Slashdot Mirror
Sifting Authorities From Celebrities On Twitter
holy_calamity writes "Celebrities like Britney Spears may be the 'most followed' on Twitter, but new service PeerIndex mines the content of tweets and tracks the spread of links and phrases to reveal the hidden experts in specific areas, from cloud computing to venture capital. The authorities the site finds for a given subject often have only a few hundred followers, but the content of their tweets is known to spread widely. Could data mining tools like this be the future for people or businesses looking for new collaborators, advisers and influencers?"
Wrong. There is no 'unfollow' choice for spam. The ability to aggregate one's news feeds on Twitter is astoundingly powerful; it is up to the user to make the choice about who to follow and what to care about. If one Twitter feed sucks, drop it and move on. That is not spam.
...their notion of expertise is limited to only the sorts of things Silicon Valley types think are valuable. 'Social media', 'cloud computing', even Apple.
Actually, it'd be quite useful for both business and politics to be able to find if there are people on Twitter who are influencing people on science, who are influencing our democratically-elected representatives, our media figures and so on.
(After writing that, someone from PeerIndex has just responded to me moaning on Twitter and said that they are tracking a wider variety of categories and will be exposing that in the future.)
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
The problem I see with this, is that twitter twitter seems like a constrained information channel that would limit how much an expert could convey. Imagine if we tried cramming Knuth's collected works down a 140 character channel: and for the proof of why this sorting algorithm is O(n log n) see tweets 234 - 702. Tweets, because of their brevity are more suited to spontaneously commenting like: meet at mvies 2pm or omg I have bellybutton lint lol.
You've never used it have you? I now have the ability to instantly follow, and communicate with, all the experts in my field as if they were my co-workers. I know what they are reading about and what new technologies they are employing, instantly. No other exchange mechanism has been this easy to use and this powerful. It takes a deft hand to chose the right people to follow, true, but even a Slashdotter should be able to pick out those who represent expertise in their chosen field and could learn from the interactions now available, for free.
This will be gamed by spammers before it even launches.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
No need to waste any more time on this venture funds destroyer.
Err, make that "global climate change" too.
If, recent, history tells us anything..... anything that is "social" that corporations jump on board with, will die a horrible fate.
While I tend to agree with you, it is not the Twitter that would die a horrible death: it is the experts that the PeerIndex will identify would they choose to hire their twitter-voice to the corporations.
To elaborate: the most influential persons are upright-standers. For example (without being limited to):
What do you think would happen with their stand if they'd offer it for hire/sale to corporations?
Granted, if this would spread at phenomenon level (rather than in some isolated cases), Twitter's fate will be the death: as anything with the sole purpose to distribute advertising (i.e. corporate spam).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Hate is a strong word, but it's your post, not mine, so I'll let you be your own editor. It could be that you really do hate it. But the telephone? I'm an Alexander Bell fan as much as the next guy, but if a bunch of people called me up 150 times an hour with news I would freak out. There is no comparison. Twitter just silently passes interesting messages (yes, interesting, because you pick who to follow and thereby are picking those who are interesting to you).
If you curate your 'friends' list well, it will be a boon to your life as all the headlines that interest you are aggregated in one place with links to the stories that might mean something to you (more than headlines about another murder in Oakland, to use an example from an older form of news aggregation, the newspaper).
It's not for everyone, but its potential seems to be under-appreciated on the Dot.
Hate is a strong word, but it's your post, not mine, so I'll let you be your own editor. It could be that you really do hate it.
I do hate it. It teases me but doesn't deliver on the meat. It's a million quiche appetizers being force-fed intravenously without ever sitting down for a steak. But that's just my opinion. If it helps you out at work and gives you pleasure more power to you.
But the telephone? I'm an Alexander Bell fan as much as the next guy, but if a bunch of people called me up 150 times an hour with news I would freak out.
In no way did I imply that anyone use a phone as one would tweet.
There is no comparison.
I compared it to the telephone as a contender in powerful exchange mechanisms per your post and I'm still waiting for a reply for where justify that Twitter is more powerful than the telephone.
Twitter just silently passes interesting messages
Read what you wrote there and tell me that doesn't sound annoying on principal.
If you curate your 'friends' list well, it will be a boon to your life as all the headlines that interest you are aggregated in one place with links to the stories that might mean something to you (more than headlines about another murder in Oakland, to use an example from an older form of news aggregation, the newspaper).
What I'm getting at is that there are lots of people who have no desire to curate their friends or lists of their friends for other than social reasons. Twitter keeps me from working and I have no desire to read streams of bumper-sticker-level thoughts from friends and luminaries in my time off. This is a common attitude that I am explaining so that you can have empathy for those who detract it.
It's not for everyone, but its potential seems to be under-appreciated on the Dot.
I think a lot of people on the Dot understand the lessons learned from the tech boom and can smell the air of forever-startup emanating from Twitter HQ. It's nothing I can put my finger on but there's just something about Twitter that seems fleeting.
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds