Good to see the New York Times article on WOM monitoring today , as the importance of monitoring consumer opinions cannot be underestimated. It is interesting, however, that the Times focused only on software-based solutions and not human-based analysis of online conversations. In our experience, there is no substitution for experienced analysts when it comes to recognizing things like sarcasm, context, and lingo. Also, real time monitoring is only as good as your filter, and false leads and trends can overwhelm clients quickly with random noise. I haven’t seen any studies comparing the difference between human and bot accuracy, but I would be shocked if they were close.