• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, September 25, 2007

Media and marketing research giant Nielsen Co. opened the beta for its new "Hey! Nielsen" social network to the general public. And based on what's happening on its pages, the site is destined to be a monitor of pop culture ranging from TV to music to online media content. And based on the initial conversations from 2,720 members--mainly Nielsen employees--TV is generating the most buzz, and shows like CBS' "Jericho," NBC's "Heroes," and ABC's "Ugly Betty" are the buzziest.

http://publications.mediapost.com/publications/articles/images/10/updatedMDNNielsen.jpg

Among the features on Hey! Nielsen is a ranking system that factors the volume of discussion and the degree of positive or negative comments taking place around entertainment content, and assigns it a "Hey! Nielsen Score." Based on the current panel's results, CBS' "Jericho" ranks highest with a score of 218, followed by NBC's "Heroes" (103), and "Ugly Betty" (52).

The top seven rankings go to TV programs, but the ninth spot is a tie between YouTube and NBC's "The Office," which each generated a score of 42, followed by online social network Facebook (41). Interestingly, Hey! Nielsen also ranks on Hey! Nielsen, but 17^th (it also ranks 18^th due to some technical glitch) behind "Seinfeld," and ahead of Sci-Fi Channel series "The 4400."

And the votes for Hey! Nielsen appeared to be decidedly mixed. "Not sure if I've been sucked into Nielsen's cheap way of gathering research and data?," one skeptic posted, generating a string of five replies.

"Loving it so far! Thank goodness for ANYTHING that illustrates more true data than the current Nielsen system," a clear supporter posted, generating no replies.

What would be helpful--at least until the user base of Hey! Nielsen broadens to be more representative--is to have posters disclose whether they are Nielsen employees.