Author Archives: Gilad Lotan, VP of Research and Development
Timing, Network and Topicality: A Revealing Look at How Whitney Houston Death News Spread on Twitter
If someone posts an incredibly important message–that a cultural icon has passed away–in a densely active stream, will anyone listen? The answer is…it’s complicated. We saw again this week how essential networks like Twitter and Facebook were in disseminating the … Continue reading
Hashing Out the GOP Race: Decoding Perceptions of Party Politics on Twitter
Hashtags have emerged as a way to mark keywords, topics, commentary or even add snark to content posted on Twitter. Adding the hash character (#) to the beginning of any word attaches the posted text to a wider conversation. For … Continue reading
DIY Data: Teaching Twitter API and DataViz @Betaworks
Last night I had the honor to lead the first BetaLabs class. BetaLabs is an effort organized by product designer extraordinaire Summer Bedard, an internal Betaworks skill-sharing class that takes place every two weeks. I wanted to give a class … Continue reading
#OccupyWallStreet: origin and spread visualized
Last week we published an analysis on the usage of hashtags around the #OccupyWallStreet movement on Twitter, why some phrases reach Twitter’s trending topics list, while others never do. The crux of the the argument highlighted the outcomes of a … Continue reading
Data Reveals That “Occupying” Twitter Trending Topics is Harder Than it Looks!
While the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has been gaining momentum, growing in terms of visibility, media coverage and sheer numbers of participants, it has had a difficult time “occupying” the Twitter trending topics (TTs) list. #OccupyWallStreet, the movement’s dominant … Continue reading
All Shook Up: Mapping Earthquake News on Twitter from Virginia to Maine
The proper response to an earthquake? Run, scream, take cover?… no wait, Tweet! On Tuesday, the denizens of the East Coast had exactly this choice, and they responded by flooding the interwebz with messages: startled, mundane, humorous, informational. And it … Continue reading
Engaging News Hungry Audiences Tweet by Tweet: An audience analysis of prominent mainstream media news accounts on Twitter
Back in May, when we analyzed the viral spread of news about Osama Bin Laden’s death, we were impressed by the speed and scale at which news could break on Twitter. Yet even with the increased popularity of Twitter as … Continue reading
SocialFlow Delivers New Research on Twitter and News Consumption at #ICWSM in Barcelona
Last week SocialFlow took part in the 5th International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. Even though ICWSM is a relatively new conference, it has become one of the premier venues for social scientists and technologists to gather and discuss … Continue reading
Breaking Bin Laden: A Closer Look
Since last Friday, when we first published Breaking Bin Laden: Visualizing the Power of a Single Tweet, our analysis and data visualization of the way news filtered out around the Bin Laden raid via Twitter, we’ve been overwhelmed by the response. … Continue reading
Breaking Bin Laden: Visualizing the Power of a Single Tweet
A full hour before the formal announcement of Bin-Laden’s death, Keith Urbahn posted his speculation on the emergency presidential address. Little did he know that this Tweet would trigger an avalanche of reactions, Retweets and conversations that would beat mainstream … Continue reading
