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Remember the spinach or onion scares? How about the beef recalls? Well now get ready for the Tomato ban. Yes, tomatoes have been pulled from fast food restaurants including the fast food giant McDonalds after they were linked to cases of salmonella food poisoning in at least 16 states. Now there are still safe tomato options, the cherry and the grape tomatoes as well as those on the vine, are not affected .

Social Media Enthusiasts are out in force writing about the newest food scare. Subway has pulled the tomatoes irritating several bloggers. Of course many were not aware of the reason until they were at the store buying their sandwiches. Did the word of the tainted tomatoes not getting out fast enough?

Some SME’s are blogging about their adventures with contaminated (non confirmed) tomatoes.

Others are mentioning the fact that it seems every year to be another food that is tainted . Many SME’s mention they are choosing their local farmers market for their produce now. Personally I love my farmers market (I am growing my own tomatoes but its too early for my crop) and even though the stuff there is local, I will still stay away from the tomatoes. At least until we know what caused the outbreak. I’d rather be safe than sorry.

BPA or Bisphenol A has long been a controversial chemical found in some plastics, mostly those found with the recycling symbol #7. Some studies show the dangers of this chemical which is commonly used in baby products, specifically baby bottles. A new study released recently has stirred up the controversy again but this time prompting major reactions.

Canada has approved a ban on the use of BPA in baby products prompting reactions from both manufacturers and retailers alike. Wal-Mart Canada immediately began pulling the BPA products from their shelves. They will also remove the products from their US stores by year end. Babies R Us is also pulling the products from their shelves.

Looking at the RelevantNoise system there was a dramatic increase, well over 200%, in the number of BPA related posts since the announcement from Canada. 65% of the posts are from women, with the majority being between the ages of 20-39.

Bloggers, most of them Moms are outraged and panicked about BPA in their babies products and are looking for alternatives if they haven’t already switched. Playtex actually proactively reacted to this latest uproar by offering a sample of their Drop In bottles which are BPA free. Many are just looking for information on which products are safe. Others just want to find information on BPA. And yet others are posting information on what they have found to help spread the word.

Gerber baby food that comes in plastic containers marked with the #7 are controversial among moms with some deciding to choose another brand packaged in glass to be sure they are not packaged with BPA.

And then there are those, few as they may be, that think the panic is premature and unfounded .

Im sure this controversy will be around for a while, however this time companies are reacting to public pressure. Even if BPA is found to be completely safe, the damage is done. I expect all bottle makers will eventually have BPA free alternatives if they want to stay in business.

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI made his first visit to the US. Bloggers took on the topic writing about his historic trip.

Many topics were covered, from his visit to Ground Zero, to his mass at Yankee Stadium, to his visit to Park East Synagogue, to the meeting with victims of abuse by Catholic priests.

While most bloggers felt the Pope’s visit was inspirational, there were still those that were less than impressed.

Demographically speaking, males’ blogged about the Pope’s visit more than females with a 61% share of chatter. The majority of all the bloggers were between 20 – 29 years old with 44% of the posts. Next would be the 30-39 year olds with another 25%. The under 20 group was the smallest with only 5% of posts coming from this group.

The Pope is back at the Vatican now, having left JFK Airport yesterday after saying some words to over 3000 guests including Dick Cheney. In his own words:

“These days that I have spent in the United States have been blessed with many memorable experiences of American hospitality, and I wish to express my deep appreciation to all of you for your kind welcome,” the pope said. “It has been a joy for me to witness the faith and devotion of the Catholic community here.”

It is always interesting to see what bloggers say about big events, Pope Benedict’s visit to the US gave bloggers many uplifting things to talk about as they recounted how his visit impacted their lives.

The airline industry is taking a lot of hits lately. From ATA to Aloha Airlines closing their doors, stranding thousands of passengers, not to mention all the employees who are now unemployed, to the recent troubles of American Airlines.

Unlike bankruptcy which plagued ATA and Aloha, American Airlines faced safety issues with their MD-80’s and grounded all the planes. Knowing how frustrating a cancelled flight can be I wanted to see how bloggers felt about the recent problems especially since the problems were safety related.

Most bloggers seemed to take the cancellations in stride. Over the past two weeks according to RelevantNoise the tone of the posts was only 44% negative. Of those blogging about American Airlines, when gender is known, 64% were males to 36% female.

Some bloggers were lucky and got booked on another flight others posted responses they received from the airlines and then there are those who felt no love for American Airlines or their employees. I’m sure with the thousands upon thousands of people needed to be rebooked on other flights the ticket agents are doing their best, but people need someone to take out their frustrations on.

And then there are those with their own theory on why the planes were really grounded.

A website was set up as a place to put your American Airlines stories . Here there are stories from passengers such as:
“CJ, stuck in DFW due to improper AA inspections and repairs on MD80 aircraft:

Cost to You: $450

The price of my dress and shoes, never mind food, heartache and stress. Missing my sister’s wedding? You figure it out. Why AA couldn’t have told me that my airliner was grounded for inspections BEFORE I flew in on their commuter is beyond me. Stuck at DFW with everyone else. Idiots.”

