• The #Postseason: From A-Rod to #RallyZito

    Wednesday, October 24, 2012

    After a resounding four-game sweep, and a dramatic rain-soaked clinch in Game 7, the Detroit Tigers (@Tigers) and the San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) will face off tonight for the first game of the World Series. Of course, nothing can beat the experience of being at the ballpark. But Twitter can bring you closer to every pitch of the Fall Classic: to date, throughout the postseason, we’ve seen well over 15 million Tweets about baseball.

    Leading into tonight’s game, here are the perspectives you can only find on Twitter:
    If the championship title went to the team with the most Twitter mentions, the @SFGiants would be taking home rings, besting the @Cardinals, @Tigers, and @Yankees during the race for the pennant. Throughout the postseason, the most discussed player was Derek Jeter, followed by fellow Yankee Alex Rodriguez. Tonight’s starter for Detroit, @JustinVerlander, came in third.

    Starting tonight for the @SFGiants will be southpaw Barry Zito, who inspired this postseason’s biggest meme: the #RallyZito movement on Twitter. Since he was starting their elimination game on the road, fans took to Twitter to show their outpouring of support through the hashtag and changing their avatars. Zito finished the game with 5 strikeouts and over 50,000 #RallyZito Tweets. Fans continued the momentum for the subsequent pitchers, with #RallyVogey (and #RallyEnchiladas in honor of his pre-game ritual) and #RallyCain (or #RallyHorse) bringing in over 100,000 Tweets. Other teams throughout the postseason have used their own creative hashtags to rally their fans, like #BUCKleUp for the @Orioles, #12in12 for the @Cardinals, and #NATITUDE for the @Nationals. Tonight, it’s all about the #WorldSeries!

    Posted by Omid Ashtari (@omid)
    Head of Sports & Entertainment

    Posted by @ at 1:11 PM

  • NFL on Twitter: Week 7

    Tuesday, October 23, 2012

    It seems like there are certainties every week in the @NFL; heroics, injuries, spectacular catches, and now, a comeback lead by Eli in the last two minutes, which lead the @giants to be one of the most tweeted-about teams yet again.

    This week’s most buzzed-about games on Twitter are:

    1. @giants vs. @redskins
    2. @detroitlionsNFL vs. @Chicagobears
    3. @nyjets vs. @patriots

    And this week’s most tweeted-about player? It was @RGIII who, despite the @redskins loss, put forward an impressive performance and raked in more than 140,000 Tweets.  
    Because each week brings drama and excitement to the field and to Twitter, we’re also sharing our picks for the top #NFL Tweets of the week. Here are some noteworthy Tweets that are worth a RT:

    (See the video here.)
    Check back in again next week for more!

    Posted by Omid Ashtari - (@omid)
    Head of Sports and Entertainment

    Posted by @ at 10:55 AM

  • The Final 2012 Presidential Debate

    Monday, October 22, 2012

    Tonight, the presidential candidates came together for the last of the debates to discuss foreign policy. And while it was a busy evening with several events competing for viewers’ attention, the political conversation on Twitter remained strong with 6.5 million Tweets sent about the 90-minute debate this evening.

    Specific moments generating the greatest volume of conversation throughout the night were:
    --105,767 TPM - 9:45pm EDT - Obama: "We also have fewer horses and bayonets"
    --102,339 TPM - 10:31pm EDT - Schieffer: "I think we all love teachers"
    --87,040 TPM - 9:58pm EDT - Romney on Obama's "apology tour"

    Now take a look at percentage of debate conversation broken out by topic:
    --Foreign Policy - 54%
    --The Economy - 20%
    --Terrorism - 9% Taxes - 7%
    --Energy and the Environment - 4%

    As usual, influencers from both sides of the aisle were able to join the conversation on Twitter:

    And as we’ve seen throughout the big events during this election, parody accounts appeared almost instantly, capturing the debate zeitgeist in real-time:
    Thus concludes this election’s presidential debates. Keep following @gov as we’ll have a lot more to share heading into election day.

    Posted by Adam Sharp (@AdamS)
    Head of Government, News & Social Innovation

    Posted by @ at 8:26 PM

  • More ways to experience the #LynnDebate

    Tonight, the presidential candidates will meet at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida for their third and final debate, which focuses on foreign policy. With election day just 15 days away, we’re throwing the spotlight on several ways you can get closer to the campaign’s biggest issues and participate on Twitter.

