Data & Stuff // Neil Houston

A lot of people are aware of what Twitter is like as a service, but what do we know about how it looks like internally? Apart from the fact that it has a nice plush office

I’ve always been interested in ‘Where Twitter Might Go’ – both from their infrastructure, staffing and the future products/services they may be rolling out. Thanks to Twitter opening up a job site, we can get a picture as to what they are planning to do in the future.

The obvious is regarding monetisation, it’s taken a while but there are now ‘official’ rumours that some form of an ‘ad platform’ will be launched at SXSWi next month where Evan Williams, the Twitter CEO will be one of the Keynote speakers.

This is backed up, by the fact they are actively recruiting for product marketing, and software engineers to work on monetisation.

What’s more interesting, to me, is the other jobs on offer. Especially regarding data analysts, and data visualisation. Just recently Twitter mentioned that the twittersphere are tweeting at a rate of 50,000 times a day.

That’s a lot of data being put out there, a lot of opportunity for text semantics, trend analysis, and harvesting the information. Which makes sense for Twitter to be after data analysts etc. Though the fact they are actively moving into the visualisation market is interesting. Below is a visual they made at the time of the Superbowl, tracking both mentions of the Superbowl, and contextual analysis around the brands being mentioned.

To me, the combination of their active recruitment in these two areas is an indicator that they may be releasing in the future, a tool that allows for the contextual and semantic analysis of Your Brand, they are slowly rolling out corporate tools (like being able to say who a Tweet was attributed to without having to use ^NH etc)

Who knows what the future might look like, I’ve got my ideas, and got my own side projects!

You might have heard me bleet on about the fact I’m off to SXSWi – For those not in the know it’s South by South West Interactive festival. It’s something that appealed to me, ever since hearing about it though WXWM last year.

SXSW Interactive features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer.

The alternative viewpoint is:

SXSWi is the school skiing trip to Austria: all the cool kids go on it at Easter and then talk incessantly about until the summer holidays.

I’ve got the essentials: pass, flights, hotel sorted. Want to know what sort of things are going on, then take a look at the Schedule to get an idea about the types of keynotes, panels, workshops and parties that will be occurring.

It’s my first time, and no doubt will be quite an experience, I’ll be after any tips and handy advice from the ’seasoned pros’ (or at least people who have been before). Let me know what you wish you would have known first time round etc.

Two (of many) panels that caught my eye include:

Data is Money: How Geeks are Changing Finance
Cooking for Geeks: Science, Hacks, & Good Food

The current thoughts are to take Day 1 ‘easy’, and to ensure that I’ve got ‘backups’ of panels – as undoubtedly I’ll either get time sidetracked, lost etc.

What else should I know about, get prepared for, bring with?