A Facebooker here. The file we send to Politico looks like this:

Candidate, Date, Mentions, % Positive, % Negative
Lincoln, 21 Aug 1858, 4217, 0.35, 0.12
Lincoln, 22 Aug 1858, 5829, 0.42, 0.08
Douglas, 21 Aug 1858, 3119, 0.28, 0.42
Douglas, 22 Aug 1858, 6339, 0.18, 0.55

The numbers are computed by textually analyzing wall posts. The actual mention counts are in the thousands to hundreds of thousands.

Questions?

Simple solution: grant software patents but only for three years. The original motivation for 17 years was that it gave the innovator time to profit from his investment but also allowed innovations to diffuse quickly. Three years is plenty for software businesses to profit (if you haven't made money on a patent after three years, you aren't going to except by trolling).