Prompt's TechBlog

With millions of people now airing their opinions online via personal weblogs, it's not surprising that Dow Jones/Reuters-owned press monitoring company Factiva has come up with new technology to monitor what "ordinary people" are saying about companies and products.

Factiva's new blog-monitoring service, powered by "text-mining and visualisation" technology from Intelliseek, promises to scan and analyse web chatter from blogs and message boards and present clients with reports on how their reputation is faring in cyberspace.

Marketing and brand managers, as well as PR executives, should be interested. Customers and investors are much more frank about the products they use and the companies they invest in - or don't use and don't invest in - when they're in an independent environment. You can learn more about what people *really* think of your product or strategy from message boards and blogs than from focus groups or customer advisory boards.

But before you sign up to Factiva's service, there are other - free - ways to get an idea of what people are saying about you. Technorati.com, for example, is a web site that searches 14.7 million weblogs around the globe. A little astute searching via the search box on its home page can give you an accurate idea of who's talking about you and what they're saying.

And if you find that no one's talking about you, it might be time to invest in a little bit more marketing and PR - something that Prompt would be delighted to discuss with you...