Our latest PR Week blogger analysis focused on what else? The Olympics. Here is a little snapshot:

-Michael Phelps is the swimmer and Olympian everyone is buzzing about, with over 50 unique blogs emerging as influencers on him specifically.

-Both the men's and women's gymnastics generated notable blog chatter. On the men's side, influencers lamented the loss of the Hamm brothers, who were instrumental in the team's finish in Athens. In fact, influential blog Kids Prefer Cheese noted that the US stock market fell upon the announcement of the second Hamm loss.

-The business of the Olympic Games has not been forgotten among bloggers. The fact that NBC has passed $1 billion in ad revenue around the games has many bloggers buzzing that this is quite an accomplishment given the economic climate.

Want more? Check out the full analysis here.

After last week's CDC study found the HIV rate in the US was 40 percent higher than original estimates, we wanted to take a look at the blogosphere and see what was being said around this concerning subject.

Overall, mainstream media attention on HIV has faded greatly in the last couple of years. However, this is not the case with social media; in fact, we found the topic widely discussed within blogs. Looking at conversations generated since July 22, we found an average of 10 posts a day from bloggers identified as influential on the subject. Overall, there were 205,219 total posts related to HIV in that time period, which translates to 13,681 posts a day.

What's specifically being discussed? In these conversations, 34 percent of the influencers are talking about HIV risks, and 18 percent are discussing prevention.

As for the opinion leaders, the most influential blog on the topic of HIV is HIV This Week, providing weekly updates on HIV-related news. The most influential post is from Our Bodies Our Blog on July 31, which discusses a report from the Black AIDS Institute stating that African Americans are still at risk more than other races and groups in the States. This is a common theme in the last few weeks in the blogosphere, with almost one third of the influential posts discussing this topic, including the South Georgia HIV/AIDS blog, which looks at the failure by the government to combat the growing problem.

Other popular topics being discussed about HIV include testing, treatment and the affect other diseases have on the progression of HIV.

What have we learned from our research? Traditional media reporting around HIV has died down - the disease is not widely covered, at least not compared to the vast amount of people it has affected. However, bloggers are passionately keeping the conversation alive, discussing prevention and the need for even more education when it comes to this still very prevalent disease.

Some companies just intrinsically get social media. Freshbooks, a cool online invoicing start up, is one of those companies. We recently sat down with CEO Mike McDerment to understand his secrets to social media success.

Social media prowess should start from the top. As founder and CEO of a growing start up, Mike has a lot on his plate. But he makes time for social media. He's an avid user of the all the tools and platforms and blogs regularly. It's much easier to ensure the right social media philosophy is embraced throughout a company when the CEO not only talks the talk - but walks the walk.

Customer service is everyone's business. Mike says every employee at Freshbooks starts in the customer service department. So, regardless of function, be it product development or marketing, each and every Freshbooks employee knows the value of listening to customers, and is extremely tuned in to their desires and pain points.

Social media is not a campaign. Mike says thinking of social media as a campaign with a finite start and end date is a set up for failure. "You don't do social media for 3 months and then turn it off," says Mike. Mike recommends to start off with listening, see what people are saying, take those lessons and build ongoing strategies around those findings. Here here!

Check out the full interview, preferably with a glass of Cab.

Two gamer favorites - Guitar Hero and Rock Band – will release new games this month. We decided to dig into the conversations around these two games and see what the buzz is about

In the month of July, Guitar Hero was discussed in 132 blogs in 851 posts, while Rock Band chatter resides with 241 blogs in 2032 posts. Off the bat, we can see that Rock Band is talked about by more blogs, but even more interesting, it's generating more than double the posts, yielding a much larger conversation. But is that a good thing? Read on...

For the conversation query "Guitar Hero", Guitar Hero III is currently the hottest topic with 24% of the overall conversations referencing it – PlayStation was mentioned 22%, Activision 28% and Xbox360 18%. Influencers on the topic of Guitar Hero also mentioned Wii in 21% of the conversations.

For the query around "Rock Band", we found some similar references - PlayStation3 was discussed by 26% of the posts, while Xbox360 was discussed in 25%. However, when looking at a comparison between Rock Band and Guitar Hero, influencers for Guitar Hero are discussing the Wii much more – 21% for Guitar Hero, 2% for Rock Band. Seems like Guitar Hero fans prefer the Wii more than Rock Band fanatics.

Who are the influencers?

For "Guitar Hero", Kotaku is the most influential blog, with Joystiq and NintendoWiiFanboy rounding out the top 3. The most influential post was by Gizmodo on July 18, which talked about the new Starpex guitar for the game. The topic of World Tour (the upcoming Guitar Hero IV) is generating a lot of buzz, especially around the artists included on the playlist, like Jimi Hendrix and Metallica.

