Tag clouds are the best way to find out in real-time what’s being talked about most, and how frequently.  Popular terms appear in a cloud, and the most popular appear in large, bolded font.  What makes tag clouds interesting – particularly when taking a snapshot of one document, such as Obama’s inauguration speech – is that you get a “sense” or “mood” for the tone of the speech, website or other collective of words and tags.

TweetDeck has an application called TwitScoop which lets me know what’s abuzz in the Tweetdom.  This is great for finding out about the latest news, like the recent USAir incident.

Above is a tag cloud from Obama’s inaugural speech today (via the LA Times).  To see comparison tag clouds from Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, and Lincoln, visit Read, Write, Web (@rww).

And here are a few cool tag-cloud generating tools around the web:

• Wordle (My favorite so far)
• Tag Cloud Generator
• Tag Crowd