Blogs vs Twitter vs Facebook. Where the World Thought about Google's Motorola Acquisition

Was Google’s (GOOG) acquisition of Motorola Mobility a good thing or a bad thing? Obviously it depends on what criteria you are using. Google and Motorola were presumably delighted. The folks at Netbase, a company that collates online opinion and sentiment, sent me a couple of graphics on overall reaction and what surprises me is not the positive-negative split, though that is interesting. The real surprise is where people talk.

The graph shows the positive sentiment on the acquisition growing steadily though not dramatically. Negative sentiment is also increasing.
On the chart below however you can see where people express their opinions.  Is it surprising that only 10% of all the opinions expressed online about the acquisition are from news organisations? Or is 10% quite high? Are we able to truly dimensionalize (bad verb I know) how opinion functions?

The data shows almost as much action on forums as in news sites but overwhelmingly the distribution mechanism of choice is Twitter at 45%. Surprising to me is that blogs hold up quite well with 25% of messaging.
Where are we headed with opinion and how we choose to communicate with each other?
Clearly Twitter is out there as a news accelerator. But people still want to articulate their viewpoints in substantial numbers (blogs), and engage in dialogue (in forums).
The low use of Facebook (social networks) as a place to express a view is also surprising. It only takes a like button. The world’s most visited site only accounts for 7% of views expressed.

What does it mean about how opinion forms and settles?

That’s something we need to think more on. As someone from a news background originally I look for a dominant influence, a reference point.

But clearly there is no dominant environment for discussing major stories, though the ability of blogs to hold out against social networks and Twitter is heartening. The articulate technorati continues to thrive.