CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javatwittertweetstream
user2146141
user2146141

Reputation: 155

Reduction in georeferenced tweets

While streaming twitter data, I found that there has been an obvious reduction in geo-referenced tweets (tweets with lat and lon). Is it because of the Foursquare information integration? Or are there any other issues?

Many thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 48

Answers (1)

gimg1
gimg1

Reputation: 1167

I worked on a Social Analytics by Location application last year. We sampled tweets from twitter with the intension of using the geolocation attributes to determine the sentiment by area. Unfortunately we found that only between 10-15% of tweets (based on our own findings) were actually geo-tagged which was not enough to provide an accurate depiction of sentiment. Instead we opted for using location indicative hashtags.

In saying that it depends on the sample size. We were trying to determine sentiment in areas such as buildings which had a small amount of active twitter users. If your aim is to find tweets within much larger areas such as Towns/Cities/Countries then 10-15% is probably enough for your needs.

To answer your original question: users are generally private unless they explicitly intend to checkin somewhere and so my guess is that the 10-15% of tweets that are geo-located are a result of users forgetting to disable geo-location or using a new/infrequently used device where it is not disabled. It can also be attributed to foursquare information integration as I'm sure users just overlook the fact that foursquare provides twitter with the geolocation information.

This article is an interesting read. It outlines an application developed by the University of SoCal that can help users identify if they are giving away sensitive/private location information with their tweets.

Upvotes: 0

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