One Percent of TwitterA digital methods winter school 2013 project

Bernhard, Julian, Nikolas, Liliana,

Lonneke, Esther, Erik, Carolin

Research Focus

Twitter research often based on the demarcation of bottom-up query views, demarcated by hashtags, key words, users, events, URLs etc.

This project follows a top-down sample-view by retaining 1 % of all tweets from approx. 1 day.

1) How does an average day on Twitter look like?

2) What are the specific affordances of working with a random sample of Tweets?

3) What insights does this allow for working with collections?

The Dataset

• Random Twitter Sample 1%

24.1.2013 19:28:57

25.1.2013 20:26:16

Total 4,577,401 tweets

• 50.09 tweets/s

Methodology

2. URLs

Determine the sources tweets link to

3. HASHTAGS

Categorise & profile top hashtags

1. USERS

Categorise top users

4. GEOLOCATION

Plot tweets/language use on map

100 most mentioned users2,849,881 different user accounts

1% of #Twitter

University of Amsterdamdigital methods winter school

January 2013

DanielJ20

13Follo

wSpreeNOW

android

HitFollow

sTeam

RETWEET

FOLLO

WNGAIN

OmSpikTa

nyaJaw

ab

android

games F4F

getoweno

nsportscenter

CasoCa

ssez

Americ

anIdol lov

eNTA

s

AUTOFOLLO

W

followmejp

CallOu

tSomeone

Beautiful

SiYoTu

vieraM

uchaPlata

EresMexican

oSihaz

ard News

SalamMaulid

urRasu

lFor

‰¥â€ž

Éî„

ɺ

HalaM

adrid

mustfo

llow

BELIEVEac

oustic

GetGlue

TeamA

utoFollow

TellMe

Why

iPad

AUTOFOLLO

WBACK

Follow

BackSe

guro

1000ADAY

ipadga

mes

Cassez

Pertan

yaanSe

putarSeko

lah

¯â€žÃ‡

©„

Éâ‰

 â€žÃ‰

º cfc

IFOLLO

WBACK

TeamFollo

wWack

Siguem

eYTeSigo

OmSpikTa

nya jobs

Workaholics lol ido

l

FormasBo

ludasD

ePerderLaDig

nidad FO

R

Follow

ers

timewasting

needed

countkun ATL

PrimarySch

oolMemories

BELIEVEtour

ÿßÿÆÃ

¿â„¢Å¸

äCan

cer $Aries

ballboy nw

Ariana

RiIakku

maCon

test

RealMa

drid Virgo

Taurus lt

sorrynotsorry

‡Â§â€ž

ɺâ

€žÃ‰Ã

‘

Aquariu

s

MinMin

PetikanBE

RTANYA

asklauren

WOWSetanKe

poBang

etLibra

taylors

wiftEH

EriChile

noSi JFB

Ariana

Rilakku

maCon

test

TeamFollo

wBack rt

CallOu

tSomebod

yBeaut

iful TFBJP

Things

IDoWh

enIGet

Bored

SOUGOFOLLOW

FOLLO

WBACK

OPENFOLLO

W

90sBab

yFollow

Train

SosArg

entinoSi np oom

f

FOLLO

W

ChristianM

ingleUsernam

es

gameinsight

500ADay

nowplaying %

RT2GAINF

OLLOW

TRAIN

Wesley

TakesO

ver

INSTAN

TFOLLO

WBACK TFB

followme

skipfollowme

Celebrity Followback & Retweet Undecided Status Update / Comment Meme Topic

1-25

25-50

50-75

75-100

Top 100 #hashtag

categoryzed

Celebrity TV Tags related to celebrities (Bieber, Rilakkuma) and TV (National TV Awards). E.g. ArianaRilakkumaC-ontest, BELIEVEtour, BELIEVEacoustic, AmericanIdol Followback/Retweet'Social practice' tags that deal with

retwitting and following. E.g. TeamFollowBack, FOLLOWBACK, oomf, 500ADay, rt Undecided Undecided: Tags in Arabic. Status Update/Comment Tags that refer to particular topic. E.g. android, love, news, RealMadrid

Meme Tags that characterize user (Zodiac) or its status (current activity). E.g. Libra, Aquarius, nowplaying, time-wasting, facebook Topic Tags that refer to Internet memes. E.g. SosArgentinoSi, ChristianMingleUsernames,

getowenonsportcenter, SalamMaulidurRasulFor, WesleyTakesOver, ballboy

Only 13.27% of all tweets have a hashtag.

