When we talk to our less technologically-inclined friends about Twitter , we often run across the objection that they really don’t care what so-and-so ate for lunch today or what movie they are seeing tonight. And every time, we try to extol all the other benefits of the world’s most popular microblogging service. But could we be wrong? Is Twitter mostly people talking about themselves and what they ate for lunch? Well, SemanticHacker , the blog of contextual ad platform Textwise , has crunched some numbers and we may have to eat our hat. Sponsor Parlez vous Twitterspeak? The blog used Twitter’s streaming API to gather nearly 9 million tweets from over 2 million individual users. Before looking at the data for meaning, the company first took a look at the language distribution of their sample. While the SemanticHacker team expressed their surprise at the language distribution, particularly the strong showing of Portuguese, we at ReadWriteWeb couldn’t help but wonder about the 10% labeled as “Unknown/Misclassified.” Are these tweets simply so horribly misspelled that the language-guessing program they used on the data could not venture a guess? Or could it be that 10% of the Twitter populous is now writing in that contracted form of text message Twitter-speak that it could no longer be classified as a recognizable language? (If you’re looking for a good example, find a 12-year-old and exchange text messages or just give Sarah Palin’s Twitter a look.) What We’re A-Twittering About The folks at SemanticHacker then took a random sample of 1,000 English-language tweets and broke them down into eight categories. According to their findings, it seems that Twitter really is full of people talking about themselves. A full 57% of the sample falls into tweets about what a person is doing, or private conversations between individuals. That leaves just 43% for other purposes, but when we take a look at that, the findings seem to become even more dismal. If we take away another 8% for “Other Messages” and “Unknown,” and another 8% for “Spam” and “Advertising,” we’re left with a mere 27% of the information on Twitter having some sort of value. Maybe it isn’t as bad as it looks, though. We’re willing to bet that if we wrote down everything we said in a day, the meaningful parts might not even reach the 27% mark. Oh, did I tell you about the tasty lentils I had for lunch today? Discuss

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Is Twitter a Mental Vacuum?

If your natural reflex when the weather gets rough is to tweet about it, that reflex can now help the National Weather Service do its job better thanks to a new Twitter storm reporting program . The NWS has always solicited severe weather reports from the public. After all, no amount of technology can ever be a substitute for an accurate report of what’s actually happening on the ground. Because of the new Twitter geolocation API and the increasing number of applications that support it ( TweetDeck for iPhone is the latest to add geotagging support ), it’s become very simple for the public to submit severe weather reports and for the NWS to pinpoint where they happened. Sponsor How does it work? According to the program’s documentation , a system monitors Twitter for tweets starting with the hashtag #wxreport . These tweets are then plotted on a Google map using the tweet’s geolocation information, or in cases where the geotag data is not available, an approximation of the reporter’s location within the tweet using the format WW [location] WW . Finally, the report is relayed to the appropriate NWS field office for use by the office’s meteorologists in a variety of ways, including possible inclusion in an official storm report. It’s not just the NWS that could benefit, either. The public already will be more informed simply by watching the #wxreport tag, regardless of whether one of those reports is released in an official storm report. Sites such as Weather Underground , which already hosts an extensive network of citizen-owned weather stations, could further integrate these reports into its own products. Media outlets monitoring Twitter for storm information can use the tweets in their own reporting; The Weather Channel already does a good job of this. You can see some of these reports in action today. Check out the Twitter search for #wxreport to see how much snow fell from a winter storm that’s hit much of the U.S. We can’t help but wonder what this search will look like once spring rolls around and the severe weather season kicks off. Hopefully, the NWS has the tools in place to handle a high volume of tweets and an effective way of dismissing hashtag spam and other Twitter nuisances. The National Weather Service program demonstrates how powerful geolocation on Twitter can be, and we can’t help but wonder what else will be created with geolocated tweets . Look for even more creative uses of geolocation throughout 2010. Discuss

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Wanted: Your Weather Reports, Geotagged and Tweeted

TweetDeck ’s iPhone app just got a much-needed update . Version 1.3 brings a slew of new features that finally bring TweetDeck back on par with its competitors on the iPhone. The app now supports Twitter lists and Twitter’s new geotagging API. The app now also offers optional support for Twitter’s new retweet style and the TweetDeck team has made a number of smaller tweaks and fixes that make the app faster and more stable. Sponsor Lists TweetDeck for iPhone keeps the app’s well-known column-style layout and still syncs any changes directly with the desktop app. It’s great to see that TweetDeck now supports lists. Unlike other apps like Tweetie 2, however, TweetDeck for iPhone doesn’t allow you to create new lists or even add new users to an existing lists. Location In today’s announcement, the TweetDeck team puts a lot of emphasis on the new geolocation features in the app. You can now choose to geotag all of your tweets automatically or just add your location info to select tweets only. The app can now also display a map with an overview of all geotagged tweets in any given column (including columns that display persistent searches). Just click ‘more’ in the bottom right corner and the option to see all the tweets on a map will appear. Given that very few people currently tag their tweets with location data, however, chances are that your map will look rather empty. Over time, though, as more apps start to support this feature, these maps will hopefully fill up with more tweets as well. For now, this is an interesting feature, though it is probably only useful for a small group of users. Discuss

