The finale of The Oprah Winfrey Show won the show its highest ratings in 17 years. And while online communities made it an online success as well, it was only the fifth-biggest online event of the year.
It’s tough to top the death of America’s most wanted. Osama bin Laden’s death has made the biggest mark on the web so far as measured by the raw volume of discussion, according to research by General Sentiment. That was followed by the royal wedding in second place, the Super Bowl at third, the Oscars in fourth and the Oprah finale in fifth, ahead of No. 6, this week’s finale of American Idol. General Sentiment is a research company that tracks and analyzes online news, blog posts, and tweets and other social media.
By General Sentiment’s “involvement” measure, which gives extra weight to factors like positive chatter and conversations in social media, the royal wedding actually took the No. 1 spot from the bin Laden news. “Bin Laden’s death saw heavy news media coverage, and its discussion was less positive than the royal wedding’s,” General Sentiment said.
On that involvement scale, the Oprah finale wound up ranking sixth, behind the Idol finale.
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