HashtagsOnly 13.27% of all tweets have a hashtag

Hashtags

Hashtags

Hashtags

Hashtags

Hashtags

Hashtags- Profile 1.ArianaRilakkumaContest

14388 total tweets

361 Retweets

10797 Users

• 9 RTs: “I nominate @hopefulariana @arilujah @juicyari @arianacoco @DEFYGRANDE @glitteryariana @biebersfries #arianarilakkumacontest”

• 8 RTs: “RT @WoahItsTheBiebs: Retweet if you want me to nominate you for #ArianaRilakkumaContest c:”

• 6 RTs: “i nomimate @SwedishAriana for #ArianaRilakkumaContest !!”

Hashtags- Profile 1.ArianaRilakkumaContest

Hashtags- Profile 2.TeamFollowBack

9332 total tweets

6677 Retweets

8702 Users

• 20 RTs: RT @HitFollowsJp: █↓█↓ＲＥＴＷＥＥＴ↓█↓█ ★ONLY★IF★YOU★WANT★NEW★FOLLOWERS★ #HitFollowsTeam #OpenFollowTeam #TeamFollowBack #TFBJP #FollowBackVIP ...”

• 15 RTs: “RT @ifollowbackjp: ã€Retweet Only If You Want New Followers】#TeamFollowBack ♥#TeamFollowWack ♥#500aDay ♥#TFBJP ♥#MaxVIP ♥#SOUGOFOLLOW ♥#R ...”

Hashtags- Profile 2.TeamFollowBack

Hashtags- Profile 3.rt

11538 total tweets

9456 Retweets

11076 Users

• 14 RTs: “RT @ifollowbackjp: ã€Follow & RT】#TFBJP #SO #FF #RT #F #IFA #TFW #FollowNGain #FOLLOWNGAIN #OPENFOLLOW #INSTANTFOLLOW #TEAMFOLLOWBACK ...”

• 13 RTs: “RT @enyerbel: Da #RT *SI* QUIERES MAS SEGUIDORES?? #SiguemeyTeSigo sigue a los que den #RT * HAZLO Y COMPRUEBALO * RT RT * TODOS #FOLL ...”

Hashtags- Profile 3.rt

Hashtags- Profile 4.CallOutSomebodyBeautiful

6052 total tweets

5864 Retweets

5951 Users

• 17 RTs: “RT @kaungko: #CallOutSomebodyBeautiful You. Yes you. The one with a nice personality and a good heart! #ilikeyou #tweetsfrommyheart”

• 15 RTs: “RT @damnitstrue: #CallOutSomebodyBeautiful every girl reading this.... you're beautiful. Smile. Life's too short to be unhappy.”

• 14 RTs “RT @ExtraGrumpyCat: #CallOutSomebodyBeautiful No. You're all ugly fucks.”

Hashtags- Profile 4.CallOutSomebodyBeautiful

Hashtags- Profile 5.TFBJP

5780 total tweets

3417 Retweets

5278 Users

• 20 RTs: “RT @HitFollowsJp: █↓█↓ＲＥＴＷＥＥＴ↓█↓█ ★ONLY★IF★YOU★WANT★NEW★FOLLOWERS★ #HitFollowsTeam #OpenFollowTeam #TeamFollowBack #TFBJP #FollowBackVIP ...”

• 15 RTs: “RT @ifollowbackjp: ã€Retweet Only If You Want New Followers】#TeamFollowBack ♥#TeamFollowWack ♥#500aDay ♥#TFBJP ♥#MaxVIP ♥#SOUGOFOLLOW ♥#R ...”

Hashtags- Profile 5.TFBJP

Hashtags- Profile 6.ThingsIDoWhenIGetBored

4006 total tweets

3478 Retweets

3980 Users

• 35 RTs: “RT @JaiBrooks1: #ThingsIDoWhenIGetBored we all know what giovanna does when she gets bored”

• 14 RTs: “RT @ExtraGrumpyCat: #ThingsIDoWhenIGetBored I lay on the kitchen floor and pretend I'm a crumb.”

• 13 RTs “RT @stillblazingtho: #ThingsIDoWhenIGetBored I get really stoned and then nothing I do is boring.”

Hashtags- Profile 6.ThingsIDoWhenIGetBored

URLs

Only 12.2% tweets have a URL

URLs

Predominance of platforms, little presence of news.

GEO Location

All tweets & their geolocations

GEO Location

Tweets, geolocation & language.

Implications for research

Sample vs. Collection

• Only 12.2 % Hashtags: limits of collections demarcated by hashtags.

• Suggesting decline of hashtag use practices?

• Also, only 12.2% contain URLs: limits of organising/polarising tweets based on URLs.

Impact of the Social

• URLs: platforms followed by diverse longtail, very few news sources.

• Hashtags predominantly used to gain followers & retweets.

Questions?

Thank you.