Hypermancer reveals social chatter insights in real–time

A new social media monitoring tool developed at The University of Queensland will help journalists, bloggers and public relations practitioners find out what the public is really saying about people, brands and trends while a conversation gains momentum.

Hypermancer is a fast, easy way to find all the stories relating to a particular topic on social media channels, as well as the people who are influencing how those stories are told.

Inventor and co-founder Dr Andrew Smith from the Institute of Social Science Research recently won a Research Engagement Award from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for this innovative technology.

He is currently preparing Hypermancer for public release next month.

"Hypermancer allows people, for the first time, to understand popular opinion about situations as they are unfolding," Dr Smith said.

"You type in a key word and it finds, groups and tracks the narratives that people on social media are sharing about that topic.

"By sorting relevant hashtags, mentions and keywords quickly, Hypermancer cuts through all the chatter to help you find the exact conversation you're looking for, and what people are actually saying about a story at that moment in time.

"This will help marketers with timely and targeted message placement, and PR professionals with issues and reputation management.

"It's also valuable for journalists and bloggers who are looking for fresh angles or trying to identify the influential authors behind a story," Dr Smith said.

Hypermancer is based on a flexible and dynamic model of human recollection, called Schema Memory.

In the same way that memories adapt to help humans choose the appropriate behaviour in a given situation the next time it occurs, Hypermancer groups conversations into contexts so users can quickly determine which one is the most relevant for their needs.

For example, if the search term is 'oil' and the channel chosen is Twitter, within a few seconds Hypermancer will return options grouped as crude oil, hair oil, and cooking oil. The user can then zoom into the preferred grouped data to locate individual tweet threads and access the 'Twitter consciousness' about specific stories.

Dr Smith said Hypermancer's search speed and real-time access would save significant time and effort for any one researching public opinion about a topic.

"It's like saying, 'Show me what the situation is right now, who's doing all the talking, and what do they really mean'," he said.

"Hypermancer currently focuses on Twitter and news data, but we can also apply it to other popular social media channels.

"We're talking to a number of potential users right now, whose feedback will help us determine which features we need to develop further and what other advantages the technology could offer particular markets."

Hypermancer SIA, a spin-out company created by UQ's main commercialisation company UniQuest, is commercialising the Hypermancer software. Hypermancer SIA was co-founded in 2013 by Dr Andrew Smith and Mr Ted McFadden, with Imprimatur Capital Fund Management.

Professional writers interested in taking part in the beta testing can register on the Hypermancer website.