Sentiment analysis software specialist SocialNuggets April 13 published a brief blog post noting how HTC handsets dominated the iPhone in social media buzz through March.
SocialNuggets analyzed over “1,000,000 conversations quarterly on social media and forums related to smartphones.”
The company found that the iPhone 4 ranked tenth, while the HTC Thunderbolt was first, followed by the HTC Inspire 4G and HTC Incredible S in the top three handsets for the month:
The reason? SocialNuggets surmised:
“The negative perception of the iPhone was caused by the fact the iPhone has not been updated, especially as compared to the newer HTC Android phones, some of which have 4G capabilities.“
So people are knocking the iPhone 4, which has been out on AT&T for almost a year, for not being a 4G phone? BS. I would dismiss this out of hand as a mere timing issue. HTC is loading up for its spring releases, which include all of those aforementioned phones.
I’ll be the first to admit the Thunderbolt is a class-act phone with unparalleled speed on 4G, but I think Apple was bound to lose some mindshare points after the Thunderbolt came out because of the speed differential.
When you’re talking about sentiment analysis, you’re talking about the real-time tweets and other trending topics people are talking about. The Thunderbolt came out March 17, while the iPhone 4, an excellent device in its own right but 3G nonetheless, has been out on AT&T for almost a year and out on Verizon Wireless for a few months.
It would have been better to compare iPhone 4 trending tweets in January or February, or even see where the iPhone 5 ranks now compared with the Thunderbolt and other new HTC devices.
There is a reason Android phones dominate the list you see above. There’s tons of them! Android didn’t magically arrive at 33 percent U.S. market share without the benefit of dozens of phones available across four major carriers in this country.
So for this sort of sentiment analysis, I argue pinch thumb and forefinger together and grab salt.