I've always wondered if there is a business opportunity here: a company that monitors social media for all mentions of your business and pings you about it. Maybe this already exists?
I do think there are existing applications that provide this service (ex: Hootsuite[0]). I think a layman could probably setup Google Alerts[1] to achieve the desired results for topics they're interested in (like your company)
I'm curious how Patrick does it though as his attention isn't exactly cheap
Media monitoring companies have been around for some time. There are companies with people transcribing talkback radio and reporting to clients (including sentiment, etc) for companies and topics mentioned. Would be easier to automate in the age of social media too, so bound to be dozens of upstarts focusing on that.
