• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 19, 2008

Last month, Networked Insights released a study challenging the Nielsen Co.'s ratings system by measuring what content is being discussed and shared online. Today, the social media research startup is releasing the second part of its study to take on Nielsen-owned Billboard Magazine and its weekly "Hot 100 chart."

While traditional music charts like Billboard determine song rankings, based on sales and radio airplay, Networked Insights' report attempts to offer a new take on music audience measurement by analyzing the millions of interactions occurring online everyday around the most popular songs.

When measuring "the social"--Networked Insights' term for engagement--seven of the songs on its top 10 must list did not appear in Billboard's top 10 songs.

"This indicates a large discrepancy between song purchase and airplay and audience interactions online," said Dan Neely, founder and CEO of Wisconsin-based Networked Insights.

In addition, while both lists consist mostly of pop and hip-hop/R&B songs, Networked Insights' chart showed a different genre with two songs in the "alternative" category: Secondhand Serenade's "Fall For You" at No. 5; and Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" at No. 7.

What is the point? The study points out that Secondhand Serenade's lyrics are popular among social network users as they lend themselves well to posting as comments and on "friends' pages."

In anther finding, American Idol winner David Archuleta's "Crush" is ranked third on Networked Insights' list because of the strong interactive component of the show transferring to online interactions.

"Our research proves that across many industries, marketers need to fully understand their online audiences and not just rely on traditional forms of measurement," said Neely. "The way people interact with music now goes far beyond just buying it or listening to it on the radio."

Today, according to Neely, online measurement generally involves listening to the 15% of people who post content online. While this section of the audience is important, the other 85%--which Networked Insights claims to uncover--is interacting in other ways like reading, rating, sharing, linking and inviting.

To gather data for this Measuring the Social report, Networked Insights tapped more than 17,000 social media and social networking sites, which included 3.5 million conversations per day and over 120 million unique users.

The Networked Insights top 10 chart was compared to Billboard's Hot 100 list for the week of Oct. 28 through Nov. 4.