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ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 1:57 am
by marilyn peake
This seems almost surreal. All of Twitter - every single public tweet - will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress:

http://www.loc.gov/tweet/how-tweet-it-i ... um=twitter

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/techn ... wt=nytimes

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 11:42 am
by Mira
Marilyn, you find the most amazing stuff.

Personally, I love this. It almost convinced me to start a Twitter account.

I suppose there are some potential privacy issues - is that your concern? I do hope Twitter makes it clear to folks who sign up (are they doing this retroactively?) - but it actually is a truly unique and accurate way to capture the times. I think it would be fascinating to go through files of tweets.

Besides, this will be useful for when the aliens finally visit and they want a representative sample of our culture. We'll have it all compiled for them.

Are you going to get mad at me that I find alot of this stuff fairly amusing? I hope not. I think it's wonderful that you share this with us.

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 2:35 pm
by gonzo2802
Guess I should erase all those tweets I made talking smack about the Library of Congress huh? ;o)

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 15th, 2010, 5:37 pm
by marilyn peake
Mira,

I think this is pretty cool, and that's why I posted the links here. Only public tweets are being archived at the Library of Congress.

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 16th, 2010, 12:12 am
by Nathan Bransford
Haha... future historians will be very, very bored.

But honestly, what's interesting about this is the way the information as a whole can be harnessed to get a sense of the times. I'm going to be posting soon on the Science of Buzz - people are developing some really interesting tools to quantify word of mouth. It used to be that we had all these conversations about books and movies just in conversation with each other and they were unrecordable and mysterious, but now that at least a portion of that dialogue is public we can learn precisely how word of mouth works and spreads. Very interesting times!

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 16th, 2010, 11:03 am
by Mira
Nathan - that's a really good point. I hadn't thought of that.

Extending that, we can look at social interactions on a new level. Maybe add to our understanding of social psychology or sociology. Hive mind, for example. How does that work, exactly. Even mob mentality. There are some good opportunities for research here. I can see why they decided to archive it - very smart.

Marilyn, thanks for sharing this. :)

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 16th, 2010, 1:38 pm
by Margo
Nathan Bransford wrote:Haha... future historians will be very, very bored.
Nah, they'll give up after the first 20 pages of meaninglessness, spend the rest of the evening together in the bar, and publish a report that concludes that while certain obscure terms will forever remain a mystery it is all obviously of great religious significance. The phrase is written in invisible ink at the bottom of all diplomas for history degrees.

Ah, dang it! There I go running my mouth again. Now I have to dispose of all of you.

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 16th, 2010, 2:36 pm
by marilyn peake
Nathan,

A post about the Science of Buzz sounds fascinating! That could lead to some really great conversation! I joined Twitter a while back. I thought I would hate it, but I’ve actually learned a lot over there. I receive continuous tweets about the publishing business, tweets from astronauts and lots of authors, and much more. The most amazing experience for me on Twitter was when tweets started coming in from Iran during the protests in Iran last year, before there was even a mention of it on the regular news. Here’s an article at THE DAILY BEAST about it: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- ... -from-iran. I found myself amazed, reading tweets – that were re-tweeted by people I follow on Twitter – that were from Iranian people tweeting about beatings and asking for help, later reporting which hospitals in Iran were no longer safe and which ones were safe to go to for treatment, then Iranian people tweeting that their government was sending out tweets with false information about where to go, then new secret IP addresses being created in Iran, then Americans trying to help by re-tweeting the IP addresses, then Iranians begging Americans to stop re-tweeting IP addresses because their government would see that, then Americans apologizing and changing the time zones on their own Twitter accounts to confuse the Iranian government as to which Twitter accounts might be located in Iran and which ones were located elsewhere. Eventually, a movement started in which people around the world changed the color of their Twitter avatars to green in support of the Iranian citizens. It was breathtaking to witness history in the making in that way. I also love when astronauts tweet from outer space. I think it will be very cool for students and researchers to be able to access real dialogue that took place on Twitter ... although, granted, every tweet is only 140 characters or less in length. Of course, like you said, there’s also A LOT of booooooring information on Twitter. Hopefully, the Twitter account in the Library of Congress will be searchable, not just one huge pile of info. dump. :)

Re: ALL of Twitter Will Be Archived at the Library of Congress

Posted: April 18th, 2010, 4:33 am
by Holly
marilyn peake wrote:Nathan,

A post about the Science of Buzz sounds fascinating! That could lead to some really great conversation! I joined Twitter a while back. I thought I would hate it, but I’ve actually learned a lot over there. I receive continuous tweets about the publishing business, tweets from astronauts and lots of authors, and much more. The most amazing experience for me on Twitter was when tweets started coming in from Iran during the protests in Iran last year, before there was even a mention of it on the regular news. Here’s an article at THE DAILY BEAST about it: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- ... -from-iran. I found myself amazed, reading tweets – that were re-tweeted by people I follow on Twitter – that were from Iranian people tweeting about beatings and asking for help, later reporting which hospitals in Iran were no longer safe and which ones were safe to go to for treatment, then Iranian people tweeting that their government was sending out tweets with false information about where to go, then new secret IP addresses being created in Iran, then Americans trying to help by re-tweeting the IP addresses, then Iranians begging Americans to stop re-tweeting IP addresses because their government would see that, then Americans apologizing and changing the time zones on their own Twitter accounts to confuse the Iranian government as to which Twitter accounts might be located in Iran and which ones were located elsewhere. Eventually, a movement started in which people around the world changed the color of their Twitter avatars to green in support of the Iranian citizens. It was breathtaking to witness history in the making in that way. I also love when astronauts tweet from outer space. I think it will be very cool for students and researchers to be able to access real dialogue that took place on Twitter ... although, granted, every tweet is only 140 characters or less in length. Of course, like you said, there’s also A LOT of booooooring information on Twitter. Hopefully, the Twitter account in the Library of Congress will be searchable, not just one huge pile of info. dump. :)
Marilyn, your comments about the people in Iran are very moving (and the astronauts tweeting from space, too). Thanks for posting them.