Android dominated the "buzz" at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week and while the show has always revolved about handsets, tablets attracted almost half the attention.

When it comes to determining what's hot  talk counts. Digital analytics firm Webtrends has trawled through the "buzz" associated  with Mobile Wold Congress 2011 which took place in Barcelona last week and has come out with findings that confirm that Android and tablets are gaining in popularity. 

Webtrends''s figures come from analysis of the social web - blogs, microblogs such as Twitter, forums including LinkedIn answers, 20,000 mainstream news sources - so presumably I-Programmer contributes here, and hundreds of rich media sites such as You Tube and Flickr.

With regard to the brand war Samsung was the winner with Google in second place "attributable to its dominating Android platform" according to the Webtrends blog. HTC, which launched innovative tablets and smartphones during the show was third with Nokia in fourth place, mainly due to its partnership with Microsoft announced just prior to the show.

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Tablets accounted for 48% of the buzz during the week with the most talked-about brands being Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 and LG Optimus 3D. Apple, we have to remember, didn't attend the show but its iPad still had 20% of the limelight. RIM's Playbook and HTC's Flyer both had a smaller but similar amount of attention in the region of 11% each but HP's Touchpad, based on Palm OS, generated little interest.

Platform-wise Android was the clearly the star of the show with 56%. Even in its  absence Apple's iOS still had a good proportion with 20% and both Apple and Symbian had less than might have been expected given the Microsoft/Nokia news. Palm was hardly mentioned.

Mobile development, and tablet development in particular, seem to be where the action is for 2011. All fairly obvious but it's nice to have it confirmed.