    At election.twitter.com, you’ll see several new sections that offer greater insight into the political conversation that’s happening on Twitter. While our daily Twitter Political Index scores measure the sentiment of Tweets, our enhanced dashboard, designed for web and mobile viewing, shows the topics that are driving the discussion. The dashboard is segmented to highlight the issues at the forefront of this election cycle (the economy, immigration, healthcare, and so on), as well as hot topics that are currently generating discussion (Benghazi, pay equality).

    Another place to follow the Twitter discussion in real time tonight will be on Fox News. Using data from Mass Relevance, they’ll show a real-time Tweet counter in the lower portion of the screen. Throughout the debate, you’ll be able to see the moments and issues that generate the strongest online response.

    As you’ll see by the conversational ebb and flow around these issues, Twitter is the pulse of the campaign: where the storylines are often developed, where voters react, where communities connect and discuss.

    What’s more, the conversation that starts on Twitter doesn’t stop there. CNN, Votizen and Yahoo! News have built great Twitter integrations that make it easy to keep up with and participate in their election conversations. Read about those here.

    Whether you’re following the conversation online, researching hot topics on your phone, or sharing your favorite moments from on-air, you’re participating in this 140 character election.

    We’ll be back after tonight’s debate to share insights into the moments and issues that your Tweets have driven to the forefront of political discussion.

    Posted by Adam Sharp (@AdamS)
    Head of Government, News & Social Innovation

    Posted by @ at 2:52 PM

  • This Week on Twitter: 22 October

    On most Monday mornings, we’ll post “This week on Twitter” to alert you to key things happening in the coming week. Whether it’s a live chat with the cast of your favorite TV show, a Q&A with a political candidate or a pro sports team Tweepstakes, this is the way to keep current on the Can’t-Miss-Moments on Twitter for the week ahead. - Ed. 

    22 Oct. - James Bond in 140 characters

    Fifty years ago this month, the first James Bond debuted, a memorable new character was born, and today fans around the world share their passion for all things Bond. Author Charlie Higson (@monstroso) will take to Twitter on Tuesday for a special live-tweeting event to celebrate Ian Fleming’s Bond novels in 140 characters or less. 



    Tweeting in chronological order, Higson will distill Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds are Forever, From Russia with Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, O.H.M.S.S, You Only Live Once, and The Man with the Golden Gun. 

    

He will also host a live Q&A session on Twitter on Tuesday between 8:00 - 9:00 a.m. ET. Bond fans can tweet him questions using the hashtag  #BondTweets. 



    24 Oct. - Live tweeting with @ScandalABC 
    
For all of you @ScandalABC fans out there, we have launched the #AskScandal events page where fans can ask their favorite cast members questions each Thursday for the next three weeks.


    

Live-tweeters include:
    Kerry Washington @kerrywashington

    Columbus Short @ColumbusShort1

    Guillermo Diaz @guillermodiazyo

    Katie Lowes @KatieQLowes
    Joshua Malina @JoshMalina

    Darby Stanchfield @darbystnchfld

    Tony Goldwyn @TonyGoldwyn

    Bellamy Young @BellamyYoung
    Jeff Perry @JScandalP




    Oct. 24 - #LegendsOnTwitter - @NeilYoung 
    
This coming Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET, our #LegendsOnTwitter series features Twitter-newbie and rock legend @NeilYoung, who will be doing a live Twitter Q&A with his fans from his Northern California ranch.


    #Halloween: Tweeting with the stars 
    
This week @abcnetwork hosts live Twitter chats for the Halloween episodes of their prime time shows. Starting on Wednesday, Oct. 24, and ending on Halloween night, fans of @abcnetwork primetime can join in the conversation with cast members and fans alike.

    The lineup: 

    Wed. 10/24 8:30 p.m. ET/7:30 CT

    “The Neighbors,” @TheNeighborsABC, #TheNeighbors
    
Follow: Tim Jo @hellotimjo



    Wed. 10/24 9:00 p.m. ET/8:00 CT
     
“Modern Family,” @ModernFam, #ModernFamily

    Follow: @TwitterTV for details



    Wed. 10/24 9:30 p.m. ET/ 8:30 CT
     
“Suburgatory,” @SuburgatoryABC, #Suburgatory

    Follow: Ana Gasteyer @anagasteyer



    Thurs. 10/25 9:00 p.m. ET/ 8:00 CT
     
“Grey’s Anatomy,” @GreysABC, #GreysAnatomy

    Follow: Kevin McKidd @TheRealKMcKidd




    

See you next week! 



