Eurovision 2008 - predicting the winner using internet data!

The Eurovision song contest 2008 has a significant internet footprint with websites, blogs, YouTube channels and photo galleries highlighting contestants and various aspects of the competition.

In theory it is possible to use internet trends to predict who will do well in Eurovision 2008 (maybe even pick the winner) by looking at which artist / country has created the most buzz online. Currently analysis of internet activity suggests Greece could be the country to back!

1) Activity on the official Eurovision website suggests Greece is the most popular entry

The main centre of activity online is the eurovision.tv website. The official Eurovision 2008 website produces a constant stream of news, whilst also acting as a hub for other things like the Eurovision 2008 blogs (MyEurovision) and the Eurovision 2008 YouTube channel.

Official Eurovision website

The MyEurovision blogs have a tag cloud that shows the most popular topics discussed by contributors:

Official Eurovision website blog tag cloud

This tag cloud shows that the most popular country discussed on the official Eurovision blogs is Greece, followed by Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. There are no polls on the eurovision.tv site, but the most buzz is clearly around Greek entry.

2) Activity on the websites of national broadcasters favours Greece

National broadcasters are running their own Eurovision 2008 websites. The BBC have a well developed microsite at www.bbc.co.uk/eurovision and users can watch video performances of all the songs. They do not have a visible viewer count though and with no user polls it is difficult to gain any insight into what British Eurovision fans are thinking.

Screengrab of BBC Eurovision site

(UPDATE - the BBC have published the results of their online poll and have tipped Sweden to win - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7400508.stm)

It's more interesting to look at sites like the website for German Eurovision Song Contest broadcaster NDR. Their recent poll of Germans created the following results. First place was Germany (surprise), second Greece, third Armenia, fourth Sweden and fifth place was Serbia.

3) Views on Eurovision YouTube channels favour a range of countries, but Greece is still popular

View count on YouTube can give an indication as to the popularity of each entry. There are a number of Eurovision channels on YouTube, with the main ones being the official channel at www.youtube.com/eurovision and unofficial Eurovision channels at www.youtube.com/esctoday and http://www.youtube.com/eurovision2008serbia.

YouTube view count for Eurovision2008serbia YouTube channel

The most watched 2008 videos on the ESC today YouTube channel are for Kalomira, the Greek entry. Whilst this entry is also popular on the Eurovision2008serbia YouTube channel, the most viewed songs here are from Romania, Spain and France. On the main Eurovision YouTube site the most viewed videos are for Greece, Netherlands, Sweden and Belgium (though the popularity of the Belgium video may be more down to a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ than people liking the song!)

Belgian entry Ishtar has a 'wardrobe malfunction' in rehearsal

4) Google Trends shows that more people are searching on Google for Kalomoira / Kalomoira than any other Eurovision act

Google trends shows volume of searches on Google for different Eurovision acts. The combination of Kalomoira / Kalomira results in a greater number of Google queries than any other act. Dima Bilan and Charlotte Perelli also have significant search volumes, but on Google the Eurovision entry for Greece is the most popular.

Google trends data shows Greek entry is most searched for on Google

(Note – the biggest search engine in Russia is Yandex not Google, so these results are more an indication of Western European taste rather than evidence from all 43 countries. It is also notable that Eurovision searches on Google are predominantly from Greece!)

Summary

The fact that Greece has the most internet hype around its Eurovision 2008 entry, may well be linked to the fact that Greek people are searching for Eurovision more than anyone else. Internet buzz is also skewed to Western Europe where internet penetration is higher. However, whilst Russia are the clear favourite (especially given the way the voting works), the above data suggests that Greece have a good chance!

BBC Sound Index - a great new way of tracking internet music buzz

Music charts have been changing to incorporate downloads, but with Myspace, YouTube and LastFM etc do they really give an accurate picture of what's hot in music?

The BBC are seeking to address this with their new 'BBC Sound Index' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/soundindex). Every six hours the BBC Sound Index "crawls some of the biggest music sites on the internet - Bebo, MySpace, Last.FM, iTunes, Google and YouTube - to find out what people are writing about, listening to, watching, downloading and logging on to. It then counts and analyses this data to make an instant list of the most popular 1000 artists and tracks on the web. The more blog mentions, comments, plays, downloads and profile views an artist or track has, the higher up the Sound Index they are. So, the Sound Index is a music buzz index controlled entirely by the public."

BBC Sound index - top global tracks across all sites crawled

On top of seeing the total picture, it is then possible to filter the BBC Sound Index data to reflect activity on particular sites or activity within different music styles:

BBC Sound index - top UK tracks by views on YouTube

There is also the ability to filter information by age, sex or geographic location (US, UK and 'Other'):

BBC Sound index - top UK artists across all sites crawled


BBC Sound index - top tracks filtered by 'men' across all sites crawled

This BBC Sound Index is currently in Beta mode and over time the BBC aim to enhance the Sound Index by, amongst other things, developing a weighting system, "to allow the more active forms of interaction to contribute more heavily to the Sound Index."

The BBC Sound Index is yet another example of how buzz tracking tools are quickly developing and is the latest in a list of tools that can be used to track buzz and what online communities are saying. With the Sound Index the BBC has stolen a march on others (this could have sat well within Google / Yahoo! etc) and if the Sound Index is promoted / developed properly it could be a major draw to the BBC online music pages. As the Guardian says "don't bet against the enormously usable Sound Index establishing itself as the first definitive music chart for the internet age."

Facebook Lexicon – Experiments with the new Facebook Wall buzz tracking application

Facebook are unveiling a number of new features and the ‘Facebook Lexicon’ is an interesting new application as it aggregates information from Facebook Wall Posts and plots the trends on a graph.

You need to login to Facebook to use the Facebook Lexicon, but you can access it from here: http://www.facebook.com/lexicon

Facebook Lexicon works in a similar way to Google Trends and allows users to track buzz and see what Facebook users are talking about:

ABOVE: Facebook Lexicon graph showing use of the words 'drunk' and 'hungover' on wall posts - peaks every weekend and a big spike around New Years Eve! (click for larger image)

ABOVE: Facebook Lexicon graph showing the use of words 'girlfriend' and 'boyfriend' on wall posts - a peak around Valentine's Day, but it would appear that women are either more romantic or more inclined to talk about their partners more than men do!
(click for larger image)

ABOVE: The example Facebook use - Facebook Lexicon graph showing use of the words 'skiing' and 'beach' on wall posts - unsurprisingly showing that skiing is popular in the winter and beaches are popular in the summer
(click for larger image)

Facebook Lexicon is an interesting development in buzz tracking and follows recent releases from YouTube (YouTube Insight) and the more established systems like Google Trends and Technorati Buzz Monitoring. Think this is another example of how social media and social media tracking is developing, offering new opportunities for marketers and advertisers.