Humans as Sensors: US Geological Survey Measures Earthquakes With Twitter
The US Geological Survey has been tracking tweets to get instant public reaction to earthquakes. Similar to sentiment analysis and mobile crowdsourcing, the tactic involves scraping public opinion, and putting it to use in ways not originally intended. Tweets with geo-data attached help in more accurately pinpointing location.
Through harnessing the masses, the USGS is able to graph spikes in Twitter traffic and assess whether or not a situation is serious enough for deploying emergency responders. While the strategy is not entirely dependable (results for the videogame Quake clutter the search), it is yet another case for the power and flexibility of social media.
[via bbc]
