Microsoft, AOL: rather flat,
hype-wise

Last week Facebook quietly launched Lexicon, a tool that counts the number of instances a word occurred on profiles, groups and event Walls in its network.

Casual users can compare the buzz-worthiness of up to five different words or phrases at a time. Phrases are limited to two words.

A comparison between Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and AOL found that in a six-month period, Google is discussed at consistently higher levels than any of its competitors. At a rather touchy second is Yahoo, whose popularity skyrocketed between March and April, likely because of Microsoft acquisition buzz.

Throughout the six-month period, Microsoft and AOL remained at the bottom of the graph.

A comparison between the Zune and iPod was equally humbling for the Microsoft camp.

Oddly, BlackBerry and the iPhone are increasingly competitive. The iPhone had a clear advantage in September '07 and peaked buzz-wise between December and January. Since then, it treads water at BlackBerry's side.

Explore Facebook Lexicon, which bears some similarities to Google's Zeitgeist PR tool and Nielsen BuzzMetrics' BlogPulse.