The (social media) crowd is not always right

The crowd is wise. The crowd is true. These days it is all about the power of connections, of networking, of buzz.

Well, yes, but not always.

Before the recent Grammy Awards in the US, the social media monitoring firm Meltwater came up with a very cool chart predicting the winners on social media "buzz," which is, says the company, "based on the volume of mentions and sentiment of the social media community across blogs, microblogs, social networks, comments, message boards, videos and Wikipedia."




Cutting edge, right? A new way of using communication? Maybe. It was cool enough to get a write up in Wired.

Except none of their favorites won. In fact, in two of three categories, the least favorite nominee on their chart actually won the Grammy - Lady Antebellum in Best Album and Esperanza Spalding in Best New Artist. In the Best Record category, the winner - Arcade Fire - wasn't even in the top five (I would have guessed Arcade Fire based purely on this incredible collaboration with Google - best used with Chrome).

Now these victories were a surprise to almost everybody. From an Associated Press story:

"Good thing for the Grammys that the awards continue to be de-emphasized, because it was a strange night even for a recording academy with a long history of head-scratching choices. Esperanza Spalding for best new artist? Song and record of the year "Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum? We doubt anyone will remember that song five years from now as they will, for example, Empire State of Mind."

But, regardless, it just goes to show that the wisdom of the social media crowd was, in this case, no more perceptive than anything else.

And so the Grammys remain a critical and popular mystery ... and Meltwater has not updated their blog entry either.




Nathan Hegedus


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