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Twitter may soon become one of the more popular opinion poll engines if the media pundits have their way. Twitter is already a big hit on live TV with viewers being encouraged to tweet their opinions and thoughts about what is going on on the show. This has been especially so on Fox and NBC who carry this service on their shows “Glee” and “The Voice” respectively. But what you may not know is that Twitter also played a big role in the 2010 elections coverage and analysis on CNN.
Twitter has recently partnered with two data companies Mass Relevance and Crimson Hexagon to offer them access, through the Twitter API, to the over 250 million tweets per day that roll through the Twitter servers. According to Hexagon, these Tweets represent the likes, dislikes, opinions and suggestions of millions of people about brands, people, companies and so on. The two data companies plan to curate the Twitter data and display relevant tweets either on TV, a dedicated web platform or on some other form of media.
Twitter has been in the recent past struggling to find a revenue model that truly works and they will try almost anything to create some ROI. Twitter believes that data mining has huge potential and is encouraging third party developers to create smart apps that can be integrated with the Twitter API to derive valuable information.
So next time you are busy Tweeting about your favorite TV show or some crappy restaurant, you may just be inadvertently participating in an opinion poll you never signed up for. But heck, isn’t that what Twitter is for?
