A major difference between twitter and other social networking and online media is the extreme rapidity with which information can be placed on the web from virtually any location.  So much so that news and information are now frequently available on twitter before appearing on the news media themselves.  The Mumbai terrorist attack, for instance, was reported on twitter within seconds of the first explosion.

The extraordinary speed with which twitter conveys people's thoughts and conversations to the web makes it an ideal source of real-time information.  By capturing, analysing and reporting this content, Tweet-tracker can detect changes and track trends, delivering real-time insight into the views and opinions of thousands of consumers as it happens.  In addition -- and very importantly -- the profile of many twitterers is that of an 'advocate'.  Advocates are those whose inclination is to offer views and opinions, which of course is why they tweet in the first place, but they are also people whose views and opinions are sought by others.  This makes them significantly more powerful than 'typical' consumers and is a major reason why understanding what they are tweeting is so important.

To see the value of Tweet-tracker, download the Spin-tweet dashboard below.  Spin-tweet shows daily trends of the views and opinions of twitterers covering politicians Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the run-up to the General Election.   
 

Spin-Tweet

To see the dynamic Spin-tweet dashboard in action simply open the PDF file at the foot of this page (click 'play' when requested).  Spin-tweet is updated every weekday and reveals the latest trends in views and opinions expressed by twitterers on Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg up to last midnight. 

The following screen-shot shows the layout of Spin-Tweet:

• To see the popularity of the political leaders or their parties on twitter over the previous 24 hours click on the appropriate button to the right of the Spin-tweet logo. 
• To see the proportion of daily twitter coverage on key issues against each politician or their party just scroll down the boxes in chart 1 and highlight the politician or party required.  Use both boxes in chart 1 to compare results between any two politicians or parties.  The top graph in chart 1 shows the actual results on a daily basis for the past three weeks while the bottom graph in chart 1 shows the trend over the past week.  
• Chart 2 shows the popularity of the politician or party selected over the weekly period shown.  Chart 3 shows the top ten most tweeted issues over the period selected while the wordcloud shows the top ten over the past 24 hours.  

Read more about Spin-tweet by clicking here

View the latest Spin-tweet dashboard by clicking on the PDF or Flash file below (click 'play' or 'allow' when requested).  The dashboard is updated every weekday with Friday's and the weekend's updated on Monday.