However, that’s not what is most concerning. What is most concerning that Arizona is still persistently in negative territory and it we are now entering the 6th week since the passage of SB 1070 and the 4th week after HB 2281. We even have the biggest ongoing environmental crisis in a generation going on in the Gulf and nothing beats a backlash than another crisis taking the spotlight. Given all of that, the backlash is still present. To such an extent that I wouldn’t call it a backlash anymore. It is more of a persistent PR crisis for Arizona and something that might turn into a stigma. Internally at Alchemy our stance was that they needed to go into the Memorial Day weekend in positive territory. Didn’t happen. Even more worrisome is that the negative chatter volumes haven’t dissipated that much.

Note the two humps. Each correspond with polls showing that the majority of American’s support Arizona’s recent laws. However, in both instances, the bounce only lasted for two days.

Again, look at the chatter levels last week – the intro week to a 3 day weekend. While lower than the previous week they aren’t dissipating as America’s attention is turned to the Gulf Coast. This is an ominous sign for Arizona. I can’t imagine the folks at the Arizona Department of Tourism can be pleased.

So what happened? We could try to cast dispersions on Idol’s methodology as some have done. But in reality, I don’t think you have to look very far back to learn one thing – the underdog often wins on Idol. Idol voting is not the same thing as voting in an election. You can vote early and often. There is no one viewer – one vote restriction. Thus, fans of the perceived underdog have the ability to outvote fans of the favorite. Going into the final vote, underdog fans know this and are more motivated to place multiple votes for their performer while fans of the favorite are less likely to vote multiple times.  Or so the theory goes…

In the end, SoV measures for Idol (and shows like Idol) might be contra-predictive. In fact, using the same SoV measure, Adam Lambert should have won last season. Perhaps, the model going forward is to pick the underdog. Or, perhaps, buzz (SoV) doesn’t equate to votes on American Idol.

Either way, we’ll now turn our attention back to predicting politics.

Arizona - Weekly Composite Sentiment

The rebound is visible with last week being the bottom of the trough. However, this is only part of the story. If you take a closer look using a 3 day moving average of sentiment, you can see that Arizona has actually crossed into positive territory yesterday.

Arizona Composite Sentiment - 3 Day Moving Average

It should be noted that this sentiment derived from all things Arizona – travel, schools, weather, sports teams, economy, immigration, politics – you name it. Any discussion about Arizona. As you can see prior to the passage of 1070, Arizona usually trends in the +1 to +2 range in Composite Sentiment (and the +0.2 – +0.4 range in raw sentiment). Thus, Arizona is not out of the woods yet and the 1070 issue is still effecting perception – but not as much as it was.

Below is a 2 month time series for the sentiment being expressed for Arizona. It should be noted that this is not strictly political sentiment, but rather the sum total of sentiment being expressed for the state of Arizona in all contexts. It should also be noted that this data is derived from both media and User Generated Content/Social Media sources.

That begs another question – so what does the wisdom of fans say about tonight’s match-up? According to our partner Rasmussen Reports, fans think Duke will win but would rather see Butler cutting down the net.

As for the chatter, over the course of the last 7 days it is Duke, by 1%.

However, if we just look at just today’s chatter we see that Butler is surging ahead as of 2:15pm EDT.

Butler appears to have the fan momentum – let’s see if it translates to a NCAA Finals victory.

*** UPDATE 7:30PM EDT ***

Here’s the last bit of data from today on tonight’s NCAA Finals. Butler has increased its share and has almost a 4% point lead on Duke going into the game.

2010 NCAA Final Four Share of Voice

Very little love for Michigan State but as someone who has watched these numbers come in, Michigan State has surged a good 1.5% share in the last couple of days. These numbers correspond nicely with Rasmussen’s outbound polling that show 33% rooting for Butler. What interesting is though 33% are rooting for Butler and the team is garnering a 31% share of coverage and chatter, only 13% believe that the 2010 Cinderella team will end up winning the tournament. This disbelief obviously isn’t keeping people from rooting or talking about Butler. However, a similar disbelief may be affecting share for another Midwest school. In our numbers, Michigan State comes in last at a 20% share. This enthusiasm gap also translates to doubts about the team’s ability to win – only 15% of people Rasmussen polled think Michigan State will win the tournament.

For more information, please see Rasmussen’s Final Four coverage.

“Maroon Alchemy acts as a massive listening platform to measure how the public feels about people, products and brands, as expressed in media and user-generated content,” adds Christopher Tippie, founder of Maroon Alchemy, LLC. “The Media Meter, coupled with Rasmussen’s extensive polling, delivers unparalleled insight into the opinions of the public about a full gamut of topics, from politics to sports.  It’s exciting to watch the data become part of Rasmussen’s news cycle.”

