Been a while since the last post, but wanted to provide a little more detail on a report we pulled together that was picked up by USA Today : Gamers: Wii has PS3 beat

Here’s how we pulled together the report- we monitored over 100,000 conversations on our top 100 gaming sites, and we found just over 10,000 that were relevant to the launch. The way we broke it down was to categorize the conversations as positive, neutral, or negative, which is determined by our analysts who specialize in gaming. The breakdown:

PS3:

• 7062 conversations
• 1945 Positive (27%)
• 2650 Negative (38%)
• 2467 Neutral (35%)

Wii:

• 3520 conversations
• 1711 Positive (49%)
• 638 Negative (18%)
• 1171 Neutral (33%)

A couple of things stand out to me- first, the difference in volume between the two consoles is almost 2-to-1, and might be indicative of the fact that negative threads, as a whole, generate more volume, or if the larger PS2 installed base lent itself to a larger fanboy population (probably both). Another thing that stood out is that almost all of the excerpted quotes in our report and in other media involve Wal*Mart as the setting for every story- maybe people had a hard time finding them because they all went to the same place. -Sam Huxley

More Wii info on the way? (CNET)

YOuTube sells space on the front page (Washington Post)

Confused about what the hype regarding Second Life really means? Wondering if they really have a ton of users? Unsure of the commitment time it might take? Take a look at Micro Persuasion’s Second Life overview, which takes a hard (but fair) look at the user base, Second Life in the blogosphere and some user demographics. It’s an excellent reality check on what’s really going on over in Second Life, but also looks at the potential for growth and how marketers should view it.

In other Second Life news, Wired takes a look at how bands have been utlizing SL to reach fans.

It had to happen at some point: YouTube overtakes MySpace (Guardian UK)

In Japan, the DS Lite sells more than all other consoles combined. (Digital Battle)

Take Pew’s online version of the “Bloggers” survey (Pew Internet)

Are MMO’s hurting game sales? (Slashdot)

More on Google’s Pay Per Action test (AdJab)

And finally, a bit of Friday fun from the “Dead TV shows coming back to life” category - Futuram heads to Comedy Central starting in 2008    (TV Squad)

Hispanic Audience seeks mobile entertainment (eMarketer)

Social Media = Local Search guides (Clickz)

The Best Games of Summer (Business Week)

Take a look at the new Digg (Valleywag)

More on in-game ads and product placement (now, with numbers!)(Marketingblurb)

Your mom might just have a Social Network profile - and not to spy on you! (eMarketer)