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TweetDeck for iPhone Now Supports Lists and Geotagging

Have you ever wanted to share a set of memories with some of your Twitter friends, keeping the content private while still allowing for collaboration between certain folks? It’s not anything we thought we wanted, either, but after playing with TwitAlbums , we find the concept charming. Here’s how it works: Using Twitter’s OAuth function, users log in and create collections or “albums” containing multimedia content and text comments. They can invite whatever users they like to join them in adding files, and only the users they invite can see the content or comments. Best of all it looks like this little app already has a monetization strategy in place. Sponsor The concept is inherently charming. Users create an album with a single click. They can then proceed to upload movies, pictures and audio files. We’d like to see options for adding more file types, such as web pages, text files and more. Users can then choose others to collaborate with them on the album. A tweet is sent inviting the collaborators to the album, and they are prompted to sign in via OAuth when they click the tweet in the link. This immediate request for account access without an explanation of the app might be a bit disconcerting for some, however. If an uninvited Twitter user clicks the link, they are given an “invite only” notice and denied access to the content. Collaborators can add content, leave comments and invite other users, depending on the permissions set by the original album creator. Finally, it’s interesting to note that the app’s creators have built in a mechanism for modest financial returns. Each uploaded file costs the user a single onsite credit, called a TwitSeed. Accounts come with 50 TwitSeeds, and more can be purchased in bundles of 100 for $1, 500 for $4, or 1000 for $8. One thing we don’t like is that the app pushes a ton of link- and hashtag-studded notifications into the user’s Twitter stream. As with other apps that gain access via OAuth, from the infamous Spymaster to the successful TinyChat , this is a very fine line that most users would appreciate the app not cross. Generally speaking, users won’t have a problem with a single tweet or two, but a constant stream of app-related messages when the user is active on the site can only end badly. Worst of all, we don’t see a way to opt out of these notifications, so we’ve had to delete these tweets manually, which does nothing to mitigate the swarm of updates for our friends using Twitter clients such as Tweetdeck. Particularly since the content is set up to be private, it doesn’t make sense to broadcast tweets about each user’s on-site activity. We think this app would work well for younger users, social media addicts and long-distance friends, especially if the above-mentioned issues are addressed. What do you folks think so far; does TwitAlbums have what it takes to become a widely used Twitter application? Would you use it, and what would you use it for? Let us know in the comments. Discuss

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TwitAlbums: Private, Collaborative Content Sharing Via Twitter

Last year , SawHorse Media, a Twitter aggregator that pioneered the concept of lists , put together the Shorty Awards . This contest and ceremony was intended to “honor the best producers of short, real-time content.” The first show was such a success that SawHorse is currently producing a second event. Like the Webbies, the Streamys and other award shows for online content, this event will recognize the geeky heroes we probably follow more than we do real-world celebrities – the ones who make us laugh, think and act. Voting is now open in 27 categories; read on to see who’s making the grade. Sponsor Categories range in scope from serious topics such as government, health and politics and to lighter fare such as music, culture, celebrities and humor. There are also a few geek-centric topics, such as tech, science and apps. Additionally, SawHorse has allowed users to create crowd-sourced categories, such as sexiest Twitterer and social media. The awards are given based on each content creator’s whole Twitter oeuvre, not just a single tweet. Any Twitter user with a valid, active account can nominate and vote; votes are sent out as tweets from that user’s account. Next month, the nominees will be narrowed to five per category and referred to the hilariously named Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences for final judging. Although the Academy has a spoofy name, it includes such distinguished members as MIT Media Lab’s director, Frank Moss, and Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito, among other luminaries. Last year’s special guests included MC Hammer and Gary Vaynerchuk. There’s no word yet on who will be speaking and presenting at this year’s show, but we do know the ceremony will be held in March in New York City, and winners will be giving 140-character acceptance speeches. Check out the site and vote for or nominate your favorite tweeters, from ShitMyDadSays to David Archuleta. And we’d appreciate a vote for ReadWriteWeb in the tech category, if you’re so inclined! Discuss

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The Oscars of Twitter: Shorty Awards to Honor Creators of Short-Form, Real-Time Content

