While we in Seattle were still recovering from our so-called “ice crisis”, the country was reeling from the latest in the Penn State drama. On Sunday, Joe Paterno, the winningest major-college football coach and face of Pennsylvania State University football, passed away from lung cancer. This, after the sudden and very public child sexual abuse scandal that rocked the nation in late 2011, was only the latest time Paterno was the center of national conversation. Using Visible’s® social media monitoring platform Visible Intelligence® to look at a sample of those discussing Paterno online, I was able to visualize the scale of this conversation.
As you can see in the chart below, talk about Paterno rose Saturday when Penn State student website Onward State falsely reported his death-a story quickly picked up by many national media organizations. Conversation again spiked on Sunday as reports of Paterno’s actual death came in.












“America is Back” says Obama in State of the Union Address
Posted by Ellen Enrico on January 25, 2012If you had plans to watch your favorite network television series last night, you figured out quickly it was pre-empted by the President’s 2012 State of the Union Address. Whether you watched the live broadcast, streaming video, or followed the #SOTU hash tag on Twitter, then you’re well aware of the issues addressed in the President’s speech, including the economy, jobs, taxes, healthcare, and immigration reform, to name a few.
Read more…