Or from AA pilots:
“JC, AA Pilot, paycheck threatened by yet another grounding of MD80 aircraft due to improper inspections:

Cost to You: at least three days of pay.

Contrary to AA spokespeople, the grounding IS about safety: as APA says, it’s about wiring–and potential fires–in the wheel wells near the fuel tanks. That’s safety, period, despite the CorpComm spin.

So tell me, given the danger, the millions in lost revenue, and the passenger and employee upheaval, why is Bob Reding still the VP-Ops? Why is Mark Hettermann still VP-Flight? And RD Johnson still MD80 Fleet Manager? How come no one answers for this, Mr. Arpey?”

Now it seems that the troubles for American Airlines has passed as they have finished inspecting their MD 80’s, hopefully the industry will settle down and flights get back to normal.

Britney Spears guest starred on How I Met Your Mother this week and gave the show its highest ratings ever. Bloggers were very chatty about Brittney and her role on a sitcom. Could this be her comeback?

According to RelevantNoise the tone of the posts is overwhelmingly positive with 75% of the posts feeling the love for Brit. Some bloggers were just happy to see Britney making a comeback. Others speculate if she will do another guest spot . One thing is for sure, bloggers are rooting for Britney. While others commented on how good she looked.

With the good of course comes the bad. But in this case the bad wasn’t so … well bad. Some bloggers were more negative about the hype than the actual performance. While others were hesitant to give her any praise saying her performance was “above par”.

All in all, I think having Britney Spears as a guest star was a good thing for HIMYM, their ratings were up and people are talking. For a show that has been on the “endangered list”(and the upfronts are coming soon) positive chatter can go a long ways.

With all the Presidential polls looking at what the public opinions/desires are as to who will become the 44th President of the United States, what about the bloggers? We all know they can sway public opinion and start some great viral marketing? But are they a good barometer for how Clinton, Obama, and McCain are faring?

According to RelevantNoise™, Zeta Interactive’s technology that mines the Internet’s social media landscape — including over 80 million blogs, as well as Consumer Generated Media (CGM) - the bloggers have a strong opinion as to who they want to see seated at the oval office come next January.

Looking over the past 30 days of those that expressed a desire to see one of the three candidates move into the White House, Barack Obama wins easily with 57% of the nods. Clinton and McCain trail with 28% and 15% respectively. On the other hand, of those bloggers who stated they would not vote for a particular candidate, Hillary leads the pack with 44% of the votes while Obama and McCain follow with 33% and 23%. From a party perspective, the bloggers are clearly leaning towards Barack for the Dems with a 2:1 lead over Hillary.

How does gender play a role in the bloggers voting? Hillary, perhaps not surprisingly, has 61% of her supporters being female, while both McCain’s and Obama’s supporters were males (66% and 58%). When it came to the critics, males took the lead with their votes over 55% of the time for each candidate.

How does this compare to the likes of the Rasmussen and Gallup polls? These polls show the race a lot closer for McCain - but don’t bloggers tend to be democratic anyway? Might that explain the stronger pull for the Dems than for McCain? Time will tell.

Starbucks closed their doors yesterday for 3 hours for employee retraining in an effort to improve their sagging sales.

Bloggers are all over the closings amazed that they would do something so drastic. Others are upset that they will not be able to get their caffeine fix .

The number of posts for Starbucks increased 54% in one day once the announcement was made to close the stores. Females dominated the topic with 60% of the blogs coming from women (are we just more caffeine addicts?)

Smaller coffee shops are taking advantage of the closing to try and gain customers as well as some other national chains . Dunkin Donuts for one offered 99 cent Lattes.

Will the retraining help Starbucks sales? We will have to wait and see. Will Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds continue to steal market shares from Starbucks? Only time will tell. I think I will sit back with a hot cup of joe and see what happens.

Now that it appears that HD DVD is going the way of the Betamax what do bloggers have to say. Are they running out for the Blu Ray players? Are early adopters mad that they spent money on something that is going to be useless?

One blogger compared Barack Obama with Blu-Ray, the unexpected front runner in a battle against the expected winner, in this case Blu-Ray.

Manufacturers from Samsung to Toshiba have given HD DVD the boot handing Blu-Ray the win in this format war.

LG has the HD DVD consumers in mind when they announced they will continue to produce dual format players. If you were not one of the lucky ones with a dual format player or had the HD DVD player, there are instructions on how to convert the HD DVDs to Blu-Ray.

Retailers from Best Buy to Target to Walmart have given their nod to the Blu-Ray technology.

This blogger explains why he thinks Blu-Ray is the winner based on the technology of the two formats; with Blu-Rays thinner coating resulting in 67% more data fitting on a single disc.

Demographically speaking males dominate the chatter with 85 % of the posts. The posts are dominated by the 20-29 year olds with 49% followed by the 30 -39 year olds with another 30%. The over 50 crowd is not interested in the format wars with only 2% of the posts coming from this age group.

In the end who is the loser in this format war? The consumer that’s who.