For "Rock Band", Engadget was the most influential blog, with PS3Fanboy and Joystiq rounding out the top 3. The most influential post was also from Engadget on July 16, which, like the most influential for Guitar Hero, looked at controllers. It appears bloggers are very impatient for the cymbal plug-in from Mad Katz Development, as well as the Ion “drum rocker” kit that turns game drums into a working set. Influencers like QuickJump also are buzzing around the news from E3 that the Xbox360 version of Guitar Hero IV is compatible with Rock Band instruments, with many wondering - why only the XBox?

A post from July 22 on Matt Brett’s blog discusses some of the issues that fans have with the two games – as you may have guessed, it’s around the controllers. While Rock Band is more widely discussed among influential blogs, there is a reason, and it's not a positive one. As Matt states, and many others echo, the current Rock Band kit has technical issues – it’s light and loud. Matt, along with many of his fellow gaming bloggers, wonders if he should make the switch to Guitar Hero. Of course, true to their passion, most gamers will purchase both.

Our latest analysis for PR Week was just published, and this time we looked into the increasing influence of parenting blogs.

Some highlights:

-On the subject of kids, MomLogic is the most influential blog overall, with posts on a wide variety of parenting and child-related topics such as planning birthday parties and how to get kids to help with chores.

-Travel is a hot topic among the mommy blog influencers; 18% of the influential posts related to the term “kids” are focused on travel. The Flyaway blog, which has three influential posts related to kids and travel, provided a cheat sheet of the best toys to keep kids occupied on flights and car trips.

-Within the conversations around “kids,” 23% of the influencers were concerned with meals at school and include advice on what to put in lunches to keep your children smart (think healthy proteins and veggies).

-And what were the influencers saying about the hoards of new celebrity babies? In a query on “celebrity” and “baby,” we found the most talked about celebrity offspring was not Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's twins (although they came in second). Rather, it was Sunday Rose, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's little girl, who scored 12% of the influential posts in July.

Check out PR Week or The Speak Media Blog for more details.

Sam Whitmore, the force behind Media Survey, recently dropped by Vino Diaries, much to my selfish delight. A PR person myself, I fondly remember many a MediaSurvey teleconference during my agency years where Sam good-naturedly grilled top editors in the name of helping PR folks fine-tune their outreach strategies. For those of you who don't know, Media Survey is the go-to source on technology editorial. Sam's team "reverse engineers" what is getting written about, how it's written and who is writing it to help PR people build and maximize relationships with journalists. You can think of it as the CliffsNotes for tech PR pros.

But Sam is more than just a tech PR pro's best friend - he spent 14 years at Ziff Davis and has unique perspective on how media's current transformation impacts everyone from the editors at the top publications to ad agencies' shifting budgets to the PR person trying to entice a client to start their own blog. PR's biggest mistake? Jumping into conversations with an agenda and not taking the time to "cultivate" the conversation first, a process which can take up to several months.

More PR tips from the master here.

Not surprisingly, Barry Blitt’s illustration of Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on the July 21 New Yorker cover generated lots of blog buzz. We ran a conversation query on obama + new yorker to learn more.

So far, there have been 917 unique posts on 213 sites. Common key words repeated in the conversation include "cover" (more than half of all posts use this word) and about 40% of the posts also reference “McCain.”

What was the overall reaction by the influential bloggers? Many saw it as satire, though some thought it lacked taste. Overall, the bloggers felt this was typical fare for the New Yorker.

That said, some influential conversation threads are clearly troubled by the cover's implications. With many Americans trying to sort fact from fiction on both Presidential candidates, quite a few influencers and their readers are upset with the timing and nature of such a cover. The comments stemming from one of the top posts in the conversation (coming from 2 Political Junkies, the 13th overall most influential site in the obama + new yorker conversation) have deemed the cover blatant American racism, while others say it’s a bigger reflection of harbored fears.

The most influential post was from a mainstream media blog, CBS’ Media Web, on July 16. It calls the negative backlash predictable and ridiculous, saying this is clearly a use of sarcasm to mock the “irrational prejudices that plenty of Americans harbor about the Obamas.” Columnist Jon Friedman expresses surprise that more media outlets never rallied around the New Yorker, and posits the heated criticism of the cover from conservatives reflect the group's extreme dislike of two of the most visible and successful symbols of liberal America - the New Yorker and Obama himself.

Book-focused blog The Millions weighed in with the 5th most influential post on the subject, stating that the illustration was not funny, just offensive and dumb.

