The blogosphere is like a cage of resonance

Known as "the watchers of the Web". They work alone or as a team in the Department before the company. Their mission Listen to rumours on blogs, podcasts and other discussion forums to identify weak signals and alert the leader. No background noise must escape their vigilance: felt to a surfer on a new product or the side effects of a drug, to branding, comment from a competitor... All content online can be a strategic dimension. "A crisis can make time to burst, but listen to the music played on the Net to identify the warning signs", says Pierre-Antoine Lorenzi, CEO of Serenus Council, firm specializing in risk management.

"The blogosphere is like a cage of resonance. A crisis can occur at any time, anywhere in the world. "To be able to listen to rumours, federate information sources and select those that are most relevant", insists Aline Duru, the Department responsible for Eve in Total. The group works with a team of four guards and is currently considering a blanket approach to the day before. Strategic listening by the watchers relies today on platforms and software that automate the extraction and analysis of the data. Presented on December 12, the Forum of the tools of previous day organized by the Chamber of commerce and industry of Seine-et-Marne, these software solutions are now close to maturity.

Choosing keywords

"The simple aggregator of data such as Copernic Tracker very sophisticated as Luxid tools, published by the company Temis, passing by KB Crawl of BEA Council, Eve tools are now adapted to different needs companies", considers Myriel Brouland, consultant and Director associate of the Uruk cabinet. At the base, the software searches information according to the keywords defined by the company. It then identifies the news published on the Web according to the frequency of specified standby. "The upstream phase is essential." "Must be whether define keywords, setting up research and property to retrieve the rumour prior to analyze it," warns Myriel Brouland.

The SNCF is equipped solution KB Crawl to retrieve and interpret the information. Between a user claims and frustration of an employee, his Department of Eve is to differentiate real rumors of false noises. "Rumors on the coal premium allegedly seen by railwaymen were invented from scratch, this premium has been removed for a long time," said Julien Flandrois, product at BEA Council Manager. That confirms the Hoaxkill website. "KB Crawl is part of a systematic approach to Eve." This autopilot broadens the scope of the research to the invisible Web: databases, sites that require authentication, various forms... ", said Julien Flandrois.

Measuring influence

False rumours and proven intox can deteriorate the image of their brand and it is then necessary to assess the ability of issuers of noise influence: "more complex, for officers, is to distinguish the rumours which will be repeated on the blogosphere from those that will have a negligible influence", said Philippe Pailliart, President of Burston-Marsteller Paris. To create a State of the premises of the reputation of a company at a given time, Burston-Marsteller has created a tool called "Web rep". This platform lists and sorts the on-line content indicating a change in the image of the company. The decision maker will be able to adapt its communication strategy to the emerging problem.

Remains that the collection of data at the international level sometimes faces the obstacle of the language. Nestlé, which identifies each year on various supports more than 10 million contacts from around the world, uses software solution Luxid, published by Temis. "Our"text mining"solution integrates a language technology capable of identifying niceties of at least 7 languages to 700 research themes defined by Nestlé", assures Charles Huot, Director of operations at Temis. The watchers and their tools, the rumour to listen now in German, Portuguese or Japanese. And Russian and Arabic are the order of the day.