An infographic from late last year by SocialSphere aggregating information on social network impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Quote: “This June, while engineers in the Gulf were trying to stop the destructive flow of oil from BP’s well, SocialSphere was tracking the spread of a different kind of substance – information. We analyzed over 240,000 relevant news articles, blog posts, Tweets, Facebook updates and other social media mentions during the month of June, focusing on comment volume and linking patterns of eight of the most influential sources of both old and new media. With the help of Harvard Berkman Center fellow Miriam Meckel and talented designer Tiffany Farrant, we put together this infographic summarizing our key findings. No one was surprised by the online conversation about the oil spill – it was huge, fast, and angry – but our infographic did illustrate a point we’ve been making more clearly than any report we have so far produced: information online flows in sometimes unexpected ways (and shocking quantities). Arianna Huffington, not Tony Hayward, is the unexpected star of this analysis – and with 227,000 on-topic comments during the peak period of coverage and seven times as many inbound links as the New York Times, the Huffington Post is succeeding in a space where inflexible old media titans once roamed. And if there’s anything we’ve learned over our years of navigating social media, it’s that the way information flows online is always changing. This infographic is just a snapshot in time.”
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