Mapping Conference Tweets

The Collina Mediterranea Expo Twitter Trend map is an interesting experiment in mapping Tweets sent by location during an exhibition.

In truth the map is a bit of a mess. The Twitter labels in particular could do with a a little tweak to avoid all the overlapping labels. I also wonder whether indoor location tracking is precise enough to have confidence in the accuracy of the placement of the Twitter labels.

Despite these problems I think this kind of social media mapping could have some traction for large conference centers, shopping malls and sports stadiums. For example large shopping malls might be able to map Tweets to identify areas of a mall where shoppers are most & least happy.

Sentiment tracking using social media does have its critics. However if you want to see more examples of trying to map sentiment derived from Twitter messages have a look at the maps on this Sentiment Mapping post.