Using Twitter for research purposes

Having in mind that lots of people from all over the world are using Twitter to express themselves it is somehow obvious that this data could be also a very interesting source for research purposes.

I made a simple attempt by investigating the user reactions on the currently hyped Macbook Air. Therefore I used Terraminds to search for "Macbook Air". The sample consists of 50 Tweets, showing positive or negative reactions after using the Macbook Air. 'Using' in this experiment means at least having the chance to touch it. The Tweets [one single Post/Update], English or German, have been published between Feb-07 and Feb-11.

The outcome of this short investigation can be seen as a kind of meta result of micro macbook air reviews. The result of the discussed laptop is very positive (n=50, positive=40, negative=10).

Conclusion: Although currently Twitter is probably used by a very specific group of persons (internet savvy people) I would assume there is huge potential to use it for research purposes in different fields (e.g. market research, cultural studies, sociology, etc.). Using this resource holds very specific advantages. One fact is the worldwide population. Retrieving the data is very easy and low priced. In addition, as this method is a kind of online-observation, it overcomes the interview bias.

 

Comments

[hjs]

Recently i have written a short comment on Twitter, saying that i don't see any use in having something like "SMS for the Internet". But this really seems like an interesting idea and now i'm rethinking... thanks for sharing it.