Our take? Cover art is a way for magazines to sell. We all know the trials of print media these days, and from that position, Blitt’s illustration did exactly what it was supposed to do: spark conversation and, likely, sell more magazines.

Newsflash: Iconic American company Anheuser Busch was recently sold to Belgium-based InBev. What does the blogosphere have to say? We plugged in 3 conversation queries ("InBev"; “Anheuser Busch"; and of course "Budweiser") to gauge blogger reaction and learn who is leading the discussion.

It appears that instead of raving about their favorite summer beer, Budweiser fans are more concerned about the impact this takeover will have on their brewsky of choice. In the "Budweiser" conversation, more than a quarter of all posts analyzed contained reference to InBev.

Meaningful Distractions sets the tone for the nature of influencer reaction when it comes to this pending merger. The blog post, Patriotism Watch: Nation Mourns as Budweiser sold to European Brewer, is the most influential in the Budweiser conversation and the 6th most influential for the InBev/Anheuser Busch search.

Political blogs are even dragging the presidential candidates into the brouhaha. A post from the New York Times' The Caucus blog (4th influential for InBev/Anheuser Busch, #6 for Budweiser) looked at the McCain camp’s position on the takeover, with the headline Beer Money: The McCains and the InBev, Anheuser-Busch deal. The post reveals that Cindy McCain, who allegedly drives a car with a MS BUD vanity plate, stands to significantly benefit from the merger, given she has inherited Hensley & Co, an exclusive wholesaler of Anheuser Busch products in Phoenix and the third largest distributor in the nation. While the post reveals her personal holdings are 34%, the remaining shares are in the family.

Of course, Barack Obama was not left out of the influencer discussion; the Reuters blog, which rang in as the #2 most influential post in the AB/InBev disucssion, and #4 in the Budweiser one, quoted Obama as saying the sale is "a shame". The Democratic nominee's take? If Anheuser Busch really needs to sell, they should be able to find an American buyer.

Overall, it seems big media blogs are owning breaking news, while consumer generated blogs are reacting on a more personal level, pondering the future of their beloved brewer. Of course it remains to be seen how all of this will impact the Budweiser brand, or Anheuser Busch's bottom line.

Last week, we ran queries to analyze how a big news story can potentially trickle out to the blogosphere. We chose a headline that seemed to be everywhere: the infamous (and unsubstantiated) "pregnany pact" story of Gloucester, MA. Seventeen girls in a local high school became pregnant this year, and there are conflicting reports as to whether they had an agreement to get pregnant and raise children together.

We ran two queires to source conversations and the influencers driving them: Gloucester + teen pregnancy; and pregancy pact + high school.

The first string produced a much more robust result - at the time of the analysis, there were 136 influential blog posts in the conversation, and more than 88% of the posts included the word "pact."

Interestingly, most of the influential social content picked up on this subject was sourced from the blogs of traditional news sites - not parenting blogs.

#1: Associated Content: 17 Girls Pregnant from Gloucester High School
#2: Boston Herald: Teen Moms: Pregnancy Pact a Dumb Idea
#3: National Post (Canada): Teen pregnancy pact shocks Massachusetts city

The only influential parent blog making the influential top 10 was Parent Dish. Other UGC sites making the top 10 were A Child Chosen and Edstrong.

Why has this story fallen flat in the blogosphere? Perhaps news items reported to death in mainstream media lose their edge - or it could be the somewhat salacious (not to mention sketchy) idea of a teen pregnancy pact didn't warrant attention/content from influential consumer blogs.

I am so thrilled with our latest back-to-back episodes of Vino Diaries. Last week, our lady of Web2.0, Sarah Lacy, stopped by, and this week we welcomed a woman whose name I've long pined for, Jory Des Jardins, co-founder of BlogHer. This interview was incredibly fascinating, and I should add the bottle of Nadia (a refreshing white rhone blend) was a standout (props to District's amazing wine director Caterina Mirabelli).

Jory talks about the notion of blogs serving as today's digital "back fence" for women - a means to connect, communicate and lean on each other. This dynamic goes much deeper than affliations enabled by social networks, which, according to Jory, connect people by tag, interest or keyword. Blogs "connect people by concepts, by emotions, by stories," making the ties established on these platforms much more significant.

BlogHer's recent poll of women bloggers also reveals an interesting fact - 55% of women would give up alcohol for blogging (though a meager 20% would be willing to ditch chocolate). Blogging is indeed a new addiction, and the very same women who blog from the heart also control household spending - a fact causing many a brand advertiser to salivate.

Click here for the full interview - and don't forget to check out the BlogHer Conference in San
Francisco July 18-20!