Dan Zarrella has long impressed us with his discourses on the science of retweets , as well as his psychoanalytic apps that scan and parse Twitter streams – one for general analysis and one for dreams . His latest project, TweetPsych for lists , is an enlightening and often amusing look at what your lists are talking about, how they view the world, what turns them on (or off), and more. Depending on how you group your Twitter friends, you can make interesting generalizations or conjectures about society as a whole. What do the denizens of L.A. or San Francisco tweet about most? What about women – what’s got them buzzing? Read on for graphs on precisely that cross-section of the Twittersphere. Sponsor My “I Heart L.A.” list, a curation of tweets from the L.A. tech scene, shows a hilarious preoccupation with sex and a lack of tweeting about work, for example. And my lengthy list of San Francisco/Bay Area people on Twitter gave evidence of a complete lack of interest in celebrities and a preoccupation with self, the future and control. But when I looked at my “Southern Comfort” list of geeks south of the Mason-Dixon line, I got a very different picture. These folks are using the social web to tweet about their emotions, the passage of time, themselves, and dreams of unconscious thoughts, while they tweet less than others about celebrities, sex and money. When I looked at results for the list of women I follow, I saw they tweet a lot about sex, themselves, the past, anxiety and negative emotions, in that order. It was like watching an episode of Sex & the City flash before my eyes. They tweeted very little about money, learning, control (including self-control) and constructive behavior. Keep in mind, this isn’t a generalization about the state of womanhood on the Internet; I follow a very limited and eclectic group of ladies, all of whom I find very charming in their own fashion. Of course, I had to check out the stats on the ReadWriteWeb crew . We seem to tweet a lot about leisure and activities other than work. Uh, don’t tell the boss? However, tweets about work finished a close third, right behind tweets about ourselves. As a group, we don’t tend to tweet about personal things, such as money, sex or emotions. Other interesting hypotheses can be drawn when examining “social media” and “technology” lists. Many geek-centric lists I examined were shockingly devoid of tweets about leisure, positive or other emotions or physical sensations and dominated by tweets about learning, the self and control. Perhaps this is due to our realization that the personal and professional are quickly merging and our perceived need to present a reasonably consistent face and least objectionable programming -type content. At any rate, Zarrella’s given us another insightful peek into how Twitter reveals interesting snippets of information about various demographics and sociological segments. Give the new lists function a spin, and let us know your findings in the comments! Discuss

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Twitter’s Psychologist Strikes Again: Analyze Your Lists

Dan Zarrella has long impressed us with his discourses on the science of retweets , as well as his psychoanalytic apps that scan and parse Twitter streams – one for general analysis and one for dreams . His latest project, TweetPsych for lists , is an enlightening and often amusing look at what your lists are talking about, how they view the world, what turns them on (or off), and more. Depending on how you group your Twitter friends, you can make interesting generalizations or conjectures about society as a whole. What do the denizens of L.A. or San Francisco tweet about most? What about women – what’s got them buzzing? Read on for graphs on precisely that cross-section of the Twittersphere. Sponsor My “I Heart L.A.” list, a curation of tweets from the L.A. tech scene, shows a hilarious preoccupation with sex and a lack of tweeting about work, for example. And my lengthy list of San Francisco/Bay Area people on Twitter gave evidence of a complete lack of interest in celebrities and a preoccupation with self, the future and control. But when I looked at my “Southern Comfort” list of geeks south of the Mason-Dixon line, I got a very different picture. These folks are using the social web to tweet about their emotions, the passage of time, themselves, and dreams of unconscious thoughts, while they tweet less than others about celebrities, sex and money. When I looked at results for the list of women I follow, I saw they tweet a lot about sex, themselves, the past, anxiety and negative emotions, in that order. It was like watching an episode of Sex & the City flash before my eyes. They tweeted very little about money, learning, control (including self-control) and constructive behavior. Keep in mind, this isn’t a generalization about the state of womanhood on the Internet; I follow a very limited and eclectic group of ladies, all of whom I find very charming in their own fashion. Of course, I had to check out the stats on the ReadWriteWeb crew . We seem to tweet a lot about leisure and activities other than work. Uh, don’t tell the boss? However, tweets about work finished a close third, right behind tweets about ourselves. As a group, we don’t tend to tweet about personal things, such as money, sex or emotions. Other interesting hypotheses can be drawn when examining “social media” and “technology” lists. Many geek-centric lists I examined were shockingly devoid of tweets about leisure, positive or other emotions or physical sensations and dominated by tweets about learning, the self and control. Perhaps this is due to our realization that the personal and professional are quickly merging and our perceived need to present a reasonably consistent face and least objectionable programming -type content. At any rate, Zarrella’s given us another insightful peek into how Twitter reveals interesting snippets of information about various demographics and sociological segments. Give the new lists function a spin, and let us know your findings in the comments! Discuss

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Twitter’s Psychologist Strikes Again: Analyze Your Lists