If you need proof on how pervasive social networking is becoming to society than look no further than Twitter users' attitudes towards the BP oil disaster and the effect it is having on the Obama administration.

Aware of this, PeopleBrowsr chief data analyst Brian Solis put together a report on the evolving state of public sentiment towards BP and Obama. The goal of his report was to put the spotlight on views and opinions as they evolved over a three-month period on Twitter, starting in March and ending in June 2010. At the same time, Brian set out to show perception vs. actuality by separating the developing attitudes on the state of Obama and BP over these same months. And this is where it gets interesting. When comparing the data, starting with positive sentiment, the nosedive for both is big.

Before the oil spill, BP sat at its apex of positive sentiment and as news of the April 2010 disaster and failed attempts to fix it spread around the globe, sentiment dropped 61.5 per cent over the three-month period. Proving that everything is eerily aligned; Obama also fell by almost the same percentage (63.3 pc) from its high in March to a three month low. This shows that from a public perception standpoint, pro-active leadership and resolution are critical.
In Brian's report, he viewed all conversations related to the White House and Obama as a whole, and not isolated by the oil spill only. The sentiment data is also the result of human sorted tweets that were randomly sampled over time.

View the full report here View BP mentions on the PeopleBrowsr Events page