Does your organization have more time (and technical chops) than money? The World Bank today launched The BuzzMonitor, an open-source social media aggregator that provides a platform for monitoring and participating in social media in multi-user environments (via Pierre-Guillaume Wielezynski). The catch is, you have to install and run it yourself.
The Buzzmonitor promises some handy features:
- Elimination of duplicate items from multiple search feeds.
- Automated keyword extraction & tag cloud generation.
- Embedded Alexa and Technorati rank information.
- Digg-style voting within your user base.
- User tagging and bookmarking.
- Internal commenting (visible only to other users on your system).
- Internal tag and search feeds.
The Buzzmonitor's sponsors at the World Bank suggest the program for "non-profit organizations, NGOs, foundations and think-tanks to see and hear what people are saying about them, their programs and understand the perception around important issues." Its GNU General Public License makes it free for anyone who wants to try it.
Now, here's the catch. The platform requirements put The Buzzmonitor out of reach for marketing managers who want something quick and easy. You'll need a server (preferably Linux) and someone to configure it, so this is a do-it-yourself job only for the technically skilled. More likely, this is something for your IT department to experiment with before you roll it out to users.
If all you want to do is see how it works, take the tour, which offers limited access to a live demo. I'd post a screenshot here, but if you really care, you'll go through the demo, anyway.
Tags: buzzmonitor blogmonitoring social media analysis
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