Rising gas prices fire up bloggers

(CNN) — Surging gas prices have sparked debates at the water cooler, on Wall Street and in the halls of Congress, and Internet researchers say it’s also a hot topic in the blogosphere.

The marketing research firm Umbria Communications, in partnership with CNN.com, studied blog postings published between the weeks of March 12 and May 28, and found that the number of mentions of gas prices increased by more than 45 percent — from 4,032 mentions/million posts to 5,865 mentions/million.

To put those numbers in perspective, the XBox — Microsoft’s popular gaming system — got 11,053 mentions/million in a recent week, while eBay got 7,310 mentions/million and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had 1,439 mentions/million.

The increase in mentions tended to follow the change in gas prices, which rose about 50 cents during that period, but there were some spikes in the discussion.

CNN