Hotseat at Purdue University. Ten Twitter Mythconceptions | Technologizer. Poor Twitter! It may be the hottest service on the Web, but it’s also profoundly misunderstood. Lots of people cheerfully admit they don’t get it. Others emphatically believe things about it that aren’t true. I encounter confusion over Twitter every day, especially in the real world as I chat with folks who have either never used it, or have tried it and then walked away. It also pops up on Twitter itself (where, incidentally, I’m @harrymccracken and a feed of all Technologizer stories is available at @technologizer).
I don’t claim to understand everything there is to understand about Twitter. (If you don’t understand that it’s impossible to fully understand Twitter…well, then you don’t understand Twitter.) Mythconception #1: Twitter is something utterly new. Mythconception #2: The fact that some people tweet about what they ate for breakfast is a sign that Twitter is shallow. Mythconception #3: People who tweet what they had for breakfast are wasting your time. TweetStats. The Twitter Universe | FlowingData. I just created a new Twitter account, and it got me to thinking about all the data visualization I've seen for Twitter tweets.
I felt like I'd seen a lot, and it turns out there are quite a few. Here they are grouped into four categories - network diagrams, maps, analytics, and abstract. Network Diagrams Twitter is a social network with friends (and strangers) linking up with each other and sharing tweets aplenty. Twitter Browser Twitter Social Network Analysis The ebiquity group did some cluster analysis and managed to group tweets by topic. Twitter Vrienden Twitter in Red I'm not completely sure how to read this one.
Twitter Network Maps When you create a Twitter account, you can enter where you are located, so in my case, I put New York. TwiterVision Yeah, it's a Google Maps mashup, but a bit better than what you're used to seeing. TwitterVision3d It's TwitterVision taken to the next dimension. Analytics TweetStat TweetVolume TwitStat TwitterMeter Abstract 24 o'clocks TweetPad. Blog as a Teaching Tool. You all know by now that Neatorama is a fun blog and a breezy read, but apparently, there it also has a use that I haven't expected. Neatorama reader Barry emailed me that he has been using Neatorama as a teaching tool at his local community center.
Here's what he wrote: Hello Alex, I teach a class at my local community center that centers on technology use and recommend your site to the students. Many of them are underprivileged youth and I have found that sites like Neatorama can sometimes inspire them into other avenues aside from what's left for them on the street. When I asked for more info, Barry replied: I use blogs in class because they're such a novel form of communication.
Thanks Barry!