Can Social media predict smartphone sales?

Mining social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and gauzing user sentiments about a product is turning out to be a serious profession. Mashwork a social media listening company, listened to 14838 opinions across the sites about Motorola Droid Bionic and Samsung Galaxy S2 and found that Galaxy S2 has a better chance of succeeding.

10090 opinions were about Samsung Galaxy S2 and 4738 opinions were about Droid Bionic. Galaxy S2 has gained 11% on whatever scale Mashwork has used. Galaxy S2 and Droid Bionic have similar hardware specifications. Droid Bionic will be shipping with Google’s latest Android operating system – Ice Cream Sandwich. Galaxy S2 will be running Gingerbread. Yet Galaxy S2 trumped Droid Bionic in the social media chatter.

Would it translate to the sales as well? We just have to wait for Q3 or Q4 of 2011. Let’s not forget to check Mashwork’s handiwork then. More at Mashable.

PS : Mobilewalla a smartphone app discovery engine uses social media to predict an app’s success and hotness.