Patent ID: 7197470

Claim:
A method for collecting and analyzing electronic discussion messages; wherein the method comprises the computer-implemented steps of: (a) collecting a plurality of message information from a plurality of pre-determined electronic discussion forums; (b) storing the plurality of message information in a central data store; (c) categorizing the message information, with respect to at least one topic, according to a plurality of pre-determined rules; (d) assigning an opinion rating to the plurality of message information based on sentence-level analysis using a plurality of pre-determined linguistic patterns and associative rules, the opinion rating indicating at least one of a positive, negative and neutral opinion associated with the at least one topic; (e) collecting a plurality of objective data from a plurality of objective data sources; (f) analyzing the message information, opinion rating and the objective data to identify trends in the pattern of behavior in pre-determined markets and the roles of individual participants in electronic discussion forums over time; and (g) generating reports for end-users based on the results of the analyses performed by the present invention.