As my friends above point out, this is tricky stuff. Each of us has very smart people working on the problem of how to infer sentiment from unstructured commentary, and Margaret is right to point out the theoretical limits of any system that approaches this problem through the words themselves.

Crimson Hexagon is unique in approaching it through numbers, though, or more properly though numerical representations of this same text. Doing so reveals patterns beyond even what is readily discernible by human beings, enabling us not only to diagnose the “black and white” tones of sentiment with unmatched accuracy, but to paint a picture in the many “colors” of a conversation, for each theme, thought or emotion present.

One important thing to note about sentiment ratings is whether they are about the whole post or the specific thing or person within the post. For instance, a post that says “I usually hate shopping at Target but the Go International line is too cute to resist” is positive about Go International- but not about Target. At Scout Labs we focus on entity specific sentiment, not positive and negative words counts, for this very reason. Users can correct machine estimates if absolute precision is required, and many do, which helps us to find words like “suxxxx!!!!!!” which we believe connotes negative sentiment and makes our dictionary powered algorithms much better over time. Come try it out and see how it works, we offer free trials to one and all.

Best, Margaret Francis
VP Product Scout Labs
info@scoutlabs.com

Thanks so much for this comprehensive drill-down. You’re right that automated sentiment is coming from us in the next few weeks. The trick of course is that no automated sentiment is yet perfect (we English-speaking humans have a complex language, don’t we?), but it’ll at least give you a head start with a first pass at the information so you can refine it based on your human filters.

Appreciate some of your other comments and suggestions, and we’re always open to feedback on how to make the platform better. Thanks very much for taking the time to write this up, and please reach out anytime.

Cheers,
Amber Naslund
Director of Community, Radian6
@ambercadabra