Welcome to the Umbria's analysis of the impact of gas prices in the blogosphere. Umbria, working in conjunction with CNN, is providing ongoing coverage of the impact of gas prices as reflected by comments on blogs.
The research analysis provided here is drawn from the comments and posts included in over 37 million blogs and is based on technology that enables a general understanding of what people are talking about, as well as the characteristics and context of those conversations. Umbria's data is culled from the amalgam of blog sources and does not single out the identities.
In addition to the analysis you see at CNN.com, Umbria provides here some deeper explanation of the data so you can better understand what the buzz is about, and get a sense of the sentiment and the demographic characteristics of the speakers.
In this report, you will find analysis of the impact of gas prices on the blogospehre along with breakdowns by market segment and gender. Market segments are defined as Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), Generation X (born between 1965 and 1978), and Generation Y (born after 1979).
Total Blog Postings
This graph shows the overall number of blog postings about Gas Prices on a weekly basis. The data has been normalized to account for the fluctuating growth of the blogosphere.
Overall conversations on the subject of gas prices have been flat or steady throughout the months of March and April, yet have increased throughout May.
It appears there are a number of factors driving the increase in discussions relative to Gas Prices in May.
Key factors contributing to the initial increase in blog conversations in early May were:
- Continued gas price increases to record levels where prices peaked around $3.00 per gallon
- Exxon’s announcement of record earnings
- The Senate Oil company investigation
- A proposal to distribute $100 checks to reduce the impact of gas price increases on households
Key factors contributing to the second spike in Gas Price discussions in late May included:
- General Motor’s controversial gas price subsidization plan for SUVs in Florida and California
- The adverse impact of Gas Prices on Memorial Day travel
- The FTC release of report finding no evidence of price gouging by oil companies
New Versus Existing Bloggers
The number of bloggers posting about Gas Prices can be divided into two groups: Existing and New bloggers. Existing bloggers are bloggers that have already posted about the Gas Prices topic during the 12 weeks previous to the time period in question. For this calculation,
This graphs shows that most of the discussion relative to gas prices is driven primarily by bloggers who are either familiar with or have posted on the subject before. Of particular interest is the increase in the numbers of bloggers who have posted on the topic previously throughout the month of May. Judgmentally, it appears that much of the conversations in May relative to gas prices were driven by bloggers “preaching to the choir.” In other words, it doesn’t appear the increased activity of existing bloggers is appealing to or bringing new bloggers into the conversation.
Note - Some examples of positive comments about gas prices tend to reflect: any decreases in gas prices (e.g. "thank goodness that gas prices have gone down"); or, a change in behavior (e.g. "I'm saving money on gas now that I don't drive my SUV").
Generation and Gender Sentiment Relative to Gas Prices
This chart shows the relative breakdown of positive and negative posts by each Gender/Generation segment for the week ending 5/28/2006. The generation segments represent the following age groups: “Generation Y” (27 and younger), “Generation X” (28-41), and “Boomers” (42-60).
To place the above chart in context, on average approximately 67% of mentions about most subjects in blogs are positive and 33% are negative. On the subject of gas prices, 53% are negative and 46% are positive. From this vantage point, the subject of gas prices appears overwhelmingly negative.
Key findings of importance from the above chart are:
- Generation Y speaks most negatively about the subject of gas prices (56% of mentions relative to gas prices are negative among this segment)
- Boomers are almost the inverse when it comes to mentioning the subject of gas (54% of Boomer mentions are positive)
- Surprisingly, Generation Y females are the most engaged and the most vocal on the subject of gas prices, and in particular, more negative in their opinions
Sub Topics of Discussion and Negative Sentiment
Over the 12 week time period, these five sub-topics (Anwr, Hurricane Katrina, Hybrids, Oil Companies, and President Bush) were all mentioned in regards to the topic of Gas Prices. This chart displays negative sentiment only regarding the five tracked sub-topics.
As is evidenced from the graph above, most of the negative discussions around the subject of gas prices are driven by conversations relative to Oil Companies, followed by negative mentions relative to President Bush. As expected, discussions relative to Hybrid vehicles had the lowest level of negative conversation in the context of gas prices.
Approach
The technology that Umbria uses to determine sentiment and demographics as well as the context of the discussions, is based on new applications of linguistic analysis and machine learning algorithms. The technology looks at a broad range of terms and indicators, including clusters of words, parts of speech and recurring terms and the context in which those terms are used, to make determinations.
Umbria’s algorithms are probabilistic models that have been validated using industry standard practices, such as 10-fold cross validations and other means of accuracy verification. All market research is subject to a margin of error which varies based on the type of analysis being conducted. Likewise, Umbria's analysis of blogs is also limited to the perspectives of the pool of individuals who have gone online to offer their opinions in blogs. The blogging population is therefore not necessarily representative of the population at large.
Umbria is a marketing intelligence company that tracks, analyzes and distills unaided opinions, perceptions, and behaviors of the online world - consisting of 37+ million blogs, message boards, opinion sites and other public forums - into insights about companies, products, people and issues. Umbria's analysis is used by many Fortune 500 companies and world leading brands such as Electronic Arts, Scion, and Verizon. For more information about Umbria, visit us at:
