CINCINNATI, OH (May 16, 2004) -- Four days before its long-awaited opening, "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," has sustained a higher level of "buzz" and word-of-mouth among bloggers than any other action/fantasy movie scheduled for 2005 or either of the year's top-grossing films, Intelliseek's BlogPulse.com reported today.

BlogPulse is one of the Internet's largest and most comprehensive blog measurement portals, tracking key trends, personalities, popular phrases, and top blogs on a daily basis.  It has identified nearly 11 million blogs for analysis.   

According to BlogPulse's entertainment scorecard:

• From November 2004-March 2005, "Revenge of the Sith" has maintained a near-steady level of discussion each day in .2% of all blogs, spiking to .8% and rising in the early weeks of May.
• Lucas' "Revenge of the Sith" has maintained higher sustained buzz than "Robots" and "Hitch," 2005's top-grossing films to date, and "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," except for weekend discussion spikes that coincided with the releases of those three movies and then ebbed within a month or less.
• "Revenge of the Sith" also has been discussed more by bloggers than 2005's other planned big-name movies, including "War of the Worlds," "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."
• Darth Vader, whose turn toward the dark side is chronicled in the final episode, receives more "buzz" than the other two leading characters, Jedi Knights Luke Skywalker and Yoda.

"What we're witnessing is genuine, organic, and highly evangelistic word-of-mouth behavior among excited fans," said Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek's chief marketing officer. "They are building terrific momentum on blogs and message boards, and the intensity of what we call consumer-generated media (CGM) before a film's launch can have a huge impact on box office sales, merchandising potential, and even post-movie DVD sales."

BlogPulse features many cutting-edge capabilities for searching and monitoring trends in blogs, including a unique showcase on the 2004 presidential election. In addition, senior researcher Natalie Glance has co-authored a paper, "Divided They Blog," examining conservative-liberal bloggers' behavior during the election; the paper is featured at the BlogPulse Showcase section.

Intelliseek tracks thousands of publicly available online message boards and forums and in 2004 helped co-found the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association.  A 2004 study published by Forrester Research and Intelliseek found that word-of-mouth is the most trusted form of advertising.

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