    Posted by Rachael Horwitz - (@rachaelrad)
    
Twitter Communications

    Posted by @ at 5:00 AM

  • Announcing the Twitter Fiction Festival

    Thursday, October 18, 2012


    Twitter is a place to tell stories. Often those stories are about news, or politics, or perhaps sports or music, but it turns out Twitter is a great place for telling fictional stories, too. As one professor from Michigan State University says, “Tweeting can be thought of as a new literary practice.” We want to celebrate that.

    At the end of November, we’ll host a five-day Twitter Fiction Festival — a virtual storytelling celebration held entirely on Twitter. The Twitter Fiction Festival (#twitterfiction) will feature creative experiments in storytelling from authors around the world.

    Twitter has hosted great experiments in fiction already, from Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box” to Teju Cole’s “Small Fates” to Dan Sinker’s @mayoremanuel. And Twitter has even inspired some literary criticism.


    Now we want to go further! Twitter is a frontier for creative experimentation, and we want to invite authors and creative storytellers around the world to push the bounds of what’s possible with Twitter content.

    If you’d like to take part in the Twitter Fiction Festival, submit your idea here. Tell us how you are going to explore content formats that already exist on Twitter — short story in Tweets, a Twitter chat, live-tweeting — or, even better, how you’ll create a new one. How will you work with our real-time global platform, where anyone can contribute to your story at any moment? The proposal must fit into the time window of our five day festival— but that means that a project could run for the length of the festival, or just for an hour.

    We’ll announce the selected authors and festival agenda on Monday, November 19th and the festival itself will kick off on November 28th. We look forward to reading all of your stories.

    Posted by Andrew Fitzgerald - @magicandrew
    Editorial Programming, Media Team

    Posted by @ at 1:26 PM

  • The human face of big data

    Every day, Twitter users send 400 million Tweets expressing a vast array of ideas and opinions. Collectively, and studied in aggregate, public Tweets are not only measurable. They can reveal any number of clues and trends about who we are: our cultures, our mindsets, who we favor or disfavor, and much more.

    For instance, analyzing billions of Tweets helped two researchers unlock new insights about public health issues and the way disease is spread.

    Each week the millions of Tweets about the U.S. presidential candidates provide a real-time barometer of voter sentiment. Sometimes Twitter data can even help people when they need it most: during moments of crisis like natural disasters.

    Capturing these trends and ideas involves processing and deriving insights from enormous amounts of data. Since we live increasingly connected lives about which we share information on Twitter and other services, there is a growing desire to understand what this kind of data can tell us about ourselves.

    This is one reason we’re pleased to take part in a significant project called The Human Face of Big Data. It's a project that represents a captivating attempt to explain humanity's new ability to collect, analyze, triangulate and visualize vast amounts of data in real time, creating what amounts to a central nervous system for our world. A free mobile app in  A free mobile app for Android and iOS versions lets anyone in the world be a part of the conversation. You’ll be able to share everything you learn about yourself on Twitter via the app.

    The Human Face team is also publishing a large-format book on November 20th featuring the remarkable stories and images that illustrate the immense range of big data efforts that already shape our world. With the project’s permission, we’re able to share this wonderful spread about Twitter from the book with you, designed by famed infographics guru Nigel Holmes (@nigelblue).

    Finally, at 11am PT/2pm ET tomorrow (Oct. 19) I will be doing a Twitter chat with the @FaceOfBigData team about the role of Twitter in capturing and revealing our patterns and interest trends. Join us on the chat by including #bigdatachat and #HFOBD in your Tweets. Look forward to speaking with you all then.

    Posted by Isaac Hepworth - @isaach
    Media Team

    Posted by @ at 11:11 AM

  • Twitter at the Town Hall Debate

    Tuesday, October 16, 2012

    As the presidential candidates met at Hofstra University tonight to answer questions from a group of self-declared undecided voters, viewers around the country came to Twitter to participate in the debate exchanges and offer their own commentary. Throughout tonight’s 90-minute #debate, 7.2 million Tweets were sent.

    The specific moments that generated the highest amounts of conversation were:
    -Audience question to Romney on immigration (109,560 TPM)
    -Obama to Romney: "You're the last person to get tough on China" (108,619 TPM)
    -Romney's response to tax rates question (107,386 TPM)


    We also analyzed the volume of conversation around some of the campaign’s biggest issues. With 28% of Tweets sent, the economy was the most-discussed topic this evening. The subject of taxes racked up 17% of Tweets; 16% focused on foreign policy, 13% on energy and the environment, and 8% on immigration.

