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Sifting Authorities From Celebrities On Twitter

Posted by Soulskill on from the signal-to-noise dept.

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?"

5 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Twitter Twaddle by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Pretty much. The idea that anyone would go to Twitter for "experts" is, well, staggering. Twitter content it pretty much Twaddle.

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    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Twitter Twaddle by neogeographer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  2. My prediction: by deadhammer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This will be gamed by spammers before it even launches.

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    I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
  3. Re:Predicted by owlnation · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Marshall McLuhan said "The Medium is the Message" nearly half a century ago."

    He also coined "Global Village", and the problem with twitter is that it makes you realize that there's one hell of a lot of village idiots in the village.

  4. Re:Seems a good idea, but... by azeemazhar.co.uk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah. That would be me. We have a pretty flexible topic model, which let's you build authority networks within those topics. So for example, we have a super cheery one called "brain disorders' (mostly neurooncological); and things that are a bit broader like 'Web development frameworks'; as well as things like "space science" etc. anything missing, let us know and we'll probably rope you in to help us. cheers aa