Feature Story: Exploring the Twitterverse with Vista

Abstract

Computer Science Professor Orland Hoeber and his graduate students are using Twitter posts about Le Tour de France to help develop Vista (Visual Twitter Analytics), a computer program with a new interactive approach to analyzing Twitter data. “Twitter is a window into public opinion about a wide range of events and topics,” says Dr. Hoeber. “Vista has been designed to explore and analyze tweets to obtain public opinion about products, companies, and industries, which is useful for marketing, risk and brand management, financial investment and many other sectors interested in understanding public opinion.” As sport fans identify very strongly with their favourite sport, team, and athletes, what they post to Twitter can provide valuable insight not only in the direct context of sport, but also into human behaviour and underlying attitudes.