Facebook launch Lexicon

Facebook have launched 'Lexicon' ... it's a tool that allows you to measure the comparitive buzz on Facebook of up to 5 seperate terms.

Here's an example I prepared earlier - http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/index.php?q=barack+obama%2C+hillary+clinton (you must have a Facebook account to view)

The official Facebook release is here - http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=13856412130

"At Facebook we love tools that allow you to see what people around the globe are searching for or discussing on blogs, such as Google Trends or Technorati. We thought it would be cool to show trends on the public and semi-public forums across Facebook (also known as Walls)."

I had a chuckle when the example they used was 'Juno' (great movie btw)

So how useful is this for us in AU. To be honest, not very ... but that doesn't mean it's not interesting.

The main issue is the data isn't localised. The second is we don't actually know the volume of 'buzz' ... thirdly it's only based around Wall posts (profile, group, event)- which is only one component of the Faceboon experience.

But it shows Facebook have some interest in allowing their audience to make some sense of the millions of conversations going on each and every day on the platform.