The new Media Meter platform “reads” press across the Web including the blogosphere and tallies information by volume, tone, polarity and more.  The data is then presented in vibrant tables and charts posted throughout the RasmussenReports.com site.  Readers will be able to see press sentiment broken down in a variety of ways, including the number of times a person or company is mentioned, if those mentions are positive, negative or neutral in tone, and how one individual’s coverage compares with another’s.

Interested in knowing how many mediums are writing about your favorite political candidate?  Check out the site’s Unique Outlet chart.  Want to know how much of that press is positive? Simply scroll over the Media Meter’s Plus-Minus chart.  Then do a cross-comparison with Rasmussen’s polling data for a “Big Picture” view of political races and issues.

The new content will be featured on the main public pages of the Rasmussen Reports web site as well as in the Premium Service Member area. However, Rasmussen’s Premium Service subscribers will enjoy an elevated interactive experience with the Media Meter, having the ability to surf between various data time periods and eventually selecting their own head-to-head match-ups for campaigns and sports teams to gauge which has a more favorable rating in the media.

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About Rasmussen Reports, LLC

Rasmussen Reports, LLC is an independent electronic media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion polling information.  RasmussenReports.com is the most-visited public opinion site in the country, providing daily measures of consumer and investor confidence and a daily Presidential Approval Index, plus in-depth polling data on politics, business, breaking news events and lifestyle trends. The site also regularly includes commentary from some of the top political analysts in the country. As the site evolves, new features are being added, including the newly-launched Media Meter, tracking press sentiment about high profile personalities and organizations, and the State Portfolio pages, soon to be a must-read resource for local news and political race information. Rasmussen Reports’ Premium Service offers subscribers the deepest insight into poll numbers. Rasmussen data is cited in virtually every major print, broadcast and online news outlet across the country and may be found on Twitter and Facebook. An independent pollster for more than a decade, Scott Rasmussen, president and CEO of Rasmussen Reports, is a broadcast veteran and author of the acclaimed book, In Search of Self-Governance.

About Maroon Alchemy, LLC

Maroon Alchemy tracks public sentiment and perspective on approximately 39 million different entities voiced from over 60,000 media and user generated content sources, giving deep insight into the public, markets and electorate. Working with a select group of partners, the company has been measuring perception since 2008 and is focused on producing actionable insights that can drive informed business decision-making. Maroon Alchemy is a subsidiary of Maroon Ventures, LLC and is based in Colorado.

So that leads me to the tablet.  Let’s look at the numbers shall we? At Maroon Alchemy we routinely compile the top 25 positive and negative drivers around Apple’s perception we actually do it for everyone as well. Over the course of the last 30 days (remember, that includes a bit of post holiday euphoria), 12 of out of Apple’s Top 25 positive perception drivers are all tablet related. As someone who has recently closely watched several major product launches that is astounding. Verizon didn’t get there with the Droid. Microsoft didn’t get even come close with Windows 7 and Google fell short with Nexus One.

What makes this more impressive is that Apple accomplished this without spending a single dollar on hype. Heck, the company still won’t confirm it is announcing a tablet tomorrow… which is, of course, part of the hype. Granted, once the annoucement is made we’ll see the Apple advertising engine shift into action but again, you’re going to see it via those Marketing 1.0 platforms.

To put this all into context, the first time we saw the “tablet” appear in the the Apple Top 25 was back in August when it debuted at #18. Now, it accounts for just shy of 50% of its positive drivers. To top it off, it isn’t like Apple isn’t already swimming in really good positive news. Also, it should be noted that no tablet related perception drivers appears in Apple’s Top 25 Negative list at this point.

Stay tuned…

This is our volume coming from traditional media outlets per day through the first few weeks of December.

Here is our volume starting on 12/21 (Monday) through 8:00pm EST Monday (12/28).

Note this marked drop off during the Christmas holidays. What makes this interesting is that there were two (really 1.5) significant events during this period. The first was reaction to the Senate vote on the Health Care bill. Granted, since the actual vote occurred on 12/24 this is really a half an event. But what is really interesting is the fact that on 12/25 we had a failed attempt to blow up an airliner over American soil. That’s a pretty big HOLY COW story with all sorts of ramifications in terms of traditional media. Yet, you see that the daily volume, particularly on the day of the attempted attack and the following day (Friday – Christmas & Saturday) being well below their normal averages.

If it is any consolation, the rest of us took a vacation as well as the User Generated Content and blogosphere showed the same decrease despite the news events. Looking at the Monday numbers, some of us seem to still be on vacation. Heh!