Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin may be in the headlines, but online consumer discussion remains focused (pdf) on presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, whose acceptance speech bested Obama's record-breaking viewership numbers, Nielsen reports (via MarketingCharts).
An analysis of buzz around more than 30 speakers at the recent Democratic and Republican national conventions showed Obama with a slight lead over McCain, followed by Palin and Hillary Clinton.
Vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden rounded out the top five with just over one-quarter as much buzz as Obama.
Television Audiences
McCain's acceptance speech bested Obama's by 500,000 viewers, according to Nielsen: 38.9 million watched the final night of GOP convention coverage, compared with 38.4 million viewers for Democrats.
For the third night in a row, more women (19.2 million) than men (17.9 million) watched the RNC coverage. However, more men watched McCain's speech than Obama's, whereas Obama drew more women than McCain.
More white viewers watched McCain's speech - 32.2 million vs. 27 million for Obama - but more African Americans watched Obama's speech - 7.5 million vs. 3.1 million for McCain's speech.
