Decoding Our Chatter

Decoding Our Chatter:

Want to monitor an earthquake, track political activity or predict the ups and downs of the stock market? Researchers have found a bonanza of real-time data in the torrential flow of Twitter feeds

When Virginia's magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit last August, the first Twitter reports sent from people at the epicenter began almost instantly at 1:51 p.m.—and reached New York about 40 seconds ahead of the quake's first shock waves, according to calculations by the social media company SocialFlow. The flood of messages peaked at 5,500 tweets a second.

The first terse tweets also outpaced the U.S. Geological Survey's conventional seismometers, which normally can take from two to 20 minutes to generate an alert. The agency is now experimenting with Twitter as a faster and cheaper way to track earthquakes.The first terse tweets also outpaced the U.S. Geological Survey's conventional seismometers, which normally can take from two to 20 minutes to generate an alert. The agency is now experimenting with Twitter as a faster and cheaper way to track earthquakes.

Never have scientists had so much readily accessible, real-time data about what people say.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...