Poll

A new study from Carnegie Mellon University shows that analyzing data from Twitter yields the same results as conducting a public opinion poll. We’re willing to bet it probably costs less, takes less time and annoys fewer people, as well. A CMU team from the computer science department looked at sentiments expressed in a billion Twitter messages between 2008 and 2009. The researchers then use simple text analysis methods to filter out updates about the economy and politics and determine if the overall sentiment of the update was positive or negative. The CMU team found that people’s attitudes on consumer confidence and presidential job approval were similar to the results generated by well-reputed, telephone-conducted public opinion polls, such as those conducted by Reuters, Gallup and pollster.com. ...