Twitter Data - A simple, open proposal for embedding data in Twitter messages - Home

Description

Version 0.1, published May 12, 2009

Version 0.2, published May 18, 2009

Version 0.3, published May 19, 2009

Authors

Todd Fast , @toddfast , todd@toddfast.com,

Jiri Kopsa , @jirikopsa , jiri.kopsa@gmail.com

Reviewers

Ted Leung, @twleung

Hao Thai

Introduction

Twitter Data is a simple, open, semi-structured data representation format for embedding machine-readable, yet human-friendly, data in Twitter messages. This data can then be transmitted, received, and interpreted in real time to enable powerful new kinds of applications to be built on the Twitter platform.

Here is an example Twitter Data message:

I love the #twitterdata proposal! $vote +1

Why?

Twitter is an amazing, constantly changing stream of information, most of which is unstructured, with useful data locked up in the near-infinite complexity of human language. The inability to easily extract this data limits the usefulness of that information, particularly for applications that want to interact with humans on Twitter in interesting ways. For example, use cases such as attaching metadata about message senders or distributing shared data within a social graph are difficult to solve without using some structured data format.

When data can be formally embedded in Twitter messages, we see enormous new opportunities for data mining, social data distribution, and intelligent application behavior unlimited by lack of natural language processing technology. Best of all, the richness of this data is available to everyone, and can be sent and consumed by both humans and machines.

How it works

A user (or her agent, like his Twitter client) sends a Twitter message that includes semi-structured embedded data, like @romeo $loves @juliet

This message is distributed like any other Twitter message to the user's followers

The followers' Twitter clients listen for messages with embedded data and extract data they understand. This data is presented to users, recorded, or otherwise consumed in some useful way.

Data ...

Original URL

http://twitterdata.org/

http://twitterdata.org/