Via scobleizer.com [excerpt from interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. My bold]:
Facebook is, he told me, studying “sentiment†behavior. It hasn’t yet used that research in its public service yet, but is looking to figure out if people are having a good day or bad day. He said that already his teams are able to sense when nasty news, like stock prices are headed down, is underway. He also told me that the sentiment engine notices a lot of “going out†kinds of messages on Friday afternoon and then notices a lot of “hungover†messages on Saturday morning. He’s not sure where that research will lead. We talked about how sentiment analysis might lead to a new kind of news display in Facebook. Knowing whether a story is positive or negative would let Facebook pick a good selection of both kinds of news, or maybe even let you choose whether you want to see only “happy†news.”Â
source: Zuckerberg: Facebook’s “intense†year. scobleizer.com
