PoliticalTrends.info - Gauging a Political Blogosphere

Developed by Lexalytics, a Mass. based metrics/analysis company, PoliticalTrends tracks political sentiment around the blogosphere. The site follows 50+ political blogs and reports on their leanings by extracting recurring words and analyzing them by context. You’ll find pie charts and graphs pinpointing the frequency of topics such as the war in Iraq, or Osama Bin Laden. The site also points out the hottest candidates in the blogosphere (currently Hillary’s got the lead) and the hottest categories (Palestine’s in first place). Trends are categorized by theme, e.g. Economy, Foreign Policy, and Energy; each has series of subsets which allow you to explore the theme in depth. Graphs chart day-by-day tones (neutral, positive or negative) for each topic. Clicking on the pie charts will give you a list of related posts. The service is free.

“Welcome to PoliticalTrends.info: keeping tabs on the political atmosphere within the blogosphere.”

PoliticalTrends is especially relevant with the 2008 election fast approaching. It could potentially be a very insightful gauge of the politically leanings of the blogosphere. Pundits and political advisors would do well to study its contents.

The site is timely and therefore interesting, but it needs work. The interface is somewhat unpolished and the displays are difficult to read. The site doesn’t cite blog sources for related articles. The sites which it does include are analyzed for leanings, but most have no data. Will the company put more effort into the site, or is it merely flexing it’s metric muscle?