While Twitter is a great tool for keeping up with friends, interacting with businesses, or letting the world know exactly what you’re up to in 140 characters or less, there is so much more to the social network than meets the eye. Over the years, Twitter has been used to gather important data and help disseminate information when other traditional forms of media were not available.
With cold and flu season just around the corner, Twitter becomes an invaluable resource for governments and healthcare groups to track the spread of gems. The Center for Disease Control is able to monitor the spread of contagious illnesses using the information that people Tweet. In 2009, scientists were able to track the spread of Swine Flu to see how that compared with vaccination information. By comparing the Twitter data with the CDC’s vaccination data, patterns began to emerge. Scientists were able to see if those who tweeted about getting the swine flu vaccination were getting sick.
And Twitter is not just limited to the realm of infectious diseases. During the recent blackout in San Diego, Twitter was one of the few forms of communication that were still available after the lights went out. San Diego Gas & Electric used the social media platform to keep residents up to date with what was going on. Information was still able to be passed around virtually when traditional forms of media like local news were left (literally) in the dark!
When natural disasters occur, people take to the Twitterverse in droves to tweet about it. During an earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey’s seismometer can take several minutes to sound the alarm. Twitter on the other hand can publish almost one hundred thousand tweets a minute, spreading the word at an amazing rate. People on one side of the country often know about an earthquake on the other side before an official report has even been generated.
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