從賈斯汀?比伯到數據學家，Twitter何以成為一門顯學
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????Texifter公司CEO斯圖爾特?舒爾曼表示，“一些在社會科學研究中較早使用Twitter研究數據的研究人員遭到了嘲笑。”該公司是一家文本分析工具開發商，也是一家通常向學者授權使用Twitter數據的供應商。他說，資深學者往往不信任這些同事（大多數是年輕人）。“你為什么要這么做？難道你可以靠這些數據獲得終身教職？而現在，即將從研究生院畢業的整整一代人都準備撰寫與社交平臺數據有關的碩士論文。” ????如今，成為一名社交數據博士似乎不愁沒事做。隨著Twitter研究論文的數量不斷增長，邀請學者提交其研究成果的會議數量也在迅速增多。實際上，阿達爾的網絡博客與社交媒體國際大會正面臨多個同類會議的競爭壓力。 ????Twitter在學者們中如此受歡迎，不僅僅是因為它是一個海量公共數據集，還因為它是一個帶有時間刻度的海量公共數據集——捕捉特定時間中（在一些情況下，也是在特定空間中）數百萬人關于所有主題事項的想法。如果你認為人們在公共舞臺上談論或推送的內容是有限制的，那你就大錯特錯了，實際情況絕非如此。而如果你認為人們在公共舞臺上幾乎可以談論、推送任何內容，那么你就對了：人們在Twitter上無話不談，實際上，衛生研究者正在利用這個平臺跟蹤爆發性食物中毒。（可以花點時間想象一下……） ????這些特性使得Twitter有別于其他數據豐富的社交網站。例如，Facebook擁有隱私政策，其內容不是按照時間順序，而是按照動態消息（NewsFeed）的新穎算法排列。 ????這并不是說，利用Twitter開展學術研究就特別容易。盡管Twitter是一個公共平臺，但僅有很小一部分——約占Twitter數據流的1%，Twitter將其稱為“汽酒”（spritzer）——是公眾可以通過Twitter應用程序編程接口（API）免費獲取的。一些特定合作伙伴（其中一些是學者）經協商可以通過Twitter的“澆水管”（garden hose）略微擴大數據獲取量（占數據流的10%）。若要通過Twitter 的“消防帶”（firehose）進行完全訪問，甚至取得特定搜索查詢的無限訪問權，則需付出高昂的費用，且只能通過少數幾家供應商獲得。【盡管國會圖書館(Library of Congress)存儲有整個Twitter檔案，但它并沒有能力滿足它收到的大量數據請求。】 ????今年早些時候，在一片群情激動的歡呼聲中，Twitter宣布了一項數據授權計劃，以減輕學者開展此類研究的成本負擔。但事實上，該公司的授權數量極其有限：在1300個申請人中，僅有6人獲得了授權，占0.5%。Texifter公司目前向36個研究團隊提供類似授權。 ????現在，學者們在使用這個平臺從事研究時顯然更加得心應手。數據過濾技術正在變得愈發精確和復雜。同時，學者們正逐漸了解Twitter 最適合哪類研究。阿達爾稱，該平臺的數據最適合了解某時某地正在發生什么，但依然不是一個特別靠譜的預測工具。 ????也有人仍在擔心Twitter數據樣本的代表性。正如一位涉獵Twitter研究的學者對我所說的那樣，你很難判斷你所觀察到的有多少是人類行為，有多少是Twitter上的人類行為。 ????Texifter公司的舒爾曼表示，“這可能是一時的風潮，可能我們會認為，以對Twitter500萬活躍用戶的研究概括整個世界完全是一種愚蠢的行為”。“但我不這樣認為。如果有人聲稱Twitter無足輕重，那才是真正的愚蠢。” ????或者，也許Twitter的確不容小覷，但它仍然是一時的風潮。阿達爾已經注意到了這樣的跡象：學者對該平臺的青睞程度已不如從前。他指出，“仍然有大量關于Twitter的研究。但有人已將目光投向其他社交媒體。當研究同一事物的人數過多時，我們就不得不轉移目標了，嘗試著做出更加新穎的貢獻。”（財富中文網） ????譯者：Simon |
????“Early adopters in the social sciences of research data from Twitter were just mocked,” says Stuart Shulman, the CEO of Texifter, a developer of text analysis tools and a vendor of Twitter data that often licenses it to academics. Seasoned academics tended to be incredulous towards these (mostly) younger colleagues, he says. “Why would you do that? You can’t get tenure using that? Now there’s a whole generation coming through grad school that are going to write their masters theses about social data.” ????These days, becoming a doctor of social data looks like a secure line of work. Just as the number of papers based on Twitter research has soared, so has the number of conferences inviting academics to submit their findings. Indeed, Adar’s International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media’s annual conference now competes with a number of rival meetings. ????What has made Twitter so popular with academics, though, isn’t just that it’s an enormous public dataset, it’s that it’s an enormous public dataset with a time scale—capturing thoughts from millions of people on all matters of subjects recorded in specific time (and, in some cases, specific space). You might think there’d be limitations to the things people would say, or tweet, on a public stage—okay, scratch that: we all know better. You might think there’d be virtually no limitations to the things people would say, or tweet, on a public stage, and you’d be right: folks on Twitter are so unfiltered, in fact, that health researchers are using the platform to track food-poisoning outbreaks. (Take a moment to figure that one out….) ????Such properties set Twitter apart from other data-rich social networking sites. Facebook, for example, has privacy issues and rolls out content, not chronologically but according to the funky algorithm of its NewsFeed. ????That’s not to say academic research with Twitter is particularly easy. While Twitter is a public platform, only a fraction of its data, or 1% of the Twitter stream—Twitter calls it the “spritzer”—is free and accessible to the public through Twitter’s application programming interface (API). Some select partners—some of whom are academics—have negotiated slightly more robust access via Twitter’s “garden hose” (10% of the stream). Complete access, via the Twitter firehose or even unlimited access to particular search queries, is costly and can be obtained only through a handful of vendors. (While the Library of Congress warehouses the whole Twitter archive, it does not have the capacity to address the many data requests it receives.) ????Twitter, to much excitement and fanfare, announced a data grant program earlier this year to help academics shoulder the costs of such research. In truth, the company barely opened the spigot: of 1300 applicants, just six, or 0.5%, were awarded grants. Texifter is now making similar grants to a total of 36 research teams. ????Academics using the platform for research are certainly getting better at it. Data filtering techniques are getting more precise and sophisticated. Meanwhile, scholars are learning what sort of research Twitter is good for. Adar says the platform’s data is best for understanding what’s going on in a particular place at a particular instant; it’s a less proven (yet more highly sought-after) tool for prediction. ????There also remain concerns about just how representative the Twitter data sample is. As one scholar, who dabbles in Twitter research told me, it’s hard to know how much you’re watching human behavior versus how much you’re watching human behavior on Twitter. ????“Maybe it’s a fad, and maybe we’ll determine that studying the five million active users of Twitter, and talking about whole world is really kind of stupid,” says Texifter’s Shulman. “But I don’t think so. You’d be an idiot if you said Twitter doesn’t matter.” ????Or, maybe Twitter does matter…but it’s still a fad. Adar has already seen signs that the platform isn’t as hot among academics as it used to be. “There’s still a lot of research on Twitter,” he says.“But some attention has shifted to other social media. When too many people are studying one thing, we have to move on to, you know, try to make novel contributions.” |