    We saw several surprising trends and buzzwords emerge too. The terms “binder” and “pension” rose to Twitter infamy tonight, and we suspect “Jeremy” (a young questioner, soon to graduate from college) will be popular in class tomorrow. As we’ve come to expect, such trending topics inspire parody accounts almost instantly: As we’ve seen in the previous two debates, the performance of the moderator was another popular topic. CNN’s Candy Crowley (@CrowleyCNN) generated her share of commentary: The debate ended with emotional (albeit slightly biased!) responses from the people closest to the candidates: their families. In just six days, we’ll be in Boca Raton for the final debate of this campaign. See you then.

    Posted by Adam Sharp (@AdamS)
    Head of Government, News, & Social Innovation

    Posted by @ at 9:00 PM

  • NFL on Twitter: Week 6

    It turned out to be a week of unfortunate season ending injuries, and one unprecedented comeback during #MNF.

    Perhaps it’s because they are America’s team, or maybe it was due to their almost-heroic comeback, but the @dallascowboys v. @ravens game took the cake for the most buzzed-about game in Week 6.

     1. @dallascowboys  vs. @ravens


    Last year’s NFC championship matchup was a blowout, but that didn’t stop the @giants and @49ers chatter from ranking 2nd this week.

     2. @giants vs. @49ers


     Overcoming a 10-point deficit in four minutes, topped off with an OT field goal, catapulted the @detroitlionsNFL win over the @eagles into third place in Twitter chatter.

     3.@detroitlionsNFL vs. @eagles


    Players made headlines off the field too. Ray Sherman (@RSherman_25) notoriously approached Tom Brady after the @seahawks defeated the @patriots 24-23, and then expressed himself on Twitter.


    The @ravens suffered two season-ending losses, as both @raylewis52com and @lwebb21 are done for the year.


    Another season-ending injury occurred while the @nyjets were rolling to a win over @nflcolts. They unfortunately lost @revis24 to a ligament tear.  Revis tweeted thanks and gave an update to his fans.


    Last but definitely not least, last night’s #MNF performance by Peyton Manning sparked a @Denver_broncos comeback with 3 TD passes in the second half. Eric Decker was surely stoked:


    Check back next week for more NFL action on Twitter.

    Posted by Omid Ashtar (@omid)
    Head of Sports & Entertainment

    Posted by @ at 3:52 PM

  • Tonight's town hall debate - and you

    Twenty years ago, the first presidential town hall-style debate was held to so that voters could directly ask candidates the questions that mattered most to them. Tonight the tradition continues: President Obama and Governor Romney face the cameras, millions of viewers — and a group of citizens at Hofstra University (@HofstraU) in New York.

    The town hall meeting has historically been one of the most direct forums for candidates to engage with their fellow citizens. In this race, the candidates and campaigns rely on Twitter to engage in this very personal form of retail politics.

    As President, Obama has used Twitter to answer questions following an address about energy policy:
    Governor Romney’s team shares behind-the-scenes photos that bring voters closer to life on the campaign trail and at local town halls:
    Engaging in tonight’s #debates conversation on Twitter (www.twitter.com/#debates) means you can participate in a truly collective town hall meeting, sharing opinions with the person sitting (or tweeting) next to you, asking follow-up questions to the campaigns, and hearing firsthand from the candidates. 

    Playing a unique role in this town hall debate will be the moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley (@CrowleyCNN). As the first woman serving as presidential debate moderator since 1992, Twitter conversation about Crowley is already crescendoing. Her role is also sparking discussion given the high level of conversation and opinion about the two moderators to date, Jim Lehrer and Martha Raddatz. With the growing interest around the moderators this year, we applied the Twitter Political Index to analyze sentiment about their performances:

    Jim Lehrer
    2-Week Average: 59
    Day Before: 39
    Day After: 30
    Net Day-to-Day Change: -9
    Net Change vs. 2-Week Baseline: -29

    Martha Raddatz 
    2-Week Average: 47
    Day Before: 44
    Day After: 56
    Net Day-to-Day Change: +12
    Net Change vs. 2-Week Baseline: +9

    Following the debate tonight, we’ll release new Twitter Political Index (election.twitter.com) scores for the candidates, their running mates, and moderator Crowley. We’ll also share an overview of the night’s biggest moments and trends. If you’re interested in seeing the real-time volume of Twitter conversation (Tweets per minute, or TPM) during the debate, tune into Fox News, which will feature a Tweet tracker in the lower corner of the screen at key moments, and a full summary following the debate. And now, off to Hofstra to prepare for tonight!
    Posted by Adam Sharp (@adams)
    Head of Government, News, and Social Innovation

    Posted by @ at 7:35 AM