Reuters, the largest international multimedia news agency in the world, now has a strong finger on the social media pulse. Social Pulse brings together “the most talked-about news, companies and influences across the Web,” writes Alex Leo, Director of News Product for Reuters Digital in her blog announcing the launch.
Top Tweets on Twitter by Reuters Reporters
The site curates the Tweets of journalists and official Twitter accounts that Reuters follows and publishes them on “The Hit List – What people we follow are reading.” The Hit List essentially consists of microblog articles and Re-Tweets from Reuters reporters, of which there are over 3000. The re-tweeted articles are from a variety of news sources, and are not limited to the reporting or news written by Reuters journalists. Other Twitter users’ Tweets, including political politicians, economic experts, top managers and tech innovators, are also posted here.
Trending Topics Curated by Percolate
Social Pulse uses applied analytics and what Leo calls the “technical detective work” of Percolate, the social news-aggregation service behind Counterparties.com, another Reuters website which, according to editors Felix Salmon and Ryan McCarthy, publishes “curated snapshot[s] of the best finance news and commentary.”
Underneath the Hit List is the stock sentiment module. The graph, curated by keyword analysis tool WiseWindow, tracks and analyzes hundreds of thousands of social sources for sentiments about companies and products using complex statistical and language processing technology. Sectors covered include Tech, Finance, Healthcare, Industrial and Energy. So, for example, on any given day, readers can see how Amazon (see image) faired in stock price percentage versus social sentiment. Interestingly, high stock price often equals low social sentiment.
The Most Social CEOs According to Reuters & Klout
Perhaps the most popular module on the Social Pulse page is the “Most Social CEOs” module, which ranks America’s 50 most social CEOs who are actively tweeting in English on Twitter. Currently, these top-tweeting CEOs include Pete Cashmore, Oprah Winfrey, Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson.
Social Networks Driving the Trend in News Sharing
Reuters, like many other news services and providers, recognizes the power of social media and how it is driving the trend in information sharing, gathering and dissemination. Many of the stories that appear in The Hit List are not Reuters’ articles; there is no bias on Reuters' Social Pulse. And what Social Pulse makes possible is the sharing of information and news, by journalists and other influential figures, that is important and relevant to intelligent social media users.
MyHue McGowran - A published print and online journalist, Mý Huê is currently a self-employed translator, copywriter, editor. She lives in Vienna, ...
