Pear analytics undertook research to see what people tweeted about and to attempt to classify Twitter based discussions. (c/o Mashable)
I haven’t read the full whitepaper yet, but this quote jumped off the page at me from the overview on the mainpage:
Note that we did not collect any tweets during the Michael Jackson news, in order not to skew the results.
I have to admit, I do wonder if that gap is where the interesting stuff is: in my experience, Twitter burbles away in the background, full of chatter and the slow-burn of social ties strengthening. But when something BIG happens (whether it be a terrorist attack or a popstar popping his clogs), Twitter swings into action as an unfiltered tsunami of information (and misinformation), ideas, opinions and interpretation.
Off to read the full paper now — we’ll see what other ideas occur.
