Oh wow! Analysing and Graphing Social Network Content
Analysing and Graphing Social Media Comments Might Be The Start of Something Amazing, writes David Sim.
Here at 4TM we get very excited about social media. It’s the technology that just keeps on giving.One of the most amazing things has been the pace of development with hundreds of developers working hard to make social media and social networking more fun / useful / exciting.
Geeks love creating buzzwords - you might have heard “Web 2.0″ being used to refer to the current blend of tools and technologies which allow every one of us to create and submit information to forums, rating sites and user content sites like YouTube.
Well hold onto your hats - and my colleague Geoff has a particularly natty one, complete with ear flaps. Here comes Web 3.0. In short, this is the next step: where computers can help us make sense of the deluge of information that comes from social networks.
I already use a number of “Intelligent Agents” - computer systems which sift out the important, relevant bits of information from the millions of ongoing conversations. However, a new, demonstration site really got me thinking.
Walter Rafelsberger took just three hours to knock out this fantastic weather tool. It analyses conversations on social networking site “Twitter.com” for discussions about the weather and, specifically, weather in major Austrian towns. It then plots the current weather, based on these conversations on a map. And there you have it - a constantly updated, people powered weather map.
Now just think about the power of this. If you’re the chairman of McDonalds, you could have a dashboard graph that tells you hour by hour how positive or negative people are feeling towards your business, then drill down into the detail of the conversation. Chatter about prices in shops could lead us to the best buys. Politicians could see poll disaster emerging from the shadows.
There’s going to be plenty for 4TM to look at over the coming months: now, can I use the collective wisdom to predict who is going to win Wimbeldon and head to the bookmakers?
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Comments
Hi Vicky, It’s really exciting that you’re working in this area - the possibilities are interesting. You may have sensed my excitement.
Your point about influencers in these social networks is important: I know that many of the people in my social network hang on the opinions of people like Robert Scoble and Leo Laporte: while people may disagree with their commentary they no doubt lead the debate.
Must catch up other than fleetingly at a seminar! I’m getting great feedback on your work.
Hi David, there are some really interesting approaches to this that take their roots from offline anthropological social network analysis. The interesting part is in identifying the influencer of the mood as it is not the same necessarily as the ongoing communicators.
We have done some groundbreaking, though confidential, work for several large organisations in this space - looking at who these opinion influencers are and how to work with them.
The potential - if used well and explored beyond the superficial - is compelling.