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Twitter Launches Political Index

By TechTaffy Desk

[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Twitter is launching its own political index, a daily measurement of Twitter users’ feelings towards the candidates as expressed in nearly two million Tweets each week. The Twitter Political Index is built in partnership with the data analysis team at Topsy and the polling firms Mellman Group and North Star Opinion Research. USA Today will be using the Index to create the USA Today/Twitter election meter throughout the campaign.

The Index for each candidate will update every day after 8 p.m. ET to reflect shifts in conversation from that day’s events. A historical chart will also be available.

Adam Sharp, Head of Government, News and Social Innovation: Each day, the Index evaluates and weighs the sentiment of Tweets mentioning Obama or Romney relative to the more than 400 million Tweets sent on all other topics. For example, a score of 73 for a candidate indicates that Tweets containing their name or account name are on average more positive than 73 percent of all Tweets.

More tweets are sent every two days today than had ever been sent prior to Election Day 2008. Election Day 2008’s tweet volume represents only about six minutes of Tweets every day currently.

 

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