Akshay Java, Xiaodan Song, Tim Finin, Belle Tseng. “Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities”. http://aisl.umbc.edu/resources/369.pdf.
Summary
The authors of “Why we Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities” seek to explore a more in depth analysis of the way microblogging users interact with one another across the world, as well as the reasons for which they interact. Microblogging is a relatively new form of communication, where ideas are shared much more succinctly than traditional blogging or news printing. This form of online expression is a rapidly growing phenomenon and has tons of information just waiting to be analyzed. The first major topic covered in the article was an effort to find the correlation between users on the site that were acquaintances with one another, and those who were not. Using a node based algorithm, it was then determined that there was a high degree correlation and reciprocity, meaning that the number of users that have previously known one another was relatively high. One other discovery from this information was that new users who joined twitter were very likely to have been referred to by a friend of theirs, rather than discovering the site on their own. The next topic of discussion was how geography affected microblogging users globally. Despite only roughly half of the users in their data disclosing their actual location, it was found that Twitter was most popular in the United States, as well as Europe, with Asia as a close third. What this data was able to show was the relationship of friendships between two Twitter users, and their geographical location. In other words, the closer you were to one another, the more likely it is that you will be friends or follow that user. Similarly, those users who speak the same language are more likely to follow one another than those who do not. This stems off the same idea of the importance of geographical location.
Reflection
This paper was interesting because I have been a microblogging user for quite some time, however I never realized how much data there truly was to analyze. I think the authors compiled a well written article, and their points of focus were valid and showed true insight into how and why users interact with one another the way they do. That being said, I wish the article had gone more into depth about how geographical locations can affect the type of content being produced from the users in that area. More specifically, does geographical location have any relation to the ideas or messages that Twitter users are tweeting? Furthermore, the same analysis could be done for the language of the user.
Questions
Can we find a relationship between the topics of tweets based on geographical location?
Do major geographical locations across the globe discuss similar topics? I.E. are other countries discussing things that go on in the United States? Or do their intentions lie solely within their own country.
Are microblogging sites only popular and appealing to the younger generation, or is the age distribution of users even?
Can a user’s twitter data be used to determine their socioeconomic status?
Can a user’s twitter data be used to determine their personal interests, perhaps for companies to use in order to tailor advertisements in a region.
