>Facebook Lexicon
>Alexa is a great tool and I’ve seen it used many times to illustrate trends on the web – compare facebook.com against bbc.co.uk and it’s hard to deny the impact of social media on the web landscape.
Facebook has a similar service called Lexicon, which allows you to looks at “the usage of words and phrases on profile, group and event Walls”.
Here’s a comparison of the number of times Obama, Clinton and McCain were mentioned showing a clear spike around Super Tuesday on February 5th.
Trying comparisons in Lexicon is interesting, there is a regular peak every week when comparing party tonight and hangover, with about a 12 hour lag between the two.
Insights into Facebook can be inferred – try searching for less event related terms like news and there seems to be a regular drop in traffic on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Facebook seems to be a weekday site – no enormous surprise there.
Lexicon could also be extremely useful for marketeers who want to get a sense of buzz around a product. Comparing Xbox, Wii and PS3 together shows significant more interest in the Wii and an enormous buzz around the Christmas period.
Of course all this needs to be taken with a pinch of salt take into account the people who are creating these terms, their demographic, language and also geographic location – as a comparison of capital cities or a comparison of hello in different language demonstrates.
To make the circle complete, you can share your Lexicon comparison with friends or post it to your profile. There is a danger that this could create some horrible Facebook amplification feedback loop though, possibly leading to the end of the world. Or perhaps that’s reserved for Facebook chat.
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