There’s finally an alternative to Nielsen’s Blogpulse. Not that there’s anything wrong with Blogpulse – it’s a handy, free tool for searching trends in the blogosphere. And there have always been other ways to get at the information (without paying for it) – Google blog search or Technorati in particular. But Blogpulse delivers a simple results graphic with rudimentary tools for controlling date range and drilling down into results.
Now from Belgian brand monitoring firm Attentio comes Trendpedia – a tool to search blog trends with a bit of zeitgeist thrown in as well. (Now available out of beta.)
I ran a quick search on the first topic that came to mind after a long three-day weekend (it was Patriots Day, for those of you not in MA, ME, or WI – commemorating the ride of Paul Revere in 1775). The topic just happened to be the drama around the New York Yankees young pitching staff.
The results from Blogpulse vs. Trendpedia:
(I admit that the first search I ran was for Joba, "Ian Hughes," and "Phil Kennedy." Oops.)
From what I can tell, it looks like Blogpulse is on autopilot – a "2005 year in review" feature lives on, the copyright at bottom is 2006, and latest news is from April 2007. Maybe a tell-tale sign of the revenue generation potential from a free blog trend search engine…?