis-a-vis large brandnames. By way of example type "macdonalds" into Google and on the first page you will see

McSPOTLIGHT
Large site spotlighting McDonald's exploitation of animals, people and the environment. Including information, news, public discussion rooms.
www.mcspotlight.org/ - 10k - 17 Jul 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

and

SUPER SIZE ME
Official documentary site features information about the film, director, festivals, reviews, games, and trailer.
www.supersizeme.com/ - 2k - Cached - Similar pages

The same applies to Walmart which contains

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know
Fast Company looks at Wal-Mart's pricing practices and their sometimes devastating pressures it exerts on the companies it does business with.
www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html - 55k - Cached - Similar pages

and

Walmart Class
Sex discrimination lawsuit alleging denial of advancement and training, lower
wages, sexually hostile work environment and retaliation.

None of these sites is owned or operated by a particularly powerful organisation but their opinion and public presence rivals that of the major corporations they are railing against. Suddenly, via the technology of the net, David can take on Goliath in the domain of media presence.